Tanzania targets $3 billion in horticulture exports by 2025

Arusha. The government plans to repossess eight premium but “white elephant” commercial horticulture estates on the southern slopes of Mount Meru in Arusha Region.

Announcing the move in Arusha over the weekend, the deputy minister for Agriculture, Mr Hussein Bashe, said the government will revive the leading farms to bolster horticultural production and realize its annual export value from the current $779 million to $3 billion come 2025.

Local and foreign investors have controversially been pulling-out of the business for a decade now, abandoning the highly fecund flower and vegetable farms at Usa River in Arumeru District, occasioning untold economic woes.

The eight prime plantations with huge potential in flower and vegetable production - but which have been closed - include Kiliflora (under receivership), Kombe Roses, Shira flowers, Allua Flowers, Zanziflora, Finlays, Flamingo and Arusha Blooms Ltd.

Arumeru District Commissioner Jerry Muro says closure of the key horticulture farms, initially run as a joint venture between local and foreign investors, had rendered 30,000 workers jobless.

“The government plans to reclaim the plantations and reallocate them to prospective investors to revive what were once vibrant flower and vegetable estates” Mr Bashe said.

“Some of the former investors of these horticulture farms had borrowed billions of shillings from the former Tanzania Investment Bank through the Bank of Tanzania (BoT)’s Credit Guarantee Scheme to expand their business. But, apparently, they misused the funds. Details are scant, since most of the investors fled the country. But the few available records show that the KiliFlora farm - which is under receivership, for instance - owes the Treasury Sh19.8 billion. Debts of other abandoned farms stand at Sh24 billion, bringing the total of bad debts to Sh43.8 billion. The loans were issued in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Prime farms repossession is seen as the right strategy to bolster horticultural industry. The plan is to exploit the vast horticultural potential and grow it to a $3 billion industry in five years.

“Horticulture is one of the priority sub-sectors for exports, and is key in diversification of the agricultural sector from overdependence on traditional cash crops. It has the potential to be a major source of foreign currency earnings,” Bashe noted.

He also reevaled that plans are at an advanced stage to finalize three-laboratory accreditation to be used in certifying horticultural crops within the country, thus saving investors from having to send their crop samples abroad.

“I am so gratified by foreign investors who are doing a good job of developing the horticultural industry. We in the government will continue to create an enabling environment for them to expand their businesses” he said.

In his twitter, the Netherlands Envoy to Tanzania, Mr Jeroen Verheul, said a majority of the key investors and innovators are from Netherlands - and appreciated the government and the Tanzania Horticultural Association (Taha) for paying a courtesy call on them in Arumeru.

“The better the business climate for existing entrepreneurs, the more of them who will come to invest in Tanzania” Ambassador Verheul wrote on his official page.

Taha Group CEO, Ms Jacqueline Mkindi exhorted the Government to fast track its move to revive the closed farms to enhance the horticulture production.

Ms Mkindi said that a $779 million export value of horticultural industry at the moment is equivalent to $800 million earned by the flower exports alone in neighboring Kenya.

“With the revival of the eight major horticultural farms, right business environment policies and support for investors, the horticultural industry could earn the economy a $3 billion in the next five years” Taha Group boss noted.