TZ misses sesame export chances

Dar es Salaam. Tanzanians are missing huge opportunities of exporting sesame seeds.

The acting Director General of Trade Development Authority (TanTrade), Mr Edwin Rutageruka, says Lindi and Mtwara regions alone could export 400,000 tonnes of sesame seeds to Japan a year, but the country has failed to capitalise on such a lucrative opportunity.

Other regions which produce sesame seeds are Ruvuma, Coast, Morogoro, Dodoma, Tanga, Rukwa and Mbeya.

“Japanese traders have shown interest in importing sesame seeds from our country but we are failing to grab this huge opportunity,” he says.

According to a TanTrade export market report of this January, the world market price of one tonne of raw sesame seeds is $900.

That means the country could earn $360 million (Sh720 billion from exporting 400,000 tonnes annually from Lindi and Mtwara.

“In fact the Japanese have requested sesame imports from our country in a bigger amount than what we can afford to meet,” says Mr Rutageruka.

In 2014 Lindi and Mtwara produced 34,000 tonnes but they could produce 400,000 tonnes, according to him.

He also spoke of TanTrade’s strategy to enhance production and marketing agribusiness products. “Under our current strategy we are focusing on farmers and processors to increase output to meet local and export markets.”

TanTrade officer Gilbert Waigama says although the two regions are leading in sesame farming in the country, farmers have been losing because there is neither a reliable market nor big processing plants for value addition.“There is only one sesame processing plant in Masasi with the capacity to process five tonnes a day. However, the plant owner is facing chronic problems of power interruptions and the plant is still in its infancy.”

He also speaks about an unreliable market for sesame because the warehouse system is not well practised in the two regions.

Another TanTrade officer responsible for documentation, Ms Lulu Masanja, insists that farmers have been losing from smugglers known as Chomachoma who have been buying sesame seeds at lower prices than the actual costs of farming.

“Since sesame farmers produce seasonally, they fail to maintain sustainable income throughout the year and thus subjecting themselves to sell the crop at throwaway prices,” she says.

She insists that since farmers in those regions normally face perennial food shortages, they become the victims of Chomachoma who buy sesame at lower prices.

According to TanTrade officers who recently conducted an assessment on the needs of farmers in Lindi and Mtwara regions, farmers buy sesame seeds at Sh8,000 per kg and sell the produce at between Sh1,600 and Sh2,600 a kg.

There are also other problems: the lack of extension services, the use of weights which are not calibrated by the Weights and Measures Agency, the shortage of high quality seeds and inability to collect reliable data on farm productivity by the responsible ministry.

One of the sesame farmers based in Kilwa, Mr Abdallah Umande, complains that the sesame market is erratic and there are no prospects to benefit from the crop.

Mr Umande supports that there are no reliable buyers of the crop and those who buy it do so at extremely low prices.

“There is no warehouse receipt system for this crop. We are being exploited by unreliable buyers,” he laments.

 Agribusiness consultant Ebron Mwakalinga argues that Tanzania cannot benefit from global markets of sesame due to a number of factors, including poor produce quality.

“Farmers are producing sesame with a variety of colours as opposed to white colour which has high demand in the world market. The problem here is that we produce below world market standards of sesame,” he says.

He lists other factors as failure to meet export orders, poor storage facilities, poor farm management, lack of mechanised sesame farming that causes a spread of sesame pests and diseases and post-harvest losses.

According to him, as a result of such factors, the destination of sesame exports has remained India and largely local consumers who buy sesame seeds without assessing their quality.

 He proposes that as the case with tea, cotton and coffee, the government should formulate a board for sesame to address challenges facing the crop farming, processing and trading.