The anticipated Malting Plant offers new hope to barley production in Tanzania
TANZANIA – The much-anticipated Kilimanjaro Malting Plant that is being built in Moshi is set to bring about positive changes that will benefit barley farmers across Tanzania.
This follows a recent announcement by the Tanzania Breweries (TBL), a subsidiary of the largest brewer in the world, ABInBev, that it has committed a tune of TZS 96 billion (US$40.38mn) to be invested in the construction of the Kilimanjaro Malting Plant.
Minister of Agriculture, Hussein Bashe has expressed confidence that the multibillion-shilling investment puts Tanzania in the right direction that will lead to boost barley production and export once the plant is fully operational.
According to him, the new malting plant is a fortune for barley farmers in the country, where some 17,500 out-growers will be engaged in contract farming to cultivate barley as raw material to feed the local company.
In addition, this potential lies in the fact that the revival of the malting facility will see the plant’s capacity for processing barley, a key ingredient in the production of beer, shoot up to 32,000 tonnes a year from 15,000 tonnes previously.
According to Citizen TZ, statistics show that the production of barley in Tanzania increased from 440 tonnes in 1972 to 20,546.3 tonnes in 2021, growing at an average annual rate of 13.11%. However, despite this growth rate, farmers decried the lack of a stable market for their produce.
Supporting this ambition, Bashe said plans are ahead to ensure that in the coming three years, Tanzania will not be importing any more malted barley but instead will be exporting it to other countries.
Tanzania exported $81.4k in barley in 2021, making it the 64th largest exporter of barley in the world. In the same year, barley was the 499th most exported product in Tanzania. The main destinations of barley exports from Tanzania are Uganda ($81.4k) and Ireland ($3).
The fastest-growing export markets for barley in Tanzania between 2020 and 2021 were Uganda ($64.5k) and Ireland ($3).
TBL’s Moran said the Kilimanjaro Malting Plant project will be implemented in phases, where the first for the 2023/24 fiscal year will involve investing 10.5 million US dollars to produce the 12,000 metric tonnes of malt.
He noted that the phase will automatically boost local production and raise the morale of farmers to cultivate more, especially by building their capacity and providing seed variety testing support from the company.
Phase two, which will be implemented in the 2024/25 fiscal year, will involve scaling up the project’s construction to produce 16,000 metric tonnes of malt with an investment of about 6.3 million US dollars.
Dubbed ‘RimoMalt’, the facility will be the first fully modular all-in-one standardized malting technology developed by Swiss equipment manufacturer Bühler and represents a breakthrough in the malting industry as it offers a plant structure that can grow with the demands of customers.
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