This is how Tanzania can meet edible oil challenges

Mtwara. The government has decided put emphasis on the cultivation of large scale farming to among other things, meet the demand of edible oil in the country.

Presenting the budget of the ministry of Agriculture for the year 2022/23, Agriculture minister Hussein Bashe said the demand for edible oil in the country stood at 650,000 tons per annum, with only 300,000 tons being produced locally.

The deficit of 350,000 tons, he said was imported as various reports claim the government had been spending over Sh440 billion annually on edible oil import to cushion the deficit.

Of the amount produced in the country, 270,000 tons, equivalent to 90 percent of edible oil, comes from the sunflower crop. The remaining deficit, comes from other crops like palm trees, peanuts, coconuts, cotton and sesame.

Speaking at the climax of the Agricultural Exhibition (Nanenane) held at the national level in Mbeya Region, President Samia Suluhu Hassan directed regional commissioners to allocate over 150,000 hectares of land in their administrative areas for block farming activities.

She explained that agriculture should prioritise crops that can produce seeds for edible oil production, that would address the challenges of edible oil in the country.

She named the crops as including palm trees, sunflowers, soybeans, sesame and groundnuts, explaining that strategies were needed to increase productivity that will enable the nation to be self-sufficient in cooking oil and selling the surplus to foreign markets.

Read: Tanzania government to invest hugely in cooking oil crops

The National Sample Census of Agricultural 2019/20, released by the National Bureau of Statistics Office (NBS) and the ministry of Agriculture in August 2021, shows that edible oil crops in the season covered at least 1,523,008 hectares of land.

Of those hectares, 1,508,207 are cultivated by small-scale farmers, while 14,801 hectares were being farmed by large- scale farmers.

“Sunflower crop is cultivated in 537,785 hectares of land, of which 524,049 are used by small-scale farmers while 13,736 hectares by large-scale farmers,” part of the report says.

This, the report says was the largest area of land used for the production of such crops in the country.

It further says that sunflower ranks at the top of edible oil production followed by peanuts with 528,419 hectares of land where 528,373 hectares are being cultivated by small-scale farmers while the remaining 46 hectares were being farmed by large-scale farmers.

Read: How Tanzania’s cooking oil industry can become strong

Sesame on the other hand had at least 443,068 hectares of land, with 442,689 of them being cultivated by small-scale farmers and the remaining 379 hectares were farmed by large-scale farmers.

Seed production during that period reached 1.278 million tons of which small scale farmers produced 1.277 million tons and the remaining 342 tons being produced by large-scale farmers.

President Hassan’s directive comes at a time when the ministry of Agriculture has launched a strategy for large scale farming, especially for short term crops so as to attract young people into farming.

Driven by a huge increase in agriculture budget, from from Sh294 billion in 2021/22 fiscal year to Sh954 billion in 2022/23 fiscal year, the ministry of agriculture has started implementing an agricultural pilot plan in Dodoma whose results will be spread to other regions countrywide.

For his part, Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (Tari) director general Geofrey Mkamilo, says in order to encounter the shortage of cooking oil in the country, more efforts should be directed to the cultivation of palm trees and sunflowers.

“Palm trees need to be cultivated by people with large farms in order to make the country more productive. In turn, this would effectively help to meet the demands of edible oil,” he says.

The Tari director says, already, the ministry of agriculture has selected Manyara, Dodoma and Singida Regions as strategic areas for the production of quality seeds that will later be distributed to farmers countrywide.

According to him, the government in the 2022/23 budget has increased the budget for the accessibility of quality seeds from Sh11.63 billion in 2020/22 to Sh40.73 billion in 2022/23.

“The budget will be used to strengthen the accessibility of quality seeds by increasing production of initial seeds, especially oilseeds crop from 226.5 to 1,453 tons, in order to meet the demand,” he says, adding that Tari will also produce 17,000 tons of initial cotton seeds.

Palm oil research coordinator Dr Filson Kagimbo, says Tanzania can be self-sufficient in cooking oil and sell the surplus to foreign markets if it could indulge in large scale farming.

“Farmers should also use the best tenera seeds that have been researched and approved for higher oil production,” he said.

According to him, Tanzania has not even used 10 percent of the opportunity for palm oil farming to benefit from oil production as the crop was ranked first in the world for the production of cooking oil. For his part, sunflower research coordinator Frank Reuben, says while the long-term strategy was self-sufficiency in edible oil through palm tree cultivation, sunflowers can help reduce the gravity of the problem if it is cultivated on large scale.

Mr Reuben says that sunflower crop thrives almost in all the regions in the country, while having one of the best quality oil in the world due to small cholesterol content.

“We have at least 574 small factories processing sunflower oil. These industries are facing acute shortage of raw materials,” he says adding that large scale farming was a solution if these industries were to be guaranteed with adequate raw materials.

He says for that case, they are strategising on investing on the accessibility of drought tolerant and pest resistant seeds.

According to him, the seeds also need to be of great potential for high yields. This, he says will enable the country to have bumper harvests and achieve self sufficient on edible oil.

For her part, the country’s groundnut crop research coordinator Happy Daudi, says the research on high yielding peanut seeds was ongoing while they also continue to educate farmers on the high quality yeilding groundnut crop.

According to her, recent data on Tanzania groundnuts production stood at only 960,000 tons, saying there was room to produce more for local and foreign markets.

“We should increase the production of oil from groundnuts because 80 percent of the crop is produced for consumption. Increasing processing will help us reduce the current deficit and start exports,” she adds.

Tari Mikocheni manager Dr Fred Tairo says, the strategy is to continue improving and increasing coconut plantations, with the priority being to open up large scale farming.

“If the production increases, it will help increase the nation’s ability to be self-sufficient in cooking oil. Tanzanians, especially young people, should seize this opportunity because it is different from traditional seeds that take time to mature. These are short term variety seeds,” Dr Tairo says .

For his part, sesame crop country research coordinator Joseph Nzunda, says plans were also being laid down on the cultivatuion of sesame crop on a large scale. This, he says will enable it to heavely contribute in reducing edible oil deficit in the country.

What farmers are saying

A resident of Mbeya, Ms Sara Oswad, says there was need for more education, training and capital boost to farmers to enable them focus on large scale farming of various edible oil crops.

A resident of Kiwira in Mbeya city, Hussein Beksi, echoed Ms Oswad by saying with proper educastion to farmers, Tanzania was likely to achieve the deficit in edible oil production and have surplus for export.

“I am happy that I have learnt alot of new things at this trade fair show (Nanenane). There is need for all stakeholders in the sector to come up with a plan on how to increase production of edible oil,” he said. According to him, all farmers in the country need to be educated on best agricultural practices to increase production.