Sengerema District in Mwanza Region has sold eight tonnes of quality coffee at the world market, this being the very first time ever since independence.
Tanzania Coffee Board (TCB) director Adolph Kumburu, said this in an exclusive interview recently, saying this was part of the Board’s strategies to mobilise more people to engage in cultivation of the crop.
He said expansion programmes for the crop have been in the piping, whereby Kilimanjaro Region is excluded due to shortage of farming land, but was going on in Mbinga District in Ruvuma Region, Mpanda District in Katavi Region, Mbozi in Mbeya Region and parts of Kigoma Region.
He said Tarime District in Mara Region was another area whereby in the 2007/08 agricultural season, a total of 309 tonnes of coffee was produced and in 2010/11 more than 1,050 tonnes was produced bringing new hope in the country’s coffee production.
Kumburu named the new regions that have started growing the cash crop as Mwanza, which previously mainly cultivated cotton. Cultivation is done in districts such as Ukerewe, Sengerema and Geita.
The other region is Manyara where the crop is cultivated in Babati and Mbulu districts.
In Tanga Region coffee is cultivated in Lushoto, Muheza, Korogwe, Mkinga and Kilindi districts, he said, adding that TCB has met with the leaders of all the district councils in a move to mobilise them.
Other regions are Morogoro in the districts of Ulanga, Kilosa, Mvomero and Morogoro Rural and Iringa it is the districts of Kilolo, Iringa Rural, Mufindi, Njombe, Ludewa and Makete.
He further said that in the 2011/12 season, total production is expected to drop from 56,000 tonnes harvested in 2010/11 to 45,000 tonnes.
He said the fluctuation is a normal thing, citing that while in 2008/09 a total of 68,300 tonnes was produced, the 2009/10 harvests dropped to 35,500 tonnes.
He said effects of climate change have become more visible in Arusha and Kilimanjaro regions whereby for three years consecutively there has been lack of sufficient rainfall. This caused coffee plants to wither and flowers to come off before bearing beans, he said.
He said the Western Zone regions that saw increased production will also see a decline in production due to spread of diseases caused by insects known by the local language of ‘Vidung’ata’ that attack soft points of coffee trees.
The director said that due to the disease, production in Mbinga dropped from 18,000 tonnes in 2008/09 to 6,500 tonnes. However, he said, efforts by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives and the Tanzania Coffee Research Institute (TaCRI) successfully controlled the disease, increasing production to 10,000 tonnes in 2010/11.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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