AfricaPress-Tanzania: AGRICULTURE minister Japhet Hasunga has said that production of tractor trailers was a positive step in promoting the sector and the country’s industrialisation agenda.
He said this in Dar es Salaam at the signing of an agreement between CRDB Bank and three companies distributing agricultural tools to farmers.
“That trailers are now produced locally by our youth is but a great thing. It is a move that promotes the agriculture sector and adds fuel to our industrialisation drive,” he said.
“I commend this effort and all of you involved in this task as agriculture contributes 28 per cent to the country’s Gross Domestic Product. Agricom Africa Managing Director Ms Angelina Ngalula said her company used to import costly trailers but producing them locally has saved import costs.
“The government has created a conducive environment that attracts people to invest in different sectors of the economy. We are going to use all the opportunities availed to the private sector to contribute to national development,” she pledged.
She said her company would start building warehouses to save crops from post-harvest waste.
Mr Mwidini Mwidini, who got a tractor on loan, praised the joint move between the bank and distributors of farm tools “since farmers will get tractors on friendly loan terms.”
Tanzania, a country endowed with large tracts of fertile land, is struggling to mechanise farming and increase the number of smallholders using tractors in farming to replace the outmoded hoe.
