Africa-Press – Tanzania. Maize processing plants owned by Cereals and Other Produce Board (CPB) are capable of processing 180 tonnes per day.
The CPB Director General, Dr Anselim Moshi said in Dodoma recently that the presence of the industries has been helped increase maize value addition and farmers output.
He said the board is going through the five year development plan of the Ministry of Agriculture.
He said the maize processing plants are located in Arusha, Iringa and Dodoma regions and each can process 60 tonnes per day.
Dr Moshi said the maize flour from such industries is sold in the domestic market.
He said the maize flour from the Iringa plant is being sold in Iringa, Dodoma, Morogoro and Dar es Salaam regions.
“The entire procurement processes of the equipment for the maintenance have been completed for the Iringa factory. Although it is working, the factory needs to be renovated and when completed can produce more than 60tons per day.
“The board has been very aggressive and now we have five factories out of which three are maize mills and one is a wheat mill in Arusha and a sunflower oil processing plant in Dodoma,” said Dr Moshi.
He said the Arusha factory has been completed and is scheduled for commencing operations soon.
He also said that another rice processing plant is being built in Mwanza which will be able to process 96 tonnes per day. The state-of-the-art factory has reached 90 per cent of its installation and is expected to commence operations in October this year.
“It is a large modern factory that can process and grade,” said Dr Moshi.
Moreover, Dr Moshi said the board will ensure that it revives industries that were once owned by the National Milling Corporation (NMC).
However, Dr Moshi said the quality of CPB flour is 100 per cent because after maize is bought from different parts of the country ferried to the processing plants they are inspected, cleaned, packaged and repackaged before being shipped to the markets.
