Vice President roots for reliable grape market

DODOMA: VICE-PRESIDENT Dr Philip Mpango, has tasked the Ministry of Agriculture to ensure that grape farmers have a guaranteed market, so that the crop benefits both farmers and the country in general.

Dr Mpango issued the directive yesterday while addressing the public at Mpwayungu Ward in Chamwino District, as he concluded his four-day working tour of the Dodoma Region.

He said that grape farmers should be facilitated to effectively utilise the recently inaugurated grape processing plant worth 2.1bn/- located at Chinangali II with capacity to process about 300 tonnes of the crop annually and store 220,000 litres of grape juice, serving about 120 farmers per year.

Dr Mpango also instructed the Ministry to explore the possibility of providing farmers with small-scale processing machines to reduce the time spent transporting their produce to the processing plant at Chinangali II.

“I want the Ministry of Agriculture to ensure that grape farmers have a guaranteed market, including access to the grape juice processing plant I recently inaugurated.

This will be a significant benefit to them,” said Dr Mpango.

While inaugurating the processing plant recently, the Vice President noted that, Tanzania spends approximately19.5bn/- annually importing an average of 10 million litres of grape juice extracts to meet domestic demand.

He said the establishment of the plant will address numerous challenges related to grape processing, preservation and minimise losses due to the lack of value addition and storage infrastructure.

Dr Mpango said the establishment of industries for processing and adding value to agricultural products, including grapes, for domestic consumption and export, iskey priority in the Sixth Phase Government’s 10/30 agenda, aimed at achieving 10 per cent growth in the agricultural sector by 2030.

He urged the residents of Dodoma to take advantage of the region’s available land by cultivating crops that can thrive in the area, such as olives, dates and pomegranates.

Equally, the Vice President urged them to ignore the prevailing notion that the region has a desert and semi-desert conditions and hence, not arable for agriculture.

Dr Mpango urged farmers to focus more on cultivating strategic crops such as grapes and sunflowers, as well as raising cattle and poultry for meat products.

He also urged the regional leaders to ensure fairness and transparency in markets by using legitimate measurements rather than estimations.

The Vice President also urged them to carefully oversee mineral extraction, given that the region has many strategic minerals, rare earth minerals and construction minerals that can enable the region to contribute fully to the national income.

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On the importance of environmental conservation Mpango urged people to stop indiscriminate deforestation, burning fields during agricultural preparation and damaging water sources.

The Vice President encouraged leaders to supervise tree planting initiatives, including establishing tree farms and gardens in town areas and protecting the remaining natural forests and wetlands.

He stressed that everyone has to support the sixth-phase government initiative, which aims to achieve 80 per cent of Tanzanians using clean cooking energy by 2034, explaining that the government is committed to establishing a special fund to provide subsidies and enable ordinary citizens to use gas stoves.

The Vice President also reminded parents and guardians of children with disabilities to stop hiding them and depriving them of the opportunity to get education.

He noted that while the government has invested in constructing infrastructure, including dormitories and classrooms for students with special needs, the number of children enrolled in educational institutions remains low.

Furthermore, the Vice President made a call to residents in the area and the country at large to participate fully in updating their particulars in the Voters Permanent Register and also participate in contributing their views in the new 2050 National Development Vision