Africa-Press – Tanzania. CRDB Bank has issued 22bn/- loans to farmers in Lindi, Mtwara and Ruvuma regions to help improve production, the Bank’s Marketing Manager Southern Zone, Ms Benedictor Mshanga has said.
Ms Mshanga made the revelation here noting that the loans were issued between January and June this year at an interest rate of 9 per cent.
“For this year, we have issued 22bn/- agricultural loans to many farmers including cashew growers in Southern Zone with the aim to help stimulate farming production in the country,” she said.
Apart from providing soft loans to farmers, CRDB Southern Zone Branch provided education to farmers on access to finance.
On the other hand, Ms Mshanga asked farmers to develop culture of paying back the loans in order to help the bank continue providing loans to more farmers.
“For the last three years we have had a lot of debts from farmers, most farmers who were issued with loans for the last three years have not yet settled the loans,” she said.
Meanwhile Bens Agrostar Company Limited has plans to start providing trainings for cashew farmers at Village level on the right use of pesticides and other input on cashew crop.
“We are currently training cashewnut farmers at Ward level on better application of the pesticides spray on cashew crop.
The aim is to supplement the government’s efforts in increasing yields of farmers,” said the Branch Manager of Southern Zone Mr Frank Miti.
He said the company has conducted several trainings at Ward level in Mtwara Region as it plans to roll such trainings in Lindi, Ruvuma and Tunduru.
“We are currently training farmers in Lindi and once we complete we shall proceed to Ruvuma. The training we are currently conducting involves farmers at Ward level but our future plan is roll out such trainings at the village level to ensure our farmers strictly abide on better application of pesticides spray on cashew crops” he said.
Mr Miti said lack of education on better use of pesticides has been one among the challenge facing cashew growers and thus leading to low crop yields.
The government through the ministry of agriculture provided 25,000 tonnes of sulphur dust and 1.5 liquid inputs free to cashew growers to help increase production from 236,213 to 400,000 tonnes of cashews during 2022/2033 season.
For More News And Analysis About Tanzania Follow Africa-Press
