Tanzanian youth turning to horticulture industry
What you need to know:
- The Tanzania Horticultural Association says it has in recent years witnessed growing interest in horticulture among youth eager to make quick money
Mbeya. A new green-gold rush is well under way in Tanzania if a rapid influx of fortune seekers eyeing to venture into horticulture industry is anything to go by.
The Tanzania Horticultural Association (Taha) says it has witnessed growing interest in horticulture among youth eager to make quick money.
“Our latest observation at Nane Nane agricultural show indicates that for majority young people and women both unemployed and employed ones, horticulture holds more promise as it could generate quick, but decent wealth than other occupations,” Taha chief executive officer Jacqueline Mkindi said.
This is mostly because horticulture crops can take as little as three months to bear fruit, a key-driving factor attracting youth to venture into the industry.
During the eight days of the Nane Nane agricultural fair in Mbeya, Arusha, Mwanza, Morogoro and Zanzibar, thousands of youth flocked to Taha’s pavilions in search for apt advice to make foray into green-gold industry.
“Our engagement with them during fairs across the country has given us a clear insight that horticulture is currently a major green-gold rush, especially for youth and women, who seek to employ themselves and make quick, but clean money in return,” said Ms Mkindi.
She said during each of the eight days, her team trained nearly 200 farmers and prospective ones on good agricultural practices; displaying cutting-edge agricultural and climate smart technologies as well as imparting them with techniques to access finance and markets.
“Our experts also offered the farmers and enthusiasts a nutrition education, presented investment opportunities for SMEs in the fruits and vegetable value chain, before displaying the newly Taha’s invented mobile kiosk,” Ms Mkindi noted.
Taha was awarded the winner in the NGOs category at the Nane Nane show at John Mwakangale grounds in Mbeya.
“Our climate resilient agriculture approach which seeks to help farmers mitigate risks of climate change, reduce the cost of cultivation, increase productivity and enhance their adaptive capacities are the secret behind this,” she said.
She explained that Taha enhances farm productivity and profitability; makes farming practices climate resilient and nature friendly; and works with the government, development partners to link horticulture communities with reliable markets.
Established in 2004, Taha’s key focus areas has been to improve the business-enabling environment, access to markets, boost productivity and create competitiveness, promote Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and coordinate horticulture investments.
The organisation also establishes market support infrastructures, provides technical support services, promote nutrition and gender equity as well as engage youth and women in horticulture.
As a result, Taha has successfully managed to nurture the nascent horticulture into a multi-million dollar industry at the moment, winning a significant recognition as a key industry of the economy by the government.
Taha had brought together over 4.5 million both large-scale and smallholders farmers into a single bloc fortified by a common set of business oriented interests.
Horticulture’s input to overall agrarian exports value has grown tremendously and is poised for leaps and bounds. As it stands now the sub-sector earns the economy nearly $800 million annually, up from around $100 million in 2006, making the industry a nascent undertaking to watch.
It is sponsored by USAID to implement the Commercial Horticulture for Transformed Economy (CHOTE) project, SIDA through Swedish Embassy on the Growing Wealth Through Horticulture (GROWTH), and Make it Grow (MIG) an EU funded project under AGRI- CONNECT for horticulture sustainability and economic development in Zanzibar.
