Cooperatives to carry the subsidised fertiliser burden

Ruvuma. Agriculture minister, Hussein Bashe has directed cooperative unions and Agriculture Marketing Cooperative Societies (Amcos) to address challenges facing accessibility of government subsidised fertilisers to rural farmers.

He directed that the challenges be resolved all over the country because most farmers who fail to access the fertilisers are engaged in farming of multiple agricultural products.

He issued the directives in Ruvuma region where he started a two-day visit to inspect implementation of development projects under his docket and provide solutions to challenges facing farmers.

“The registrar of the cooperative is here, issuing a guideline to all cooperative unions and Amcos. We are not supposed to struggle with these challenges that adversely affect rural farmers while the cooperatives are there,” he said.

“A tobacco farmer can get all the agriculture inputs, while a counterpart maize producer in the same village doesn’t. Concern about fertilisers in places with cooperatives should no longer be there. Once the challenges continue, it will mean a failure to the Tanzania Cooperative Development Commission (TCDC),” he added.

Mr Bashe who doubles as Nzega Urban Constituency Member of Parliament (MP) expressed his confidence with the present fertiliser subsidy system, emphasising that only leaders and supervisors should be accountable for farmers to benefit.

He called on councils, the Tanzania Fertilizer Regulatory Authority (TFRA) and TCDC to identify areas facing the challenges in order to ensure that they are resolved in order to make the 2023/24 season a success.

Cooked data

Furthermore, he directed officials in the docket to do away with the cooked data, naming it another major challenge in the ministry.

“The ministry is among the sectors with another challenge of cooked data. If you lock me up somewhere, I would come up with data of my own. The same would apply to my deputy and the permanent secretary,” he said.

His directives came shortly after being told that the region had four million hectares suitable for agriculture production and that 580,000 hectares were cultivated in 2021/22, utilising 30,000 tonnes of fertilisers, with 1.5 million yields produced.

Furthermore, the regional report shows that 42,062 tonnes of fertilisers have been procured in the 2022/23 farming season slated to be applied in 930,082 hectares anticipated to produce 1,965,072 tonnes of different crops.

The report was the one that irked the minister who raised concerns about the validity of the data especially after the report showed that the size of cultivated land and applied fertilisers have doubled.

“I’m greatly troubled here. Farmers have increased the size of cultivated land and fertilisers uptake with the possibility of clicking 60,000 tonnes. What are the reasons for anticipated yields to remain low?” he questioned.

“Let’s be careful with the data we provide. You should go and repeat the computation because failure to have accurate data will lead to inaccurate projects implemented by the ministry,” he added.

Most of the time, agriculture statistics issued by the private sector and those from the ministry officials have been showing major differences, according to him.

The report that was read by the regional agriculture officer, Mr Onesmo Ngao says food crops cultivated in the region include maize, rice, cassava, beans, millet, peas, sweet potatoes and legumes.

Cultivated commercial crops according to him are tobacco, coffee, cashews, sesame, sunflower, groundnuts, ginger, avocado, banana and soybeans.

CCM chair

Ruvuma Region CCM chairman, Mr Oddo Mwisho said provision of subsidised fertilisers has mobilised more residents to engage in agriculture, especially after witnessing high prices of the inputs in recent years.

“It is good news that 42,000 tonnes of fertilisers have been procured so far, however, we didn’t design a friendly mechanism of reaching the fertilisers to rural farmers, something that would reduce costs they incur,” he said.

“Some farmers have been recommending the fertilisers to be taken at least in every division if reaching them to every ward as promised was a tall mountain to climb,” added Mr Mwisho.

A farmer in Muhukuru Ward, Mr Deus Samuel commended the government for providing farmers with subsidised fertilisers despite available challenges.

He said last season, fertiliser was procured at a price ranging from Sh115,000 to Sh120,000 despite following the inputs about 85 kilometres away.

“However, we are now getting fertilisers at low prices ranging from Sh50,000 to Sh70,000. The only thing we are requesting is to bring the fertilisers close to places where farmers carry their activities,” he said.