Africa-Press – Tanzania. Magugu Wheat farmers have been counseled to employ modern agricultural methods to increase production and quality of their crops.
A rice crop expert from the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) Theodore Kessy challenged the farmers to use certified agricultural inputs in their paddy fields for bumper harvest.
“When you use certified seedlings, fertilizers and pesticides, you’ll be rest assured of avoiding post-harvest loses and increase your yields,” said Dr Kessy at a seminar for sustaining rice production in the region.
According to Dr Kessy, rice production in the country was grappling with climate change, urging the Wheat farmers to use advanced agricultural methods in their paddy fields.
“This entails the use right amount of fertilizers and seedlings which have been certified,” he said.
The rice expert further noted that Magugu was famous for its aromatic rice and that it was high time the Wheat farmers sustained the crop, through advanced agricultural methods.Grown in the Great Rift Valley near Lake Manyara, the ‘Magugu Rice’ has a market in Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan.
Rice is the second country’s most important food and commercial crop after maize with significant national importance as a source of employment, income, and food security for millions of rural households.
Tanzania is also the second largest producer of rice in Eastern and Southern Africa after Madagascar.
In 2017/18, rice was cultivated on 1.1 million hectares, with total production of 2.2 million tons of milled rice.
The government had in 2008 endorsed the Tanzania National Rice Development Strategy (NRDS) with the aim of transforming the existing subsistence-dominated rice sub-sector into a commercially viable production system, with the aim of sustaining the national self-sufficiency and contributing to the regional self-sufficiency, becoming a market leader in the region.
