‘Let’s focus on sectors with competitive advantage’

THE government should encourage production of food and cash crops and invest in sectors where Tanzania has competitive advantage, Parliamentary Committee on the Budget has suggested.

Presenting report of committee on the government budget estimates for 2023/24 financial year in the National Assembly on Monday, the Chairman of the committee, Daniel Sillo said the government should invest more in tourism, agriculture, livestock development and mining.

He said so long as the government has secured market for food crops in various African countries and due to prospects for food commodity price to rise in this year, the committee advises the government to encourage production of food and cash crops.

The government should also focus on value addition for grain crops as the committee found out that 13,062 tonnes only out of 9.49 million tonnes produced were increased value.

Global food prices are expected to keep upward trajectory this year due to weather, further   disrupting food supply, causing higher inputs costs and US interest rate hike.

Tanzania sells horticultural products in lucrative European markets and supplies maize and rice in various African countries.

“The value of vegetables and flowers dropped to 289.6 million US dollars in 2022/23 from 378.6 million US dollars in 2021/22, equivalent to a decline of 23.5 per cent, he said, adding that the committee advised the government to complete the process of reviving  horticultural farms in Arumeru District in Arusha Region.

He said the revival of the farms would earn the nation foreign exchange and return over 2000 employment opportunities that had gone up.

The committee also advised the government to increase crops and products sold at the commodity market and work out strategies to increase buyers in the market as it has sold 107.06 million tonnes of various commodities valued at 223.26bn/-.

It advised the government to provide education to farmers on the importance of selling their crops to the commodity market and look at how to integrate warehouse receipt system (WRS) and that of commodity market because crops were fetching higher prices at the latter than at the former.

Central Bank data shows that in the period of five years from 2018 to 2022 Tanzania sold vegetables worth 1.01 billion US dollars, and during the same period it also exported grain crops (mostly rice and maize) worth 999 million US dollars.

“These statistics indicate that Tanzania is among the top five rice producers on the entire African continent and the largest rice producer in East Africa” the BoT said in a statement issued in March.

In the 2020/21 season, Tanzania produced 1.85 million tonnes of rice, while the country’s annual demand is around 1.0 million tonnes. This means that there was an excess of 850,000 tonnes of rice.

In the same season, Tanzania produced 6.5 million tonnes of maize, compared to the country’s annual demand of 6 million tonnes.

Fish and fish product exports on the other hand reached 800 million US dollars, while fruit exports were worth 71.4 million US dollars between 2018 and 2022.