CCM defends farmers

 Katesh. Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) wants two of the former wheat estates under the disbanded National Food and Agricultural Corporation (Nafco) in Hanang District, Manyara Region be given to local farmers in surrounding villages.

Secretary General Abdulrahman Kinana said the Bassotu and Warreta farms should be repossesed by the state and sub-divided among the local people because the foreign investors who took them over have failed to develop them. He said when addressing a crowd here during his official visit last week that he would present the case to President Jakaya Kikwete because his party does not want to see people suffering while thousands of acres were lying idle.

He specifically cited a firm from Kenya which took one of the estates. He said instead of cultivating wheat as required under the leasing terms, it had sub-contracted the farms to maize growers.

Mr Kinana explained that the government wanted to see the new investors develop the farms for higher productivity as was the case when they were under the Canadian-supported Hanang Wheat Scheme some years ago.

“I will be frank with the president. These farms have to be taken back from the so-called investors. They have failed to develop them while hundreds of people in Hanang have no land to till,” he insisted. During his visit to Hanang in December 2012, President Kikwete was requested by Special Seats MP (Chadema) for Manyara region Rose Kamili to address the ex-Nafco farms crisis which have divided local leaders in the area for a long time. The Head of State later directed that some farms be given to the people who are in need of land.