REVOLUTIONISE AGRICULTURE
What you need to know:
Drought has exacerbated the situation. Of course, the 0.85 per cent budget is a far cry from the 10 percentage agreed in the Maputo Declaration.
Hardly had the dust settled over low funding for agriculture of 0.85 per cent of the national budget, when reports of cotton farmers using ineffective pesticides emerged as pests ruined crops.
Drought has exacerbated the situation. Of course, the 0.85 per cent budget is a far cry from the 10 percentage agreed in the Maputo Declaration.
It is even less that 4 per cent set aside for the sector in 2015/16.
Last week, President John Magufuli revealed that the system of agro-inputs was rotten to the core and had vowed to overhaul it. It is sad that Tanzania’s agricultural problems refuse to go away, making the country’s road to industrialisation convoluted.
During his tour of Coast Region, President Magufuli stunned his audience with revelation that some recipients of agro-inputs purported to be farmers were actually dead.
He likened challenges in the distribution of agro-inputs to scourges of ghost civil servants and students that plagued the government. A team is on the ground to determine the enormity of fraud and bring suspects to court.
We are glad that the President is aware that farmers are ill-equipped although 80 per cent of Tanzanians depend on the sector for their living. Let’s revolutionise agriculture.
