Govt, Taha in new move to increase horticulture exports to over $2 billion

Dodoma. The government and a horticulture driver association, Taha, have forged a strategic partnership, in their latest efforts to unleash the hidden potentials of the sub-sector to earn the economy $2 billion in 2030.

Agriculture ministry’s permanent secretary Andrew Massawe and Taha chief executive officer Jacqueline Mkindi have signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to create synergy as they seek to spur the multi-million dollar horticulture industry to turnaround the country’s economy.

The ambitious MoU intends to improve business-enabling environment, attract private sector to invest heavily into horticulture, scale-up climate-smart technologies transfer and adoption in a bid to boost productivity whilst conserving the environment.

The agreement would also spearhead the Ministry and Taha to a closer collaboration in areas of research and development, unlock major overseas markets and reinforce accessibility to accurate and seamless information on the horticulture industry.

The Public, Private, Partnership (PPP) will also see improvement of extension services to oversee quality and quantity production of the horticultural products to comply with international market standards, as well as, improving the key horticulture market support infrastructure as well as irrigation systems.

PS Massawe said that the government saw the need to accelerate horticultural transformation for employment generation especially for youth and women, boost income, food and nutrition security with an idea to improve livelihoods for a critical mass, equitable and inclusive growth.

“The Ministry of Agriculture trusts that horticulture transformation is inconceivable without a dynamic private sector serving and driving the industry. We’ve picked Taha to pull together to achieve our target of increasing horticulture export value to $2 billion as stipulated in our 2030 Agenda,” Mr Massawe noted.

Indeed, the MoU indicates that Taha will play decisive roles in the industry’s transformation, foster productivity improvements and create jobs and commercialise the entire horticultural value chains.

“The arrangement holds a great potential to transform horticulture by enhancing production volumes, farm diversification, generating higher incomes, reducing postharvest losses, and scaling-up climate-smart technologies,” Ms Mkindi commented.

She was grateful to the Ministry of Agriculture for trusting and endorsing Taha as its key partner in driving horticulture industry value chain.

“We always cherish our government for being considerate in improving business environment. Imagine, currently most of key inputs and technologies are VAT and import levy free, prompting business and investment in horticulture to grow by leaps and bounds,” Taha boss explained.

Horticulture industry in land resource-rich country, Tanzania, is slowly but surely becoming one of the major foreign currency earners, with key players pursuing $2 billion in export value in the near future, up from the current annual $779 million. The horticulture is one of the few opportunities for small scale farmers to find a fast route out of poverty and this can be seen by many farmers converting from staple crops and traditional cash crops to horticulture.

“Horticulture has the potential to create more employment especially for youth and women, increase GDP, boost foreign currency earnings, supply industry with raw materials, increase the revenue base, guarantee self-sufficiency and more importantly leapfrog other sectors of the economy” Ms Mkindi explained.

Statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture shows that the vibrant industry has been growing at 11 percent rate annually, offering a glimpse of hope to the stagnant sector with a growth rate of only 4 percent per annum.

As it stands now, the formal statistics shows that horticulture has become the second largest growth driver of the entire agricultural sector after food crops, contributing nearly 25 percent of the country’s total agrarian production.

For 18 years, Taha has successfully brought together over 4.5 million producers, traders, exporters and processors of all horticultural products – that is, flowers, fruits, vegetables, tubers, spices, herbs and seeds both large-scale and smallholders farmers into a single bloc fortified by a common set of business oriented interests.

Thanks to the painstaking efforts, the industry has grown in leaps and bounds - from northern Tanzania to southern highlands as well as from the Mainland to Zanzibar.