Tanzania now works to produce 2 million tons of organic food in the next decade.

Dodoma.

As most parts of the world suffer serious effects of prolonged drought, famine and food shortage, Tanzania is starting a special initiative to produce 2 million tons of food crops through organic farming.

The Tanzania Pan African Investors Association (TAPAIA) is launching a ten-year ambitious agricultural project targeting to grow food crops through organic farming.

On average, the country will be able to harvest at least 200,000 tons of organic food crops in a year.

To be implemented in various district councils across the nation, the TAPAIA project will also produce important cash crops under the same scheme.

According to the founder and the National Chairman of TAPAIA, Dr Sebastian Kingu, the new establishment intends to execute the project on more than 2 million hectares of land.

The initiative will run for at least ten years involving various stakeholders, including district councils, financial institutions, agro-machinery suppliers, farm inputs dealers as well as the Bio-pesticide entity of India.

It is part of the ‘Tanzania Industrialization Revolution,’ mission which this time will actively involve local youths as the project entails technological farming.

The Association is still doing preliminary negotiations with several different councils in the coastal region including Rufiji and Kisarawe, Kibiti and Chalinze.

The project will see the production of numerous nutritious foods and herbal plants through best organic practices.

Other than intercepting food shortages, TAPAIA is looking towards promoting healthy eating through organic crops to address the increasing problem of Non-Communicable diseases.

“Our plan is to cultivate at least 20 crop varieties of herbal plants as well as other potential sources of nutrients to fight maladies like diabetes, cancer, blood pressure and obesity,” said Dr Kingu adding that Non-Communicable and other lifestyle diseases can easily be eliminated through healthy diets.

To execute the project, TAPAIA will involve various partners including financial institutions such as the National Microfinance Bank (NMB) for loans.

They will also involve suppliers of agricultural machinery, farm inputs and other logistics companies.

Inlaying out its working plans, the Association is also envisaging to procure  agro-biological inputs (pesticides) from India.