Tanzania targets $3 billion in horticulture exports by 2025

Posted on : Thursday , 30th July 2020

The government plans to repossess eight premium but “white elephant” commercial horticulture estates on the southern slopes of Mount Meru in Arusha Region.

Announcing the move in Arusha over the weekend, the deputy minister for Agriculture, Mr Hussein Bashe, said the government will revive the leading farms to bolster horticultural production and realize its annual export value from the current $779 million to $3 billion come 2025.

Local and foreign investors have controversially been pulling-out of the business for a decade now, abandoning the highly fecund flower and vegetable farms at Usa River in Arumeru District, occasioning untold economic woes.

The eight prime plantations with huge potential in flower and vegetable production - but which have been closed - include Kiliflora (under receivership), Kombe Roses, Shira flowers, Allua Flowers, Zanziflora, Finlays, Flamingo and Arusha Blooms Ltd.

Arumeru District Commissioner Jerry Muro says closure of the key horticulture farms, initially run as a joint venture between local and foreign investors, had rendered 30,000 workers jobless.

The government plans to reclaim the plantations and reallocate them to prospective investors to revive what were once vibrant flower and vegetable estates, Mr Bashe said.