Azania, TBT agree to boost green tea farming

DAR ES SALAAM: AZANIA Bank has opened a special cooperative consolidation account dubbed ‘Dunduliza Account’ to finance green tea farming activities in Tanzania to boost production of the cash crop.

The account, opened through the facilitation of the Tea Board of Tanzania (TBT) will facilitate the purchase of improved seedlings, quality fertilizer, herbicides and small tea manufacturing machines.

The bank and the tea board signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the opening of the account in Dar es Salaam last Friday. According to the MoU, 100/- that is deducted from each kilogramme of tea as agreed by cooperative members, will be transferred to the newly opened consolidation account at Azania.

The funds deposited in this consolidation account shall be from the cooperative members as deducted from deposits made by processors in exchange for green leaf tea.

“We conducted research which took us around the country to learn and assess challenges facing tea farming before we leant that one way of reviving tea farming is through savings and hence we came up with the special consolidation account,” said Azania Head of Agribusiness, Augustino Matutu at the signing event.

“All these are meant to support government efforts through the Ministry of Agriculture to realise 10/30 agenda,” he said.

Agenda 10/30 is aimed at enabling agriculture sector (crop -sub sector) to grow by 10 per cent by 2030. To achieve this target, several catalytic interventions have been devised including rallying public and private sectors to invest in agriculture and increasing budgetary allocations.

The Chairman of Tanzania Tea Small Holder Tea Growers Association (TASTGCU), Edwin Mahunda said major challenges facing tea farmers include lack of inputs, fertilisers, quality seedlings and the absence of small tea processing factories.

The Principal, Planning and Promotion Officer for TBT, Godlove Myinga said there has been a fall in tea prices in the global market due to many factors including a drop in the quality of locally produced tea.