DAR ES SALAAM, Oct 18 (NNN-DAILYNEWS) — THE Tanzanian government in collaboration with Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is looking for funding totaling 100 million US dollars (about 230bn/-), to implement robust agricultural projects in the country aiming at empowering more Tanzanians economically, especially the young persons.
The revelation was made here by the Minister for Agriculture, Hussein Bashe during a joint working tour of various agricultural projects being implemented in Dodoma region. The tour was conducted by the minister and the President of AGRA Dr Agnes Kalibata.
Speaking on separate occasions after inspecting the projects in Chamwino and Dodoma districts, both the minister and the AGRA president expressed their commitment to extending partnership in tandem with efforts to maintain the green revolution in the country which will help Tanzania to feed herself and the continent at large.
According to Bashe, AGRA was now putting everything in place for the implementation of the next Five-Year Strategic Plan, that is why the AGRA president made an official visit to the country to have intensive discussions and consultations with the government of Tanzania on all possible areas of collaboration to help the country meet its targets in the agricultural sector.
AGRA is a farmer-centered, African-led, and partnerships-driven institution that is transforming Africa’s smallholder farming from a solitary struggle to survive to businesses that thrive.
The minister said that the government had requested AGRA to offer support in the agriculture sector including block farming, development of resilient seed systems as well as market for agricultural produced products.
“Every five years AGRA has been developing its strategic plan to be localised at the country level, that is why today we are glad to have the AGRA president in the country in order to fine-tune key issues that we think will help to revolutionise the sector,’’ he noted.
Bashe said that in implementing robust projects in the country, Tanzania had approached AGRA because of its reputation in the continent to help the government mobilize funds totaling US dollars 100 million from other development partners in order to help the country to have food security as well as feeding other countries in the continent.
During her working tour, the AGRA president had a glimpse on two important projects, one of them, a major irrigation project in Chamwino district in the country’s capital covering about 300 hectares of land. However, upon completion of the project according to Bashe, it would cover about 1,000 hectares.
Dr Kalibata further toured the Bihawama agricultural training college which draws students from different higher learning institutions and employees from the ministry to provide capacity building programmes in agriculture.
During an interview, the AGRA president said that her team had enough time to discuss with the Tanzanian government on several issues as AGRA kicked off the implementation of the five year strategic plan.
