Dar es Salaam. The Indian government has relaxed its ban on pigeon peas imports, thus reopening the window for millers and dealers in Tanzania to export up to 200,000 tonnes of the legumes annually to that country.
This new development is very good news indeed to Tanzanian farmers who are stuck with pigeon pea stocks worth a whopping Sh537 billion from the last harvesting season for lack of the ready market that India has been.
However, it was still not quite clear that the Tanzanian farmers will immediately benefit from the reopened Indian trading window, as intervention by the President Magufuli government is pivotal.
Tanzanian pigeon peas farmers lost the lucrative Indian market last year after India insisted that the two countries must sign a bilateral agreement on the trade. So far, The Citizen recently established that the relevant Tanzanian authorities were yet to secure India’s signature to the agreement. If nothing else, this is still uncertain if and when Tanzanian exporters will be granted import permits by the Indian authorities.
Efforts yesterday to obtain comments on the matter from the right Tanzanian officials had not been successful by the time of filing this report. This still leaves the farmers up a creek, but hoping that quick intervention by the government could enable them export the 200,000 metric tonnes on their hands before they go bad – or the Indian window is slam-banged shut again. According to a notice issued by the Indian authorities, traders wishing to export pigeon peas should first apply for a special permit from the Indian government within two weeks.
The Indian ministry of Commerce and Industry, acting through its department of commerce and the directorate general of Foreign Trade, has invited applications for the importation of fertilizer, pigeon peas and other legumes.
The notice, dated May 11, 2018, invites online applications from interested parties, including individuals, millers and refiners, to reach the directorate from May 12 to May 25 this year.
“The allocation of quotas will be notified to eligible applicants by June 1, 2018,” the directorate said, adding that it would consider applicants’ monthly or annual refining and processing capacity vis-a-vis the quantity applied for.
“Consideration will also be given to the number of applications received – and available quotas will be distributed equally or regarding the quantities applied for, whichever is the lower among eligible millers or refiners,” read the notice posted on the web. The notice also says that quotas will be allocated on the condition that importers would have completed their quotas by August 31, 2018. In August last year, India restricted imports of commodities from countries with which it had no bilateral agreement on the commodities.
The move followed the country’s revision of its pigeon peas importation policy from ‘free’ to ‘restricted,’ compounded by overproduction of the crop in India in recent years.
As a result, pigeon peas worth Sh537 billion ($240 million) remained in the hands of Tanzanian farmers and traders for lack of a market. An estimated 300,000 households engage in pigeon pea farming in Tanzania – and India was the single largest importer of pigeon peas from the country.
The Indian ban also covered green grams and chick peas, about 180,000 tonnes of which Tanzania had harvested. The minister for Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr Charles Mwijage, told The Citizen early this year that the government was negotiating with the Indian government to relax the ban. Tanzania is ranked tenth globally in the production of pigeon peas – and second in Africa.
Tanzanian farmers produce an averaged 200,000 tonnes of the crop annually – with some 160,000-to-180,000 tonnes of that being exported to India.
The remainder is sold to the Middle East, Eastern Europe, North America – and Kenya next-door.
Earlier this year, crop growers in the Tunduru and Namtumbo districts in Ruvuma region, and in Newala district in Mtwara region, told The Citizen that stable pigeon peas prices that ranged from Sh1,500 to 4,000 per kilo lured them to secure loans and expand production.
However, the prevailing market situation has left most of them at a crossroads, struggling to service the loans that range from Sh400,000 to Sh20 million, depending on different farmer’s projections.
