The government has reiterated its commitment to investing in irrigation farming to increase crop yield and create food security in the country, thanks to support from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
According to a media report, a joint coordinating stakeholders committee meeting, involving the government of Tanzania and JICA, was scheduled for Dodoma yesterday to discuss how to go about it.
Since the 1980s, JICA has been supporting irrigation development in the country. By 2015, the government had set aside 461,000 acres for irrigation farming, which was beyond the National Irrigation Master Plan (2002) target.
The national target is to ensure one million hectares of arable land are under irrigation schemes by 2020. This was revealed in January this year during the launch of a proposed 150-hectare irrigation project under Arusha Technical College (ATC) financed by JICA.
We are sure that with irrigation farming, Tanzania will make great strides in crop yield and food security.
This is not mentioning up lifting farmers’ livelihoods and boosting the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
In other words, adequate investment in irrigation farming means facilitating the fifth government’s objective of having an industrial and middle income economy by 2025.
Tanzania’s economy depends on agriculture, which accounts for more than a quarter of GDP, for it provides 85 percent of exports and employs about 65 percent of the workforce. Irrigation farming has worked well in many parts of the world and we are sure it will work also for Tanzania.
We are for irrigation farming because climate change has to a considerable extent made rain-fed agriculture unproductive.
Farmers, who depend on rainwater are sure of harvesting nothing or too little compared to those practising irrigation farming. In fact, irrigation farming plays a key role in revolutionising agriculture.
So, it is the right time for the government to turn to irrigation farming for this is the only reliable agricultural method that can create food security and up lift farmers’ livelihoods. Since the majority of Tanzanians are farmers, it is important that they engage in irrigation farming for food and cash crop production.
Thus, what we need is capacity building not only in terms of technical and financial support, but also in public awareness.
The more farmers know the importance of engaging in irrigation farming, the more Tanzania will be able to produce more food and cash crops, feed its people well and be able to sell the surplus to other countries.
Adequate investment in irrigation farming is what will transform agriculture.
