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'Agriculture not given adequate attention'
2005-05-22 08:28:55
By Joseph Shayo PST
Agriculture can facilitate rapid economic growth and faster poverty eradication if banks and other government financial institutions adequately finance it.
The Chairman of Tanzania Chamber of Agriculture and Livestock, Elias Mshiu , said this at a two-day workshop held in Bagamoyo over the weekend.
He said the demand for finance for agricultural production, processing and trading were immense but the sources of supply were very scarce.
Commercial banks by their very nature offer funds that are short term, three-to-five years at the most, at interest rates of up to 20% per annum.
Mshiu said, adding that it was suicidal for a commercial farmer,a coffee farmer or a livestock farmer to borrow money on such unfavourable terms and conditions, Mshiu said.
Underscoring the importance of agriculture in economic growth, Mshiu quoted the speech of the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere ,who insisted that agriculture was the backbone of the economy that should never be neglected.
Because of the importance of agriculture in our development, one would expect that agriculture and the needs of the agricultural producers would be the beginning and the central reference point in all our economic planning, he said
Instead we have treated agriculture as if it was something peripheral, or just another activity in the country without having any special claim…we are neglecting agriculture.
Mshiu said these wise words of the late Nyerere have remained valid today and insisted that no country in the world has made remarkable strides in agricultural development without focused and specialized provision of agricultural financial facilities.
If we are serious in accelerating agricultural growth in Tanzania, then our government must also be in the forefront in providing the seed capital either through the budget or other development partners’ support.
The workshop was opened by the Minister for water and Livestock Development, Mr. Edward Lowassa, who stressed that government was very serious to address constraints that hamper agriculture and livestock development.
He added that the government was initiating fiscal policies and trade policies and installing infrastructure that would assist in the development of TCAL activities.
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