By STAFF REPORTER
THE Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) has successfully managed to research, breed and introduced to the farmers a total of 25 new crops seed varieties during 2022/23 period.
Dr. Geofrey Mkamilo is the Director General (DG) of the state-owned Seeds Research Institute.
He observed that the impressive milestone in the country’s seeds production corridor has been attained due to concerted efforts by the Government to inject friendly budget allocation to support the sector.
The Government increased budget allocation towards the sector from 294 bn/- to 751 bn/- during 2022/23 fiscal year (equivalent to nearly 158 percent rise), the helpful budget which saw the seeds research budgert improved from 11.63 bn/- to around 40.73 bn/-.
Dr. Mkamilo said during the two years, TARI managed to innovate different improved seeds varieties that have already been approved by the Tanzania Official Seeds Certification Institute (TOSCI) including sorghum (2 varieties), banana (4), sweet potatoes (2), sugarcane (6), beans (6), wheat (2), choroko (2) and one variety of paddy.
“Among others, the seeds are drought tolerant and disease free with the high yielding capacity,”
"For instance, the new wheat seeds comprises 38.9 percent of glunet, the highly needed protein required in manufacturing industries, and above all, these varieties have potential to produce between 4 to 4.6 tonnes per hectare," he briefed.
The Director General (DG) of TARI, Dr. Geofrey Mkamilo (right) explains a point to Deputy Agriculture Minister Anthony Mavunde (third from left) during a special farmer's field day held at TARI Hombolo Centre, Dodoma Region.
Together with that, Dr. Mkamilo added that for the first time TARI has managed to innovate sugarcane seeds varieties that can be produced depending on rain, which reduces the cost of production for small farmers compared to previous seeds that depend on 100 percent irrigation water.
"Also, our research has succeeded in discovering a new planting space for cotton, which is 60 centimeters by 30 centimeters, an important step that has stimulated an increase in yield from an average of 710 Kg to 1,422 per acre," he said.
In further efforts to increase the productivity of cotton production in the country, Dr. mkamilo noted that TARI has similarly discovered a simple tool to plant cotton with the ability to plant one acre per hour up to three hours, instead of 11 hours using a hand plow: "The discovery of this machine has reduced the loss of seeds from 15 to 5 per a stem," he explained.
Explaining in details over the success that the Institute has so far achieved during the two years, Dr. Mkamilo said TARI has also discovered a simple and friendly technology to store tomatoes and sugarcane juice for at least two months and more without losing its quality by using natural ingredients unlike the usual methods with the storage capacity of only two days.
"We’re also progressing well to take care of about 33,332 genetics of various crops including rice (729), millet (416), sorghum (105), sorghum (3), sunflower (39), grapes (26), bananas (128), beans (10) ), cassava (20), cashews (30,000), cotton (328), corn (250), sweet potatoes (6), sugarcane (107), coconuts(7), palms (3), sisal (60), and cocoa 17 with the aim of preventing the loss of those generations and to further enabling conduction of seeds research" he added.
And according to him, to help increase the production and availability of quality seeds for various crops in the country, TARI has continued with the general work to improve research and seeds production infrastructure during the past two years, whereby preparations for the construction of irrigation infrastructure on a total area of 854 hectares in 16 research centers have finalised to an impressive tune.
“Completion of construction of the infrastructure will enable TARI to carry out seed production and research tests throughout the year,” he observed.
Impeccable statistics depicts that the agriculture sector employs over 65 percent of Tanzanians, contributes 27 percent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 60 percent of raw-materials as well as 25 percent of foreign currency.
Despite being endowed with friendly agroclimatic zones that supports production of diverse economic cash crops, the country’s agriculture sector had for years been grappling with numerous setbacks which denied it from thriving accordingly, among others including poor funds to enable the country’s research agricultural research pundits to venture fruitful into needed key research.
TARI has a mandate to conduct, regulate, promote and coordinate all agricultural research activities conducted by public and private research institutes or organisations in Tanzania. TARI aims at strengthening the national agricultural research system to enhance development and dissemination of technologies, innovations and management practices (TIMPs) to address the real needs of farmers and other agricultural stakeholders.
TARI has a network of at least 9 research centres and 8 sub centres. The centres are TARI Makutupora, TARI Ilonga, TARI Selian, TARI Ukiriguru, TARI Naliendele, TARI Mlingano, TARI Tumbi, TARI Uyole and TARI Kihinga. The Sub Centres are TARI Hombolo, TARI Dakawa, TARI Maruku, TARI Mikocheni, TARI Tengeru, TARI Kifyulilo, TARI Ifakara and TARI Kibaha. TARI Headquarters is located in Dodoma, Tanzania.
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