Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE government has expressed its commitment to support coffee farmers in a bid to boost its production.
The Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Mr Hussein Bashe said the efforts are in line with the government plans to revamp the cultivation of strategic cash crops.
He said the government has started producing and distributing drought-resistant hybrid coffee seeds as one of major measures that are taken to improve the crop.
Mr Bashe said due to climate change, a section of coffee farmers across the country abandoned the cash crop because of low yields occasioned by climate change and other factors.
He was speaking during a questions and answers session in parliament as he responded to Saasisha Mafuwe (Hai-CCM) on the government plans to revamp coffee production in various coffee growing regions.
He said the government is also doing everything in its capacity to revive farmers’ cooperative unions—the bodies that once oversaw massive production and sale of the crop within and outside the country.
He named Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative Union as among the associations that are supposed to stand along with coffee growers.
Mr Bashe said Kilimanjaro region and Hai district have dropped in coffee production from 3,486 tonnes in 2014/2015 to 1,428.80 tonnes in 2020/2021
He attributed the 59 percent drop to various factors including climate change and industry poor performance, pushing farmers to opting to other sectors of production.
Moreover, he said, farmers who were under the irrigation schemes were affected as well with the climate changes whereas there were no reliable rains thus failing their goals.
Tanzania Coffee Research Institute (TaCRI) has been assigned to come up with the best seeds with high productivity.
