Prime Minister calls for local poultry investors to be protected

Dar es Salaam. Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa yesterday directed the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries to protect investment directed at the poultry industry.

He issued the directives in Dodoma when referring to a recent incident where a Moshi-based poultry keeper burnt live chicks for lack of market.

Reports from Moshi had it that the trader decided to put thousands of cartons on fire with the live chicks after traditional buyers declined to purchase them.

The PM’s directive was part of different instructions issued to stakeholders attending a two-day meeting to deliberate the future of the sector.

Opening the meeting, Mr Majaliwa said though the Moshi incident wasn’t good, the investor was angered by the ministry’s decision to approve importation of chicks without considering investment and demand in the domestic market.

“You are supposed to reorganise yourself after discussing with stakeholders who are all attending this meeting. Know their demands and where necessary, establish the exact amount to be imported,” he said.

“You can imitate what the Sugar Board of Tanzania (SBT), under the Ministry of Agriculture has been doing. They import tonnes of sugar to fill the gap and protect local products,” he added.

According to him, SBT imported deficit tonnes of sugar when manufacturing companies suspended production for maintenance during the rainy season.

Mr Majaliwa also directed the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries, regional and district commissioners to recognize and assess the usage of land owned by the National Ranching Company (Narco) Limited.

“Ensure you are satisfied by the way the ranches are used because reports say unscrupulous individuals operating the farms are leasing them to generate money for personal gain,” he said, directing the regional and district commissioner to reject the arrangement.

He issued other directives including recognising, surveying and providing ownership certificates to pastoralists in the villages, advising pastoralists to efficiently harvest their livestock, transforming livestock keeping by ending migratory grazing and increasing collaboration between government leaders and stakeholders.

Other directives are mobilising pastoralists to increase the quality of their livestock, setting livestock keeping areas, instant provision of dispute resolution and turning Msomera Village in Handeni District, Tanga Region into a modern livestock keeping area.

The Livestock and Fisheries minister, Mr Mashimba Ndaki said climate change has led to drought in most parts of the country this year, triggering the shortage of livestock feed and water, causing severe death of livestock.

“Invasion of water sources due to human activities including livestock grazing, failure to produce fodder because of pastoralist lack of land ownership and migratory grazing that have been adversely affecting the business of live animals and its products are among the challenges that would be discussed during the two-day meeting,” he said.

The parliamentary committee for Agriculture, Livestock and Water chairperson, Dr Christine Ishengoma said despite increasing docket’s budget to Sh168.2 billion with Sh52 billion allocated to the livestock sector, its contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) remained relatively low.

“As stated earlier, appropriate measures could enable us to increase the sectors’ contribution to the GDP to 21 percent from the present seven percent,” she said.