AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE National Development Corporation (NDC) yesterday urged small-scale farmers in Lake Zone to grab opportunity of free interest tilling machines (tractors), offered by the Corporation, in a bid to shift from subsistence into productive agriculture.
It is almost free condition type of a loan as a needy oblige to submit only a letter from local government leaders, stamped by the District Executive Director, NDC Senior Relations Officer, Mr Innocent Msuha said in the on-going 27th Nanenane Exhibitions in Simiyu region.
According to him, the minimum tractor price is 45m/- wherein the loaner should pay an advance of only 4m/-, and being given a-three year grace period to clear the loan.
“We are not a business oriented Corporation. The intention is to transform agriculture from hand-hoe to modernized methods so that the sector can fully feed the industries with raw materials and let the country easily switch into an industrial economy. Automatically the farmers would also improve their livelihood through this advanced agriculture,” said Mr Msuha.
He affirmed that nearly 600 tractors have already been offered to farmers in various areas of the country, stressing that: “We have enough stock to serve our customers. We really respect the hand-hoe’ but it is time for Tanzanians to switch to productive farming for personal and nation’s interests.
Apart from agriculture equipment, Nanenane visitors would benefit with biolarvicide type of anti-malaria drug, which is for wiping up mosquito breeding sites, said the Corporation’s spokesperson.
Nanenane Exhibitions were officially launched on Saturday with Vice President Samia Suluhu urging financial institutions to increase loans in financing agriculture so that the sector can be modernized to improve production.
She said that the sector is vital in supporting efforts to build an industrial economy, stressing that: “To date financial institutions have provided only nine per cent of agriculture loans to farmers in the country. It is high time to increase loans to the important sector in the country to enable them to access machinery and equipment for agricultural mechanization, industrial agro-processing and irrigation equipment.”
