Felister Bura

Felister Bura (Special Seats, CCM) has urged the government to deploy more extension officers to Dodoma villages to support cashewnut, sesame and sunflower farming in the region.

The legislator said despite conducive Dodoma soil fertility for the production of oilseeds and other agricultural products related to cashewnut, farmers failed to participate effectively in the production process because of limited knowledge and poor supervisory conducted by the few agriculture field officers.

Bura believes that when effective extension officers are deployed to mentor farmers, the region will be in a good position to produce and distribute oil seeds.
He made the remarks during the morning question and answer session in the House yesterday.

In response, the Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives, Adam Malima said Dodoma was facing a shortage of field officers but the government had been allocating officers from time to time in the region.

He said the region hads 263 field officers out of 742 officers needed to supervise all villages in the region.

The deputy minister faulted insufficient budget funds, saying it had hampered efforts to allocate more supervisors.
“The ministry plans to ensure all 15,082 villages and wards in Dodoma municipality are supplied with field officers, to complement farmers’ efforts towards modern farming,” he said.
The government had instructed the cashewnut board to produce 10million best cashewnut seedlings within three years timeframe, he said.

The produced seedlings will enable local producers in Dodoma to produce 400,000 tones needed in the market.
He said the country had a number of areas potential in production of sesame, cashewnut and sunflowers.

He named Dodoma region, Tanga, Ludewa, Lindi and Mtwara as areas needing to be promoted for effective production.
“We need to transfer modern farming technology in all the mentioned areas for the country to achieve its goal of producing 400,000 tons a year…and this should also be accompanied by deploying field officers,” he declared.