Allocate More Funds To Organic Agriculture An Others: Tanzania

The government has been advised to inject allocate more budget to finance initiatives for addressing effects of climate change and improving performance of organic agriculture in the country.

Agriculture stakeholders further noted that it was prudent for the government to ensure smallholder farmers are in better position to access loans for capital and key inputs.

In his opening remarks at a special Dissemination Workshop for the 3rd Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) Biennial Review (BR) Report Tanzania, Action Aid Country Director, Bavon Christopher spoke over the need for the country to enhance investment and financing the agriculture.

“Agricultural performance in Tanzania, as it is in many countries is greatly facing myriad challenge of climate change, among others, the situation which calls for serious interventions,” he observed.

He said unfriendly conditions set by several financial institutions in getting loans for capital for small scale farmers were coupled with skyrocketed prices for agro- machineries, leading to poor crop yield and productivity.

For her part, Ms Constance Okeke, Action Aid International Project Manager, Scaling Up Public Investment in Agriculture (SOPIA), said Tanzania was however among the countries so far managed to make some efforts in attaining the set targets of the CAADP.

She briefed that, among the key goals include poverty reduction through agriculture in all CAADP member countries by 2025, boosting intra- Africa trade in agriculture commodities and services as well as enhancing mutual accountability for action and results, among others.

“The CAADP agenda has also set key pillars for the member countries to attain food security and agriculture improvement,” she revealed.

According to her, the pillars are sustainable land and water management, market access, food supply and hunger and agriculture research.

Sharing his views, Audax Rukonge, Executive Director of the Agriculture Non State Actors Forum (ANSAF), stated that the country needed more efforts to make useful mechanism to finance the smallholder farmers.

In their joint statement, representatives of smallholder women farmers from Mainland and Isles lamented over poor access to key agriculture services, especially loans from financial institutions.

Moreover, they challenged the government to see a possibility to educate and assist them (smallholder farmers) to register and how to benefit from different crop insurance services.

The meeting ,which involved members from the parliamentary agriculture committee, was held over the weekend under the financial patronage from Action Aid Tanzania with a view to review and brainstorm how the country can successfully attain the set goals of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) by 2025.

Source: https://allafrica.com/stories/202204110289.html