China asks Tanzania for more cassava

Dar es Salaam. The Chinese government has requested Tanzania to support its agriculture sector with a view to enhancing sustainable production of cassava.

The Chinese ambassador to Tanzania, Wang Ke, said this on Friday during a meeting with the Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF) Chairman, Reginald Mengi, in Dar es Salaam.

“We have signed agreements involving imports of cassava products, but of the required 100,000 tonnes annually, we only get 10,000 tonnes from Tanzania, something that lowers our confidence as the imports are not always sustainable,” she said.

The ambassador further said that the Tanzanian government, in partnership with the private sector and farmers, should create supportive mechanisms that will ensure that more cassava is being produced sustainably.

“Even though a lot of efforts are made to collect cassava from small scale farmers, the supply is still not enough to cater for exports. We urge the government of Tanzania and the private sector to come up with supportive mechanisms to help farmers produce more for exports. This will build confidence for our government to continue investing more in the sector,” she said.

She also said that her government was ready to invest more in agriculture, suggesting that there was a need for allocating a big agricultural base for better production.

For his part, the TPSF Chairman said that the government of Tanzania, in cooperation with the private sector, was ready to partner with the Chinese government to improve agriculture.

“We have so much land and water here. What we lack is companies to invest the technology in agriculture and support our industrial drive.

“We need agricultural resources to drive our industries and the government is ready for more investors in supporting the industrialization agenda,” he said.