WALKING THE TALK: BUILDING A PROSPEROUS TANZANIA
THE government has taken several steps to transform the agriculture sector to achieve more than 10 per cent growth for the sector by 2030 and ensure food security.
It is in this light that the overall outlook for the agriculture sector of Tanzania for 2022 is generally banking on a more aggressive integrated intervention from the government bolstered by heightened private-sector engagement.
Measures taken by the government in 2022 included an increase in budget allocations to the sector to a staggering 954bn/- for the year 2022/2023. The previous year’s allocation was 294bn/-, equivalent to a nearly 158 percent rise.
According to stakeholders in the sector, if fully implemented, the historic budget will unlock key economic sector’s potential.
Its uniqueness lies in the fact that the budget increased by more than 158 per cent, with the lion’s share of funding going towards research, irrigation schemes, extension services, infrastructure development, seeds production and fertiliser subsidies.
Tanzania’s agriculture sector—which contributes nearly one-third of the country’s GDP and employs 75 percent of the population—has the potential to increase incomes and improve livelihoods.
As part of the national strategy to mitigate the negative impact of climate change on food production, the irrigation area will be expanded by 68.5 percent from 727,280 hectares to 822,285 hectares in 2022/2023. A national irrigation target of 1.2 million hectares is set for 2025.
Over the years, irrigation schemes in some parts of the country have created the necessary resilience to rainfall variability, mitigation against drought and climate change and enhanced food security through all year crop production.
Yet, the country had not explored irrigation to its full potential but this is set to change, following the government’s commitment to invest heavily in the irrigation sector.
The objective is to increase agricultural productivity, which has always been a prominent feature on the country’s agenda to avert the incidence of food and nutrition insecurity and increase the capacity to export the surplus.
Irrigation farming received a massive boost in August this year, following the signing of 21 contracts worth 182bn/- during the climax of Farmer’s Day (Nane Nane) which was marked at national level at John Mwakangale Grounds in Mbeya Region.
The event was witnessed by President Dr Samia Suluhu Hassan who was the chief guest at the event. The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Hussein Bashe said the projects will cover 12 districts in seven regions and are expected to create 121,059 jobs.
“Implementation of the irrigation schemes is expected to increase production of rice to 97,300 tonnes of rice,” he explained, adding that the projects will include construction of three dams with a capacity of storing nine million cubic meters each.
According to Mr Bashe, budget allocation for irrigation has been increased from 57bn/- in the financial year 2021/2022 to 416bn/- in the current fiscal year.
Out of the 416bn/- allocated for irrigation, a total of 361bn/- will be raised from internal sources of revenues, he explained.
“The 182bn/- earmarked for the 21 contracts represent 51 per cent of funds allocated in the budget for irrigation during the current financial year,” Mr Bashe stated.
Minister Bashe said in the National Assembly in May this year that the ministry had completed a feasibility study and design of details of several schemes, which are Mkombozi (Iringa), Idudumo (Nzega), Luiche (Kigoma/Ujiji) and Ilemba (Sumbawanga) at 100 per cent.
Tabling the budget proposal of the ministry for the 2022/23 financial year, he said the feasibility study and detailed design of the Ibanda dam (Sengerema/Geita), Tlawi (Mbulu) and Makwale (Kyela) scheme had reached 65, 80, and 80 per cent respectively through Agricultural Sector Development Programme (ASDP II).
In addition, through the REGROW project, feasibility study and detailed architecture in eight schemes of Mbuyuni Kimani, Uturo, Isenyela, Makangarawe, Hermani, Chosi, Gonakuvagogolo and Matebete had reached 90 per cent, he said, noting that the schemes will be built in the fiscal year 2022/2023.
The minister explained further that the implementation of the irrigation schemes will cover a total of 26,700 hectares. He added that plans also involved expanding the irrigation area to 8.5 million hectares, equivalent to 50 per cent of the total area cultivated in the country by 2030.
The government’s aim is to achieve more than 10 per cent growth for the agriculture sector by 2030, Mr Bashe said. Other goals are ensuring food security and supply to cater to domestic demand and export and increasing the value of export of agricultural produce from 1.2 billion US dollars to more than 5 billion US dollars by 2030.
Another achievement recorded in 2022 is the launch of a fertiliser subsidy scheme to lower its prices at the farm gate level by President Samia.
Under the scheme, the price for DAP fertiliser has gone down to 70,000/- from the market price of 136,135/- and Urea from 124,714/- to 70, 000/-. Price of CAN dropped to 60,000/- from 108,156/-, SA 50,000/- from 87,872/- and the NPK is available to farmers at a cost of 70,000/- against the market price of 122,695/-.
The launch of the subsidy scheme came at the most opportune time as fertiliser prices are at a high record due to supply shortages fueled by the Ukraine-Russia conflict, along with a host of pre-existing factors.
The amount of fertiliser available globally has almost halved, while the cost of some types of fertiliser have nearly tripled over the past 12 months, according to the United Nations.
That is having a knock-on effect in many countries in Africa, where farmers are dependent on imported fertiliser.
According to the World Bank statistics, fertiliser consumption in Tanzania increased through the 1969 – 2018 period ending at 15.9 kilogramms per hectare in 2018, which is below the average consumption in Africa of 17 kilogramms per hectare and well below global level of 135 kilogramms per hectare.
ASDP II puts fertiliser consumption level in Tanzania lower than the World Bank statistics. It says Tanzanian farmers use about 8–10 kg of fertiliser per hectare (from 2008 to 2013), compared with an average of 16 kg/ha for Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries while Malawi uses 27 kg/ha and China 279 kg/ha on average.
