Support industrial drive, council advises farmers

The Agricultural Council of Tanzania (ACT) has urged its members to support the industrialisation drive by producing quality yields which meet the needs of industries. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • This, according to the Agricultural Council of Tanzania (ACT), can be done by producing quality yields which meet the needs of industries for better quality end products.
  • The advice was given here recently by an official of ACT, Mr Henry Mziray, during a Farmers’ Day event in Lokisale ward, 30 kilometres south of the district headquarters.

Monduli. Farmers have been urged to support the government’s industrialization drive.

This, according to the Agricultural Council of Tanzania (ACT), can be done by producing quality yields which meet the needs of industries for better quality end products.

The advice was given here recently by an official of ACT, Mr Henry Mziray, during a Farmers’ Day event in Lokisale ward, 30 kilometres south of the district headquarters.

He said the drive for industrialization announced by President John Magufuli could not succeed without the support of the agriculture sector from where most of the raw materials for the processing industries were sourced.

He urged the farmers to do away with traditional methods of agriculture which did not take into consideration modern productivity methods for increased yields. Mr Mziray added that it was now high time for Tanzanians started commercializing their agriculture so that it could be rewarding instead of clinging to the age-old subsistence farming.

“We have to modernise and make our agriculture more rewarding in terms of productivity and income. That means we have to commercialise it for higher returns,” he pointed out.

Mr Hamis Dullah, the programme manager for conservation agriculture, said it was now being introduced in Tanzania and other African countries in order to increase yields and good quality harvests.

He added that conservation agriculture could be undertaken even during periods of insufficient rains because through conservation, the soil moisture is retained most of the time and soil erosion largely checked.

According to him, a total of 336 smallholder farmers in Monduli District had been trained on the elementary basics of conservation agriculture, hoping they would relay their experience to other land tillers.