Mvomero embarks on bid to raise crop value

By ALVAR MWAKYUSA, recently from Mvomero

DISTRICT authorities in Mvomero, Morogoro Region, are embarking on strategies aimed at establishing small and medium-scale factories for value addition on crops such as maize, rice and sunflower in support of the government’s industrialisation agenda.

The Mvomero District Commissioner (DC), Mr Mohamed Utaly, told this newspaper that the strategies were being undertaken jointly with the Small Industries Development Organisation (SIDO) and the Tanzania Bureau of Statistics (TBS).
“We have made some progress in value addition on rice but the processing factories are small and informal. There is thus a need to empower the processors on packaging, branding and marketing of their products,” the DC explained.
Mr Utaly made the explanation at Dibamba village on the sidelines of an occasion to establish demonstration farms for maize hybrid seeds by the Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH). The maize seed, codenamed WEMA 2109, is among eleven varieties researched by local experts at the Ilonga Agricultural Research Institute in Kilosa, Morogoro.
The research is conducted through the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project which is being undertaken in Sub-Sahara Africa to enhance food security by developing and deploying drought and insect resistant varieties to smallholder farmers. “Researchers have assured us of improved yields through the hybrid seeds; we thus ought to have in place factories to process maize to avoid post-harvest losses and improve shelf-life of the crop,” he explained.
Mvomero is among 25 districts in nine regions countrywide where COSTECH through farmers’ groups is establishing demonstration farms to familiarise farmers with the new seed variety. The Chairperson of Tupendane Farmers’ Group at Dibamba village, Ms Mwanahamis Omary, pledged before the DC that the group would make best use of the seed for increased productivity.
“We formed this group to support each other and we salute COSTECH for supporting us through a donation of eight kilogrammes of seeds and a sack of cropping fertiliser to be used on one acre at the demonstration plot,” she said.
One of the researchers who conducted the study at Ilonga, Mr Mikidadi Hamidu, emphasised to the farmers to adhere to proper farming methods to get best results of the hybrid seeds. The drought resistant seed can produce up to 35 sacks (3,500kg) with adequate rains per acre and 18 sacks (1,800kg) when rains are insufficient. Conventional seed varieties produce between eight to ten sacks on one acre.
A programme officer at COSTECH, Ms Bestina Daniel, informed the farmers that the commission does not engage in the selling of seeds but rather sharing results of researches with farmers on new seed varieties developed through its funding.