Kagera — KAGERA Regional Commissioner, Fabian Massawe, has urged residents in the region to grow fast maturing crops including maize and millet, to avert food shortages.

He has also advised residents in Chato District and other areas expected to have bumper harvest, to avoid selling all the food to middlemen. Mr Massawe made the appeal while opening a Regional Consultative Committee (RCC) meeting held in Bukoba Municipality on Thursday.

He said the Tanzania Meteorological department had forecast that long rains would start in March, this year and would probably rain above normal standards.

He said there was a possibility that the rains would stimulate floods, urging the leaders to sensitize people living in flood prone areas to vacate them before disaster hits them. He also urged residents in the region to participate fully in environmental conservation and control tree felling and bush fires.

Source:Tanzania Daily News

THE Southern Agriculture Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) has invited private companies and farmers’ groups to join its centre to access financing, technological skills and experience of its members.

SAGCOT Chief Executive Officer Dustan Mrutu said in Dar es Salaam during an Agriculture Council of Tanzania stakeholders’ workshop last weekend that the centre established last year, brings together the government, private sector, farmers’ associations, development partners and nongovernmental organizations.

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Most farmers in Tanzania have no access to financial institutions including banks where they can acquire soft loans for agricultural projects.

Deputy minister for Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives, Mr Christopher Chiza said for circumstances where financial institutions reach the poor majority, they use difficult criteria, which the farmers can’t afford.

Realising the situation, the government has been using its financial institutions in collaboration with private sectors to install the enabling environment for farmers to access soft loans that will boost agriculture project investment.

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Morogoro — The government is finalising a policy document that would be used to address key agricultural marketing challenges that farmers face. The policy is said to attempt to help farmers to overcome the obstacles when selling their produce.

An official of the ministry of Trade, Industries and Marketing, Alfred Mapunda, said the policy would be discussed by the relevant parties before it is adopted.

“We are finalising the policy, the remaining portions include allocating duties and responsibilities to various actors. Then, it’ll be ready for discussion and endorsement by the Parliament,” he told a group of farmers in Morogoro recently.

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Dar es Salaam — Tanzania expects to earn $200 million annually from tuna fish following a fishing agreement last week in Dar es Salaam with a Japanese fishing association.

Tanzania signed a one year deep sea fishing agreement with the Japan Tuna Co-operative Association and Deep Sea Fishing Authority of Tanzania. The national income will be a bonus to Tanzania, which has been losing millions of dollars to pirate trawlers that catch tuna in the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

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