Cooperatives strengthen Kilimanjaro’s economic base

KILIMANJARO: COOPERATIVE societies in Kilimanjaro are emerging as a key driver of economic growth, with the government recognising their expanding role in improving livelihoods across the region and contributing to the national economy.

The Kilimanjaro Regional Administrative Secretary (RAS), Kiseo Nzowa, said this while opening the 41st Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative Union (KNCU-1984) Limited, noting that the cooperative sector has a significant and longstanding contribution to the region’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), accounting for 60 per cent of Kilimanjaro’s 8.8tri/- GDP in 2023/2024.

“The sector is important when it comes to strengthening the country’s economy through agriculture, including coffee production, due to the fact that this sector is a bridge in providing various services related to agricultural issues”, he said recently.

The region is among the leading regions in the country which sell agricultural produce through the Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Societies (AMCOS) whereby, in the year 2023/2024, AMCOS contributed 15.66bn/- through the councils’ different cooperative related levies,” he noted.

In the 2024/25, the country sold agricultural products worth 4.2tri/- through cooperatives; these products included the coffee which contributed 605.7bn/-; coffee is the Kilimanjaro region’s main cash crops.

Mr Nzowa said cooperative societies are used to strengthen extension services, the distribution of agricultural inputs such as fertilisers and seeds, as well as other issues that aim to revitalise agriculture in general.

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Nzowa, who represented the Kilimanjaro Regional Commissioner (RC) Nurdin Babu at the meeting, said the government has continued to prioritise the agricultural sector, including increasing the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture every year; this has enabled farmers, including coffee farmers, to increase production.

“The government’s subsidy on coffee related activities for example, has enabled the production of more than 20 million coffee seedlings, the strengthening of irrigation infrastructure, the availability of fertilisers and other agricultural inputs as well as working tools for extension officers,” he said.

Mr Nzowa said that this has led to the increase in production of various crops, including coffee, a move which he said contributed in improving the well-being of farmers, the regional economy and that of the nation in general.

“Experience shows that the biggest challenge in the cooperative sector is the lack of transparency in the area of financial and proper management of cooperatives’ assets,” he said.

The government through the Ministry of Agriculture and the Tanzania Cooperative Development Commission (TCDC) launched a special campaign trumpeting: ‘Protect Cooperatives, Choose Integrity.’ Earlier, the KNCU Chairman Julius Mollel said that the union continued to implement its five-year strategic plan (2021/22-2025/26) through priorities related to the plan.