EDITORIAL: MORE NEEDS TO BE DONE TO BOOST SUGAR OUTPUT
Reports that Tanzania plans to increase sugar production from 470,000 tonnes to around 700,000 tonnes in four years are heartening indeed.
The demand gap has always impacted negatively on consumers, namely individual households that use table sugar and manufacturers who need industrial sugar as a key raw material.
The negative impact includes unreliable supply of both table and industrial sugar and price fluctuations that at times result in smuggling into the country of low-quality sugar.
While the government is taking steps towards addressing this demand gap to ensure country would be almost self-sufficient in sugar production by 2025, there are a number of matters that need to be taken into account.
Experts argue that like most other sectors of the economy, sugar production is an integrated network involving people, organisations, information flow, activities and resources.
This means that all players must be properly aligned for efficiency and productivity goals to be achieved.
Experts add that parties to the entire supply chain must be able to accommodate fluctuations and uncertainties as they are major factors that affect chain performance.
They note that in sugar production, the chain is generally inclusive of an agri-industrial system aimed at growing, harvesting, transporting and processing sugarcane from the field to the mill.
So, it is obvious that while locally based sugar factories are investing more resources in expanding their businesses and the government has approved new sugarcane varieties, still more capacity building is required on the part of sugarcane outgrowers.
They are part and parcel of the sugar production chain. Empowering them economically by affording them access to loans, dispatching more agricultural extension officers and improving rural infrastructure to facilitate sugarcane transportation means that the country can achieve its goal sooner rather than later.
We commend the strategy being put forward, and advise that all players in the sugar production chain be fully involved.
It can be done.
HOW TO REDUCE CROP LOSSES
The huge amounts of yields that farmers lose before and after harvest every year should be cause for grave concern. It is estimated that at least 40 percent of harvests go to waste during the pre-and post-harvest season in the country.
Factors behind this may be wide and varied, but the lack of knowledge among farmers features prominently. A significant number of farmers across the country are especially not fully aware of proper methods of crop preservation after harvesting. This exposes them to major post-harvest losses.
These include losses in various related activities from the time of harvest through crop processing, marketing and food preparation.
At the marketing stage, for example, many farmers find themselves caught in a time warp, and fail to understand the changing dynamics of their markets. They end up with crops they cannot sell. An annual 40 per cent loss is way too much.
Calls for farmers to be educated are apt. However, most agriculture extension officers lack adequate resources to reach farmers. On a more practical note, therefore, the government must empower these experts to spearhead interventions, reduce losses and in the process boost food security.
