The government is mobilising about 2.5trillion/- for implementation of the Agricultural Sector Development Programme (ASDP), President Jakaya Kikwete said in Dar es Salaam yesterday. “But we are determined to succeed. Seventy-five per cent of these resources will come from our own sources,” he told the meeting.The president said ASDP would put in place a number of interventions to transform agriculture, which include increased use of irrigation.
Others include increased use of high yielding seeds and application of fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides.He listed other strategies as equipping farmers with modern knowledge in production, storage and marketing of crops.President Kikwete called upon the private sector to play pivotal role in agriculture, saying its participation was critical in bring about green revolution.
“I would like us to discuss how best we can leverage private capital into large scale farming in Tanzania. “I want us to agree on ways and means of attracting investors both local and foreign in farming and livestock development,” he insisted.He added that: “We want Tanzanian peasant farmers to graduate from subsistence level to production of surplus and become commercial producers.”
He said that over the past ten years, the private sector has been active in investing in other sectors of the economy but it had been slow to respond to what is seen as obvious opportunities in agriculture.
President Kikwete outlined four areas that the private sector can explore and act swiftly. He named them as production or trading in agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, seeds, farm implements and machinery.Other areas, he said, were actual farming, livestock keeping, crop buying, processing and marketing, as well as provision of financial services to farmers