THE government will establish a livestock authority that will ensure pasture is readily available to livestock and keepers get markets for animals and their products.
Minister for Livestock and Fisheries Mashimba Ndaki told a meeting of stakeholders here that the government remains keen on improving livestock keeping environment so that the sector can make bigger contribution to national development.
"The government will form an authority that will essentially oversee availability of pasture and look livestock products markets," he told delegates to a livestock stakeholders’ meeting that ended here yesterday.
He added that the authority: "will work to improve this sector, reduce conflicts and stop livestock keepers from roaming around the country."
In the past three decades, Tanzania has witnessed widespread and sometimes bloody clashes between farmers and wandering herders looking for grazing land and water for animals. Animals have intermittently on and off encroached on farms, eaten crops and trampled on water sources.
Mr Ndaki told the delegates that the planned authority will deal with those and other problems and that he was using the forum to assure livestock keepers that the government has their interests at heart.
"I am here to encourage you and assure you that the government is there and will continue to improve conditions for keeping livestock in recognition of its importance in advancing our economy and in creating jobs for the youth," he said.
The Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB) Acting Director for Planning, Research and Policy, Mr Mzee Kilele, who stood for the Bank’s Managing Director, Mr Frank Nyabundege, assured delegates of the bank’s support.
He explained that meetings of that nature give the TADB the information it needs to reach and serve many livestock keepers.
"I am using this opportunity to assure delegates that our bank will increase pace in providing loans and adding value to livestock products so that the sector becomes strong, it benefits the herders themselves and promotes national economy," he said.
Until August this year, Mr Kilele said, the TADB had given the sector direct loans amounting to 23.8bn/-, enabling 128 farmers in five AMCOs to secure high breed cows. The bank has also disbursed 11.8bn/-, helping recipients to build four dairy industries that buy milk from over 6,000 farmers.The Chairman of Karagwe District Livestock Keepers Association, Mr Jackson Kamkoto said keepers lack requisite education on their trade, shortage of extension officers, pasture and water for animals.He called on the government to form an institution that will coordinate […]
