Tanzania launches grand program to transform agriculture

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan on Monday launched an ambitious agricultural transformation program aimed at unlocking challenges facing the sector and making the east African nation food self-sufficient.

The program is also aimed at boosting both food and commercial crops by improving research and development, agricultural funding, irrigation farming, seeds multiplication, soil testing and improving working conditions of agricultural extension officers across the country, said Hussein Bashe, the Minister for Agriculture. Bashe said the program is also aimed at feeding local industries with agricultural raw materials by 100 percent, controlling post harvest losses, providing farm inputs subsidies to farmers and creation of agricultural growth corridors. 

Bashe said under the program, each of the country’s 12,000 villages will have demonstration farms where farmers will be able to learn farming techniques for different crops.He said the agricultural sector currently contributes 28 percent of the gross domestic product but the program aims to enable the sector to contribute 50 percent of the GDP by 2030.

Bashe said Tanzania has 44 million hectares of land suitable for agriculture and 29.4 million hectares of land suitable for irrigation farming but only a small percentage is being used.  Launching the program in the capital Dodoma, President Hassan said the program is aimed at making the agricultural sector the country’s economic pillar. The head of state said the program will see irrigation farming expanding from the current 695,000 hectares to 18 million hectares in the next five years.

President Hassan said her administration has increased budgets for research, seed multiplication and extension services to boost agricultural production, adding that the country is also looking for markets for agricultural products abroad. She said plans are also underway to build crops warehouses in rural areas aimed at controlling post harvest losses. President Hassan urged the private sector, both local and foreign, and development partners to support the program to enable it meet its goals.  

Xinhua