What it takes for Tanzania to become agricultural hub

Dar es Salaam. Policy makers, farmers and industrial investors believe Tanzania can become an agricultural hub in Africa if it invests in enabling smallholder farmers.

They say the dream an be realised helping the farmers use modern technology, strengthen market intelligence, review obsolete laws and establish fertilizer farms in the country.

Speaking during a two-day Tanzania Agribusiness Forum 2020 in Dar es Salam on Friday, the players pointed out key areas the country must focus to raise its agribusiness profile and make it contribute to industrialisation efforts.

Ms Angelina Ngalula, chairperson of the Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF) said laws and policies that guide agricultural practices and businesses must be revised to support the industrial agenda of the day.

“The laws and policies must encourage more investment,” she said, adding: “I hope the new business blueprint will come up with policies that promote agriculture .”

Ms Ngalula praised Tanzania’s bulky procurement system for facilitating low cost of fertilizer but expressed disappointment that challenges in transportation were making the cost of fertilisers high.

“If we come up with laws and policies that support creation of supportive environment for agriculture, the country can also become a major exporter of fertilisers to neighbouring countries. All these countries do not have fertilizer factories, ” she added.

She said lack of fertilizer manufacturing industries in the country were causing the price of fertilizers to rise.

“Trucks that transport fertilizers are limited, thus causing the rise of this product in the market.

“The government needs to ensure the right type of fertilizers are available at the right price, and at the right time, she added.

Mr Moses Ayub, an avocado farmer based in Arusha said the use of technology has help hi boost production. He is confident Tanzania can become a food hub it invest more in the use of technology in agriculture.

“I learnt the new technology through internet. Now I see better results. However, not all smallholder farmers are aware or can access to this new technology,” he said.

Mr Ayub is finalising plans to export his first harvest since he adopted the use of new technology.

The chairperson of the Agricultural Council of Tanzania (ACT), Dr Jacqueline Mkindi said Tanzania can feed the entire African continent given the resources the country is endowed with.

“It’s a shame to import some of the food products...we hope that the blueprint will help improve farming environment,” she said.

Africa food import bill has risen from $35 billion per annum to currently $110. “...and Tanzania could tap into this opportunity by putting systems in place and increasing productivity in order to attract these markets.”

“It is very important for the nation to organize itself while having effective partnerships between the private sand the public sector to grab these market opportunities in Africa and beyond,” she said.

She said there was also a need to strategically position the nation to be able to deal with international food trade politics.

She cited avocado crop that had been as an enemy of the environment.

She said branding on agricultural products was very important. “We need to apply market intelligence so that we can get a big market share in the growing global agriculture market.

“These important issues however, need brains, strategies, courage and collaboration between the public and private sectors,” she noted. She said for market intelligence to have impact, the wide skills gap of agricultural experts in the country needed to be tackled.

“Every year SUA (Sokoine University of Agriculture) produces not less than 2,500 graduates. We must ask ourselves where these graduates go and why the agriculture sector still facing huge challenges. We need to find out how we can bridge this gap,” said Dr Mkindi.

Irrigation the way to go

A Dar es Salaam-based agriculture expert, Dr Peter Mutaresi says: “Irrigation is the way to go if we want our country to be agricultural hub. We need to come up with the technologies to boost our production without necessarily depending on the seasonal rains, he said.

He believes information and expertise in irrigation can support the sector.

“Simply giving farmers’ information about crop prices in different markets has increased their bargaining power. There are available technologies that are already in Tanzania that needs to be adopted by our farmers to improve this sector,” said Mutaresi.

Government’s version

The deputy minister for agriculture, Hussein Bashe called on development partners and the private sector to help the sector in getting $200 million to increase lending opportunities to farmers.

“We need this money to equip the Tanzania Agriculture Development Bank (TADB) and make it able to offer loans to more farmers and improve this important sector for our country,” he said.

He said the allocation of the government budget alone will not improve the long standing notion of commercial banks that agriculture is not bankable.

“We can’t succeed if this sector is not bankable, we have to find ways to make the agriculture sector trusted and enable our farmers access funds easily,” he said.

He said there was need to link TADB with commercial banks so that they could also give loan to farmers under an arrangement that TADB will provide security. “Given most commercial banks are afraid of giving out loans to farmers due to the fear of losing their clients’ money, we need to put money in TADB so that it is easier for farmers to get loans,” Mr Bashe said.

Mr Bashe said the government was also planning make insurance companies work with TADB to facilitate availability of funds for agriculture.

“This sector employs up to 65 percent of Tanzanians. We want to do whatever we can to make it strong and this can only be achieved if all stakeholders would come together to grab the opportunities available in the agriculture sector,” he added.

Minister for Industry and Trade Innocent Bashungwa said the government was establishing commercial trade agencies (trade attaches) in all Tanzanian embassies to promote and find markets for Tanzania’s agricultural products abroad.

“We are doing all it takes to improve our market intelligence globally. We have started with trade attaches in our embassies. This will promote our industries and at the same time attract more people to invest in agriculture,” he said.