Tanzania, FAO to jointly boost agriculture
Posted on : Friday , 23rd October 2015
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Tanzania has said it was ready to work with the government in implementing appropriate social protection policies that will help in increasing the agriculture productivity in the country.
FAO’s commitment was announced in Bariadi Township, Simiyu Region, at the weekend as Tanzania joined the rest of the world in marking 35th Anniversary of the World Food Day (WFD) and 70th of its establishment.
Along with investing in ensuring agricultural productivity, FAO has also challenged for the country to extend the battle against hunger and poverty particularly in rural areas focusing on pro-poor investments and social protection measures.
Giving a keynote address on behalf of the FAO country representative, the Assistant FAO Representative responsible for Programmes, Mr Fredrick Kivaria, said his office will continue to collaborate with Tanzania in raising levels of food productivity.
“We continue to collaborate in many interventions that include policy support, strengthening of institutional capacities, technical capacity development and the promotion of good agricultural practices,” said Mr Kivaria.
Other areas that needed to be emphasised with the assistance from the organisation include introduction of tools and technologies that will make is possible for the country to raise levels of food productivity and nutrition security.
With its expertise and resources, Mr Kivaria said, FAO was also well positioned and ready to support countries including Tanzania in achieving the 17 Sustainable Develooment Goals 14 out of them being related to the organisation’s work.
Studies conducted in 2013 show that globally, social protection measures brought approximately 150 million people out of extreme poverty and FAO has the view that more appropriate policy interventions were crucial to realise more achievements.
Some of the suggested interventions which could be of greater help in Tanzania as well include cash transfers to poor households to protect them against risks, gender sensitive social protection programmes involving more women and youths and school feeding programme.
Apart from celebrating WFD, FAO also took the opportunity to mark 70 years of its inception recalling its strong partnership with Tanzania, which was forged in 1963 thanks to the efforts of the first president, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere.
The historic landmark was penned after Mwalimu gave the popular McDougall Lecture on November 1963 during the FAO Conference in Italy under the topic ‘’World Economic Development from the Standpoint of the Development Countries’’.
“He was the first African leader and only Third Eminent person to give the prestigious lecture. So as we celebrate the WFD, we also need to remember that a lot need to be done bearing in mind around 800 million people still do not have enough food to eat,” said Mr Kivaria.
Delivering the government message on the day, the Minister of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives, Mr Stephen Wasira, said the government has introduced various measures with the aim of increasing food production.
He said the outgoing Fourth Phase Government has implemented a number of policies mentioning one of them as the Big Results Now initiative, which targets to increase more achievements in agriculture and food security.
“Under BRN, the country will see the increase of food products like maize to 100,000 in 2015/2016 as well as 290,000 tonnes of paddy, 150,000 of sugar where about 400,000 small-scale farmers will be engaged in commercial farming,” said Mr Wasira.
Source : in2eastafrica.net
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