Tanzania: Investor Efforts Boost Agro Processing Sector

By Daily News Reporter in Dodoma

THE government stated that a total of 109 investors injected their money into the agro-processing industries from 2015/16 to 2019/20 and created 5,204,607 jobs from the previous 3,880,262, the

National Assembly was told here.

In a written response to a question by Chumbuni Member of Parliament, Ussi Salum Pondeza who wanted to know government's plan to increase investment into the agro-processing sector, the Ministry of Agriculture said it has put in place various initiatives to ensure there was much investment into the sub-sector.

The MP had in his basic question asked about the number of investors with interest in the sector in the last five years.

The legislator asked "How many investors have invested into the agro-processing sector since the beginning of implementation of the industrialisation policy?,"

In a supporting question, the MP also wanted to know the government's plan to engage farmers in modern farming.

In response, the ministry said the government was implementing various initiatives to increase food production to complement the industrialisation policy, which includes strengthening supply of agriculture inputs in collaboration with the private sector, analyzing the needs by processing industries and registering farmers to facilitate coordination for investment.

The ministry said it was also strengthening the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) and engaging insurance companies to facilitate crop insurance.

The ministry said it was training farmers with new ways of farming to let them practice modern farming.

Other strategies include researching on new farming technologies of planting, harvesting and processing as well as promoting the use of tractors instead of hand hoes where the use of tractors and power tillers has increased from 14,200 and 6,348 in 2015 to 18,088 and 8,883 in 2019.