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.
Ends.
