AT least 482 plant varieties have been certified by the Tanzania Official Seed Certification Institute (TOSCI) in the period between January and November 2021.
That has been done in a move aimed to heighten the agricultural sector performance in Tanzania.The certified plant varieties were based on a total of 79 crops.
According to TOSCI Director General, Mr Patrick Ngwediagi, the development is part of on-going interventions by the seed regulatory organ to ensure the indigenous farmers are adopting the use of improved seeds for better yields.
The director expressed that the state- owned seed institute is implementing a special strategy to equip the country’s agricultural sector with abundant and improved varieties, saying the move aims also at cuttingdown mass importation of seeds from outside the country.
“The focus however, is also to motivate local and foreign investors to chip-in and invest largely in the seed production subsector,” he revealed.
Together with that, he said TOSCI is continuing to encourage and assist available seed producers to increase production levels in order to cater for the increasing demand of seeds in the country.
Giving broader details, Mr Ngwediagi said the country was currently with at least 586 plant varieties of at least 33 different crops registered by the institute.
He disclosed the crop species with number of available varieties in brackets as maize (160), rice (20), wheat (25), sorghum (15), beans (30), cowpea (5), pigeon pea (6), sesame (4), sweet potato (15) cassava (15) and sunflower with seven varieties.
Others are vegetables (210), coffee (15), cashew nuts (40), sugar cane (7), tea (7), and round potato with seven varieties.
“The institute is also working closely with Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) that has a mandate on variety development as well as other private breeders so that new plant varieties can be released and registered by TOSCI to provide better choices to farmers, ” he assured.