Singida, Simiyu, Shinyanga, Mwanza and Mara regions were yesterday named as Tanzania’s cotton growing giants out of the seven chief cotton producing regions.
Tanzania Cotton Board (TCB) Director General Marco Mtunga named the seven chief cotton growing regions at a meeting of cotton stakeholders, as Singida, Simiyu, Mara, Shinyanga, Mwanza, Tabora and Kigoma, which produce 90 percent of Tanzania’s cotton.
“But 80 percent of cotton is produced by Singida, Simiyu, Shinyanga, Mwanza and Mara regions,” he told the meeting.
Mr Mtunga said between 350,000 and 500,000 tonnes of cotton were grown by mainly smallholder farmers in 49 districts of 17 Tanzania Mainland regions.
“At least 99 percent of cotton is produced in Simiyu, Mwanza, Geita, Shinyanga, Mara, Tabora, Kigoma, Kagera, Singida, Dodoma and Katavi regions.
“The rest (less than 1 percent) is grown in Iringa, Kilimanjaro, Morogoro, Tanga, Manyara and Coast regions,” he noted. Mr Mtunga said cotton harvest peaked in the 2005/06 growing season, when about 400,000 tonnes were produced, but in the following year crop yield dropped to less than 150,000 tonnes.
In the 2008/09 season crop yield shot up again to more than 350,000 tonnes, then it fell again in the next three years until 2012/13, when it went up again to 350,000 tonnes.
“In the 2016/17 season, more than 100,000 tonnes were collected and in the following year more than 133,000 tonnes, while this season 221,600 tonnes have been bought from farmers,” he noted.
Mr Mtunga said during this season good harvest was hindered by drought between January and February, followed by heavy rain between March and May and a surge in insect attacks and poor knowledge of farmers on the use of insecticides.
He praised the Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB) for issuing an insecticide loan in the last season as it was instrumental in raising crop yield to 221,600 tonnes during this season.
“TADB is behind our success because the money pumped into the crop has increased production,” Mr Mtunga explained.
He said cotton accounted for about 15 percent of the agricultural GDP “and is the dominant employer and source of livelihoods for most households in the Lake Zone.”
Mr Mtunga also recommended the establishment of agricultural and marketing cooperative societies (AMCOS) in all cotton growing areas. As of July 2018, some 10,396 cooperatives were registered out of which 3,417 are (AMCOS) and 5,640 are other forms of cooperatives.
For his part, TADB Managing Director Japhet Justine said his bank had started taking deliberate measures to ensure all five national strategic crops were supported to reflect the economy.
“We are proud of being catalysts for the success recorded in cotton production,” Mr Justine said, adding that the bank wanted to see major transformation in the agricultural sector.
He added that agricultural sector achievements would accelerate the government’s ambition of transforming the economy into an industrial and middle income economy by 2025.
