AfricaPress-Tanzania: KAHAMA and Chato Cooperative Unions are supervising use of tractors and other farm inputs sent to experienced cooperative members in Chato, Biharamulo, Kahama, Msalala, Ushetu and Muleba locations in order to promote cotton growing during the 2020-2021 farming season.
The two unions have received over 11 billion from the Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB) to revamp cotton’s lost glory.
The Chairman of the AMCOS- Chato, Mr Elias Kaswahili, said that tractors and other inputs were going to cooperative supervisors and cotton growers who proved to have gainfully used loans and other forms of agricultural support since the 2012/2013 farming seasons.
“Both the cooperative leaders and farmers are experienced. They have done well since then, and are now happy with money from the bank (TADB) because it has changed their lives,” he reported.
The chairman said TADB soft loans helped cooperative societies build offices, secure tractors and other farm implements and was instrumental in the smooth buying of cotton from farmers scattered in many areas of the Lake Victoria cotton growing zone.
Contacted for comment, the TADB Managing Director, Mr Japhet Justine said one of the bank’s strategies relating to agricultural transformation in the lake zone was to focus on cotton growers by increasing crop production and the disposal income of the growers themselves.
