AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE government has said it will mark the 40th World Food Day (WFD) next week with pride in food sufficiency and has promised to address challenges facing the sector and effectively improve nutrition.
Deputy Minister for Agriculture Omary Mgumba told reporters that the government would launch a week-long fair beginning October 10-16, this year, to provide a platform for farmers, fishermen and pastoralists to learn new technology that can improve efficiency and productivity.
Food production has remained stable. An assessment conducted during the 2019/20 season shows food production will reach 17.742 million tonnes of which 14.347 million tonnes are maize. Production of maize and rice will be 6.388 million tonnes and 2.942 million tonnes respectively.
“This is an excess of 651,314 tonnes of maize and 1.855 million tonnes of rice,” he said. With food production remaining high, government figures indicate more than 3 million children across the country are stunted. Some efforts have helped reduce stunting from 42 per cent in 2010 to 32 per cent in 2014. It is unfortunate that the regions with high food production are also recording high malnutrition cases, underweight, wasting and stunting for children below 5 years,” he noted.
Njombe Region, which will host this year’s WFD, has 53.6 per cent of stunted children, but it has a self-sufficient ration of 230 per cent having produced 943,002 tonnes of food. Iringa Region, which produces 470,750 tonnes, reports 47.1 per cent of stunting among the children aged below five years. Other regions are Rukwa (47.9 per cent), Songwe (43.3 per cent), Kigoma (42.3 per cent) and Ruvuma (41.0 per cent).
The deputy minister said the government was implementing a national multispectral nutrition action plan and the second phase of the agricultural sector development programme, which involves various stakeholders to help address the nutrition challenge in the country. Mr Mgumba said the exhibition would further help improve government-stakeholders’ linkage both nationally and internationally and would provide a fresh platform to highlight strategies that would ensure each individual had access to quality and sufficient food at all time.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture Gerald Kusaya said the fair would be launched by the deputy minister and be closed by Minister for Agriculture Japhet Hasunga.
