Tanzania’s Rukwa region to harvest 1.7M tonnes of cereals in 2024

TANZANIA – Rukwa Region is expecting to harvest 1,654, 840 tonnes of various crops in this season, compared to 1,469,000 tonnes harvested in the 2022/23 marketing year.

Makongoro Nyerere, Rukwa Regional Commissioner revealed this while giving the state of development growth of the region before journalists and Rukwa’s stakeholders over the weekend.

Rukwa ranks as the second largest region in Tanzania for crop production among the nation’s 31 regions.

Mr. Makongoro highlighted that maize leads in production, trailed by rice, millet, sorghum, beans, sunflower, wheat, and cassava.

He emphasized that maize production alone reached 803,414 tonnes, accounting for nearly 55 per cent of the region’s total crop output during the 2022/23 season.

“The rise in crop production is due to the modernization of farming through increased use of fertilizer and extension services to move from subsistence to commercial production,” he said.

Additionally, the RC said the region, with a population of 1,540,519, expects to produce surplus crops in this season since the total demand is 506,060 tonnes thus the remaining is extra.

In detail, Mr Makongoro highlighted that apart from comprehensive modernized farming practices including soil testing the region also embarked on the construction of a 21bn/- Ilemba irrigating scheme on a 1600hectres of land.

He revealed that the construction for the dam has reached 15 percent and completion is set for next year.

Iringa reaps big in agriculture  

Meanwhile, Iringa Region experienced a remarkable increase of agriculture sector’s production to over one million tonnes in 2023 from 800,000 tonnes per year in the previous years.

Ms. Halima Dendego, Iringa Regional Commissioner revealed this while speaking on a press conference during the meeting organized by the Tanzania Information Services, MAELEZO.

According to her, the region has reaped big in three years under Dr Samia, who assumed the presidency in March 19, 2021.

She attributed the success to the introduction of government’s subsidised fertiliser given to farmers, with fertiliser utilisation in Iringa increasing to 47,000 tonnes last year from only 19,000 the year before.

“As farmers use fertiliser, production goes up,” Ms Dendego said.

Ms Dendego explained that the government allocated a total of nine machines for soil testing, which have been assisting farmers to cultivate seeds matching with soil nutrients of a given areas.

“Soil testing has enabled farmers to yield more from their cultivation,” she said.

In creating modern farming awareness in the region, the government added 15 new extension officers to make a total of 234 officers, who have been reaching out to farmers across the region, revealed the RC.

She said the government provided a total of 250 motorcycles, which were distributed to all extension officers to enable them to visit all farmers.

Ms Dendego said currently the region is implementing four irrigation projects at a cost of 58bn/- disbursed by the government in bid of attaining rain-non reliant farming saying the move will boost production.

She said currently only 15,000 hectares are used for irrigation from a total 51,000 hectares of land suitable for the irrigation farming.

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