Staff shortage hits farming in Mwanza

Mwanza. The most populous region in the Lake Zone, Mwanza, faces an acute shortage of agricultural extension officers, it has been learnt.

The shortage, according to reports, has led to the fall of agricultural productivity in the recent years with cotton production risking collapsing.

The report shows that Kwimba, Sengerema, Misungwi and Buchosa districts have a total shortage of 221 extension officers, which means a lot of the farmers in the region still use traditional methods of farming.

Currently, the region needs at least 376 extension officers, but there are 155 officers only.

Statistics show that Sengerema has 43 extension officers instead of 103, Buchosa has 21 instead of 40, Misungwi has 91 instead of 114 and Kwimba has no officers.

The government in collaboration with Dalberg Tanzania has launched a project aimed at training the farmers on better methods of growing cotton through a project dubbed De-implement.

Dalberg Tanzania co-director Steve Kisakye noted last week that the trained farmers will help curb the shortage of agricultural officers and improve cotton harvests.

“Farmers have received training on better methods of growing cotton and rearing livestock as a move to improve cotton harvests,” he said

The trained farmers will extend the farming knowledge to other farmers through established piloting farms.

Meanwhile, he noted that nine motorcycles were distributed to agricultural officers in Misungwi and Sengerema in order to ensure many farmers are reached for training.

Mr Kisakye made the remarks during a visit by Tixon Nzunda, the Deputy Permanent Secretary in President’s Office Regional Administrative and Local governments. Who was inspecting the projects.

Tanzania Cotton Board (TCB) director, Marco Mtunga explained that in in order to curb the shortage of agricultural officers, a total of 4,534 farmers have so far been trained on better farming methods.

“The farmers have been trained on better methods of farming cotton and rearing livestock,” he said

Agricultural experts in the four districts explain that through the agricultural interventions, cotton harvesting during 2017/18 is expected to raise from 200-300 kilos to 800-1,200 kilo.

Misungwi agriculture officer Sila Ntamuti noted that cotton production is expected to rise to 12 million kilos in 2017/18, from 1.4 million kilos the previous season.

Kwimba agriculture officer Margaret Kavalo explained that cotton harvest is expected to nudge to 26 million kilos from 6.5 million kilos during the same period.

She says that over 28,000 farmers cultivated 75, 265 acres.

Sengerema District agriculture department head Simon Buteera noted that cotton production is expected to rise from 1.8 milion kilos to 20 milion kilos during this harvesting season.

“Over 7,900 farmers cultivated 8,000 acres,” he said

Buchosa District Council’s agriculture department head Leonard Chacha says that 2 million kilos of cotton will be achieved in 2017/18, up from 49,094 kilos during the previous season.

He says that 178 tons of cotton seeds were distributed to 7,771 famers.