Summary
· The two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that details specific areas of cooperation to enhance the acceptability of Tanzania’s horticultural products in the global market
Dar es Salaam. Tanzania and the Netherlands have agreed to work
together to strengthen electronic certification (E-cert) for sanitary and
phytosanitary processes in the Tanzanian horticultural sector.
To that end, the two countries
signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that details specific areas of
cooperation to enhance the acceptability of Tanzania’s horticultural products
in the global market.
In the MoU signing ceremony at the
Ministry of Agriculture in Dodoma on Tuesday, Tanzania was represented by the
Permanent Secretary Gerald Mweli and Ambassador Wiebe de Boer on behalf of the
Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality of the Netherlands. The
signing was witnessed by the regional agricultural counsellor from the
Netherlands Embassy, Mr Bart Pauwels, and representatives from the Tanzania
Horticultural Association (TAHA).
The aim of the cooperation is to
create efficiency in agricultural trade for more job creation and increased
foreign earnings.
The signed MoU will be implemented
by the National Plant Protection Organizations (NPPOs), the Tanzania Plant
Health and Pesticide Authority (TPHPA), and the Netherlands Food and Consumer
Product Safety Authority (NVWA).
This comes as the horticultural
sector in Tanzania has shown tremendous growth over the last three decades,
becoming one of the major foreign exchange earners.
Reports indicate that horticulture
exports accounted for a significant portion of total export value, amounting to
$779 million in 2019. Currently, the sector is the main source of livelihood
for about 4.5 million farmers, comprising both small and large-scale farmers,
of whom the majority are women and youth.
According to the parties’ agreement,
the export process of horticultural produce required phytosanitary
certification by the Tanzanian Plant Health Service (PHS).
This, they say, is a ‘paper-driven’
process that involves attestation by competent inspectors and represents
guarantees (safeguards) to the importing countries’ competent authorities.
They said a phytosanitary
certificate accompanies an export consignment to the port of entry of the
importing country and therefore acts as a passport to the product.
One of the limitations of a paper
phytosanitary certificate is that it is prepared manually, which accounts for a
significant portion of the time spent by phytosanitary inspectors in their
daily work.
Speaking during the event, the
Netherlands Ambassador to Tanzania, Mr de Boer said the Netherlands shared
knowledge, expertise, technologies, and innovations for sustainable
horticultural trade to meet the growing demand for food in Tanzania and the
region.
“Tanzania and the Netherlands have a
long-standing cooperation that spans over 40 years. There are about 80 Dutch
companies operating in Tanzania; 70 percent have invested in the agricultural
sector, the majority of which are in the horticultural sector,” he noted.
TPHPA issues a number of
certificates annually, and the time spent on their manual writing and signing
was significant.
Also, paper certificates represent
permanent records that cannot be corrected in the event a mistake has been made
in their entry or if the characteristics of the export consignment change
during the export process.
Such a change may be occasioned by
the need to change the amount of produce to be exported due to changes in cargo
space, which happens quite often during routine export operations.
Since a paper certificate
accompanies a consignment during export, it is difficult for port officials of
an importing country to pre-clear a consignment of known history before its
arrival, and this results in unnecessary delays at ports, even for routine
cargo.
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