Africa-Press – Tanzania. GRAPE industry is set for a boom after the Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB) unveiled plans to scale up financing to boost up the value chain of the crop.
TADB’s Manager for Central and Northern Zone, Yodas Mwanakatwe, said in Dodoma that the bank would provide funding for grape processors to enhance the value chain of the crop identified as strategic by the government.
“TADB is ready to support farmers by enhancing value addition of the grapes by financing grapes processors,” said Mr Mwanakatwe during the Dodoma Wine Festivals held in the city over the weekend.
The government identified grapes as a strategic cash crop and initiated measures to boost its productivity for the nascent wine industry in Tanzania.
With grape production on the rise, one of the challenges experienced by farmers is lack of processors for grape concentrate which in turn contribute to post-harvest losses of the crop.
“We understand that grapes are now one of the strategic crops. TADB, with the mandate in transforming the agricultural sector, plans to catalyse transformation in the grape value chain,” he said.
To date TADB has extended 784m/- to the grapes value chain and benefited directly about 186 producers, he said, adding hundred more farmers have benefited indirectly from jobs created.
“Among the challenges facing the grape’s productivity, access to credit to small-medium enterprises (SMEs) has been identified.
This brings TADB as an important stakeholder to ensure access to credit is achieved,” he said.
Tanzania grape products like wine fare well in the global market as it competes with world renowned wine producers like Italy and France.
A report by the Ministry of Agriculture shows that Tanzania has the capacity to produce up to 150,000 tonnes per year but currently production is at the average of 16,000 tonnes only.
“With this in mind we want to support more producers, grape concentrate producers and wine producers. Our research institute TARI is already investing well in seedling production.
We want to provide farmers and processors with this available opportunity,” he said. Tanzania’s grapes production stood at 16,139 tonnes in 2018/19, compared to 7,527 tonnes in 2014/15, an increase of 114 per cent, as reported by the Ministry of Agriculture.
About 11,552 tonnes of the total production in 2018/19 were sold to local and foreign markets, 65 per cent of which were sold to Tanzanian wine production factories, 19 per cent were sold on the Tanzanian retail market, and the remaining 16 per cent were exported to the neighbouring country.
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