Africa-Press – Tanzania. The government bold decision to allocate funds for maize purchase is guaranteeing smallholder farmers’ reliable markets, more revenues and ultimately increases productivity.
Last month, the government approved an additional 50bn/- which will be used for purchasing maize from farmers in the country as part of the government efforts to resolve the crop market crisis.
For this to be effective, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa directed the Agriculture Ministry to increase the number of selling centres in the districts and small towns and continue looking for more markets by finalising new maize procurement agreements with South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zimbabwe.
Maize is one of the most important food crops in Tanzania it comprises 45 per cent and 70 per cent of the Cereal cultivated area. The country ranked among the top 25 maize producing countries in the world in the last two decades.
The National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) Chief Executive Officer Milton Lupa said the agency has purchased more than 40,000 tones from all maize purchasing centres in the country.
Equally, the purchasing centres have been directed to buy maize from cooperative societies including Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Societies (AMCOS) and smallholder farmers and not otherwise.
“The procedure for purchasing maize has been put in place that each farmer is allowed to sell to NFRA between one to 300 sacks of maize,” Mr Lupa revealed that recently during his working tour in Rukwa and Katavi regions respectively.
“The government targets smallholder farmers because their capability to store maize grains safely is poor.
“If this is the case it is necessary to protect them from post-harvest loss so that next farming season they will make it” added Lupa.
He further disclosed that all equipment necessary for maize purchasing exercises have been mobilized to all purchasing centres in the country.
The food Agency CEO asked farmers to be patient and adhere to instructions and procedures which will be issued by NFRA officers in a bid to ensure the maize purchasing exercise succeed.
Equally, he told reporters that the food agency is constructing silos to increase the storage capacity of cereals in eight towns of Sumbawanga(Rukwa) Mpanda (Katavi), Makambako (Njombe), Babati (Manyara), Songea (Ruvuma) Dodoma and Songwe in the country.
He further noted that upon completion the combined silos will have the capacity to store over 501,000 tonnes of cereals.
“Upon accomplishment of the project, the modern storage facilities will have the capacity to store 501,000 tonnes of cereals from the previous 250,000 tonnes
“Currently NFRA storage facilities have the capacity of handling 251,000 tonnes of cereals” he explained.
It was further gathered that the target of the construction of modern storage facilities is to enhance storage capacity as well as to reduce the burden for smallholder farmers to be left with produces at their homes due to lack of markets after the harvesting season.
“The construction of silos is estimated to cost 67 million US dollars out of which 55 million US dollars being a soft loan from the government of Poland while 12 million US dollars is from Tanzania government funding” added Lupa.
He further said that two Polish construction companies M/s FEERUM S.A and, UNIA Araj Realicje have been contracted to execute the projects in eight different towns in the country.
“M/s FEERUM S.A has been contracted to implement the project in five towns while Unia Araj Realicje in three towns…
“Tanzania Building Agency (TBA) is a project consultant engineer” he added.
He further emphasized that where the projects are implemented Tanzanians are benefiting through direct and indirect employments while local contractors are contracted by foreign building firms as sub-contractors.
