Posted on April, 30, 2021 at 09:45 am
THE Ministry of Agriculture plans to establish a 412-acre farm in Bahi District, Dodoma Region for the production of grains of wheat being an effort to scale up availability of improved seed for the crop among the farmers in the country. The ambitious initiative is part of the five-year plan by the parent ministry to increase production and productivity of the key economic cash crop in Tanzania.
The director of the crop, Nyasebwa Chimagu, said during an interview that the target was also to increase yield among local farmers, from current 1.5 tonnes per hectare to at least 2 tonnes.
"In China, for instance, wheat farmers are producing up to 5 tonnes in a hectare. Throughout this strategy we want to capacitate local farmers with enough improved seed varieties and growing practices so that they may start generating at least 2 tonnes per hectare," he said.
He said despite being endowed with favorable weather for cultivation of the crop it was disturbing to learn that Tanzania annually imports between 600,000 and 800,000 tonnes of wheat due to low home production. Mr Nyasebwa informed that the Tanzania Agriculture Research Institute (TARI) has developed a total of 29 varieties of improved wheat seeds, saying the varieties will be distributed to the farmers in all regions where the crop flourishes.
He named the regions as Manyara, Kilimanjaro, Arusha, Mbeya, Njombe, Rukwa and Dodoma. As per the current data, Tanzania produces only 100,000 tonne of wheat per year, the low production which doesn't meet actual demand as 70 per cent of the wheat used in the country is being imported.
Annually, the country spends 1.3tril/- to import wheat, sugar, maize seeds and crude oil due to lackluster domestic production of the vital cash crops.