DAR ES SALAAM: Tanzania Horticultural Association (Taha) is planning to double exports of the agriculture sub-sector to $1 billion in the next three years, thanks to initiatives it’s currently taking.
Taha chief executive officer Ms Jacqueline Mkindi told Agri-business Congress East Africa yesterday that the industry’s export value was currently estimated at about $500 million per year, but youth programmes, market information dissemination and capacity building being pursued by the association were expected to improve exports to $1 billion.
“We are creating awareness to farmers and we encourage more youth from colleges to take part in horticulture. It’s a lucrative industry where they can make money three times per year. With the farmers’ mobilization and capacity building programmes we are currently taking, give us just two or three years to reach the target,” said Ms Mkindi as she presented to the congress.
However, Ms Mkindi said the agriculture sub-sector was still faced with several challenges including “over regulation” as it is regulated by at least 15 government departments and agencies. Mr Godfrey Simbeye, the executive director of Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF) raised a concern that youth initiatives would not help if they were not supporting in accessing capital. However, Ms Mkindi allayed the fears saying that they were designing financial products to offer special loans to the youth.
She said they were doing so in collaboration with CRDB Bank, National Microfinance Bank (NMB) as talks with Equity were going on. Pilot projects had been done in some regions like Morogoro and Tanga and they brought positive results, she added.
“East Africa’s population and urbanization are growing fast and that is an opportunity to produce more food. We should not compete with other nations in hi-tech while we still import food,” she added.
Tanzania’s value of exports of goods and services increased to $9.56 billion in the year ending November 2015 from $8.57 billion in the year ending November 2014, according to data from the Bank of Tanzania. Tourism generated $2.1 billion followed by manufacturing and gold at $1.4 billion and $1.3 billion respectively.
