TANTRADE in partnership to execute product development initiative

TZ trade body secures partners to execute product development initiative

BY TIMOTHY KITUNDU

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania – The Tanzania Trade Development Authority (TANTRADE) and partners has launched an initiative known as product development scheme under the slogan “From the Farm to the Dining Table” thereby building the capacity of 94 spice farmers from two Divisions in Morogoro rural more than 300km from Dar es Salaam.

The motive behind this scheme are the challenges revealed by TANTRADE that hinder the swift development of spice farmers due to the fact that the challenges hinder these farmers from having a strategic focus as a priority before producing their crop then seek for market especially domestic market before embarking to seek for foreign markets.

Mr. Edwin Rutageruka, TANTRADE Acting Director General told the East African Business Week in Dar es Salaam last week that the vision of the authority is to team up with other stakeholders and assist farmers and others engaged in trading to ensure that their products have more value and have standards including proper branding before they hit the market.

“This scheme is a widespread initiative that touches almost all crops and products that are available in Tanzania and these, in a nutshell are spices, honey and its products, textiles, seeds such a peanuts and sunflower, commercial crafts or handcrafts, and horticultures all of which TANTRADE envisages them to be engrossed in the domestic market through supermarkets and hotels,” he said.

Mr. Rutageruka said that to further address the challenges that were revealed during a needs’ assessment exercise, the trade body has entered into close collaboration with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Network of Farmer’s Association in Tanzania (MVIWATA), Morogoro District Council, Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) the Small Industries Development Organization (SIDO), the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) and the International Trade Centre (ITC).

In her comments, Asha Malanga, TANTRADE Senior Trade Officer told this paper that categorically, the variety of spices that have been singled out for their pilot project in Morogoro rural region include black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves grown by farmers within two divisions namely Kinole and Tawa.

“Of the two divisions, we decided we decided to set up two centres namely Matombo and Mkuyuni of which we envisaged to conduct out capacity building initiatives with a main objective of attracting other farmers to join the scheme so that they may as well benefit from the value addition marketing strategy,” she said.

She said they developed a total of five technical training modules that were utilized in the capacity building scheme and these included; the concept of cash farming; the strategy of cash farming; the management of the procurement chain; the mode of managing cash farming; and the procedures of export plans.

“The concept of all these was aimed at empowering the spices farmers who in most cases has fallen victim to low prices that were prompted among others by poor road networks leading to sales points and the chipping in of middle men who were in most cases the price fixers hence farmers benefits from the proceeds were minimal,” she added.

Furthermore, in order to achieve the goals of this scheme, TANTRDE assigned four trade officers namely Asha Malanga, Gilbert Waigama, Leah Msagah and Kulutum Rashid to carry out a needs assessment survey, identify challenges and conduct capacity building to the farmers using the modeles developed and at finally implement a pilot project using demonstration farm methods to help farmers address the challenges thereon.

Gilbert Waigama, TANTRADE Trade Officer ((Branding) said that the need to collaborate with MVIWATA, TBS and SIDO was threefold: the mentioned have the expertise in proper packaging and also they had the proficiency in branding as well as the use of standards that were required to add value to the processed spices.

Speaking jointly on the challenges that needed be addressed, Asha Malanga and Gilbert Waigama said that one of the main challenge was the market structure that had been established by MVIWATA which were friendly to most cash crops such as bananas but not to spices that are also widely cultivated in the areas.

“We also noted that upon visiting the sales points of these areas, the prices of spices were either known nor clear and good examples of these are black pepper hence there arose a need to collaborate with other stakeholders namely local government, TBS, MVIWATA and SIDO to address this challenge,” they argued.

According to the dual, the other challenge identified was the presence of middlemen who stood between the farmers and the sales points hence act as “price fixers” that denied farmers of the right to benefit from the proceeds of their crops.

They also identified poor road networks and difficult accessibility as another major challenge. In almost all areas surveyed road accessibility is very poor, roads are rough and highly corrugated and there is a high risk for trucks to collect spices from these areas a factor that attributed to farmers to receive very low prices.

“The other challenge identified was the use of poor seeds coupled with limited extension services, and poor farming methods. In this aspect we had to work in close collaboration with SUA, and in terms of traceability, this core is entrusted to GS one,” they added.

 The Tanzania Trade Development Authority (TANTRADE) was established by the Tanzania Trade Development Authority Act No. 4 of 2009. Her establishment followed a repeal of the Act of Parliament No 15 of 1973 that had established the Board of Internal Trade (BIT)and the Act of Parliament No. 5 of 1978 that had established the Board of External Trade (BET) and.

TANTRADE is mandated among other things to implement the National Trade Policy, the National Export Development Strategy, the Trade Integration Strategy and the Agricultural Marketing Policy and other sectoral policies all which aim at developing and promoting Tanzania’s internal and external trade.

The mission and vision of the authority is to enhance Tanzania’s economic performance through development and promotion of goods and services and to have the rights products for trade fairs as per market requirements, for both local and foreign markets and to become a world class focal point centrally positioned to support national economic excellence through trade development.

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