Mr Wassira told Parliament here yesterday his ministry had laid down elaborate strategies to ensure that farmers produced surplus food, but reiterated that food exports remain banned due to pockets of shortages across the country.
The Ministry will mobilise farmers to grow drought-resistant crops such as millet, sweet potatoes and cowpeas in areas prone to scarce rainfall. Farmers will also be taught modern ways of storing their produce before and after harvest as well as how to budget their food needs first before markets for any surplus where such markets exist, Mr Wassira said.
He said with use of hybrid seeds, application of better crop husbandry and government subsidies to six breadbasket regions of Iringa, Mbeya, Morogoro, Ruvuma, Rukwa and Kigoma would ensure that a bumper harvest becomes a reality on the ground.
In an open invitation to the private sector to participate in the governments new initiative — Agriculture First — Wassira said the country needs at least 350,000 metric tons of fertiliser every year.
The ministry would like to appeal to the private sector to help import and supply farmers with fertiliser on time. During fiscal year 2009/10, the ministry through a food security project (funded by a World Bank loan) will use 118bn/- to provide input subsidies . 60bn/- of this is from the Accelerated Food Security Project and 58bn/- from recurrent budget, he said.
He said under the Agricultural Sector Development Programme (ASDP), the ministry would also parcel out responsibility for the sectors development to farmers at district council level — through decentralisation by devolution under which 75 per cent of resources would be funnelled to local authorities.
Implementation of ASDP at district level will continue under District Agricultural Development Programmes. In order to implement this policy, district councils have been issued with directives on the amount of money to be allocated for each council earmarked under the 2009/10 budget plans, Wassira noted.
The minister also told Parliament that some 83.55bn/- had been set aside for regional budgets — which will go from the ASDP basket fund directly to the district councils.
Some 78.56bn/- of these funds are externally sourced and the remaining 4.998bn/- will be raised from domestic sources. The minister has requested Parliament to endorse 228,564,587,000/-: some 135,870,333,000/- for his regular budget and 92,694,254/- for development projects.
Daily News
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