Govt set to expand market access for smallholder farmers

By The guardian reporter

Dr Servacious Likwelile, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance

The government has insisted that it is going to expand market access to smallholder farmers through widened compliance to international and regional market standards.

 

This was said recently in Dar es Salaam by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Dr Servacious Likwelile, after receiving 21 vehicles for implementation of EU funded trade and agriculture support programme (TASP). 

He said: “This will in turn contribute to increased productivity and competitiveness in the agricultural sector.“

 

Specific target crops for the programme are tea, coffee, cotton, fisheries and horticulture.

 

Dr Likwelile said the vehicles handed over to the five implementing institutions will be used appropriately sp as to achieve the intended objectives.

 

He expressed his appreciation to the EU for its commitment to supporting the government’s development initiatives aimed at improving productivity and competitiveness in the sector.

 

He urged for continued cooperation and successful implementation of the programme that would contribute to economic growth and poverty reduction in Tanzania.

 

Explaining further, he said, implementation of TASP II started in 2009 and had the specific objective of developing Tanzania’s institutional capacity in the areas of trade and agriculture, including sanitary,  phytosanitary and quality issues.

 

The programme is a follow up to TASP I which was also funded by the EU, after the potential assessment report undertaken during implementation of TASP I which recommended a follow-up  programme, and therefore, gave rise to the formulation of TASP II which came into force in  2012.

 

TASP II is being implemented by five institutions including Tanzania Coffee Research Institute, Tanzania Cotton Board, National Fish Quality Control Laboratory, Tanzania Bureau of Standards and Tea Research Institute of Tanzania.

 

The total budget of the programme is 33.8bn/- . Out of the amount, 1.4bn/- has been spent on procurement of the vehicles.

 

Dr Likwelile further said, the Ministry of Finance and the EU Delegation have jointly procured the vehicles in order to benefit from economies of scale instead of each institution procuring its own cars.

 

He said use of the vehicles is intended to facilitate effective implementation of the programme activities.

 

The objective of the programme is to increase smallholder farmers’ income through better access to markets.

 

In order to achieve the objective, the programme focuses on capacity development to ensure better compliance with market development in terms of quality and standards, and strengthening of the value chain linking the smallholder farmers to the markets.

 

Agriculture is one of the sectors which are characterised by both low productivity and weak competitiveness of products. 

The government and other stakeholders are implementing a number of initiatives with the aim to increase productivity and competitiveness of agricultu