ABOUT 150,000 farmers in Chato district in Geita region are expected to benefit from a major irrigation scheme to be implemented by the government in this financial year.
The Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Mr Anthon Mavunde, elaborated on the project recently at the launch of the Chato Agriculture and Economy Campaign, explaining that the evaluation is on progress for positive implementation.
He said the government has planned to start with the construction of two large Chato dams out of 100 dams being built across the country and the budget is enough to complete all the irrigation infrastructures.
He said to realize the project, the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture has increased four times within three years, from 294bn/- in the financial year 2020/21 to 970bn/- for the financial year 2023/24.
“I assure the people of Chato, the Lake Victoria water will change your life, we will construct infrastructures for irrigation schemes, you will farm throughout the year, more than twice or even three times,” he said.
The Chato District Agricultural, Livestock and Fisheries Officer, Mr Gerlad Mgoba, said the council is planning to build large and small irrigation schemes in collaboration with the private sector.
He said the assessment shows that the land suitable for irrigation in Chato district is more than 30,000 hectares but currently only 3,416 hectares, equivalent to only 11 per cent, is used for irrigation.
He explained that they have planned to collaborate with the Agricultural and Marketing Cooperative Societies (AMCOS) as well as the Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOSS) to expand the scope of irrigation schemes.
He said Chato has a total of 36 Amcos with 4,658 members and about 26 Saccoss with 4,897 members and one main cooperative society with 54 primary members.
He said the investment in cooperatives is getting higher every year where until now a total of 1.5bn/- has been invested in Amcos and 1.7bn/- in Saccoss.
