The Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB) has vowed to give Mbozi District growers, a curing plant company a soft loan to increase the production efficiency of coffee market.
The TADB Managing Director, Mr Frank Nyabundege, accompanied by senior bank officials, told the company’s management that TADB was implementing government’s farming policies and was committed to improving quickly and steadily the crop value chains countrywide. This aims to popularise coffee growing in southern highlands regions and provide a big and stable coffee market to Mbozi District growers.
“We have organised ourselves because we want to reach farmers and investors in crop value chains and get first-hand information on the problems and challenges they are facing so that we can provide loans that will improve agriculture production and make farmers benefit from their farming activities,” said Mr Frank Nyabundege.
Mr Nyabundege stated by strengthening the curing plant, Mbozi coffee growers would get a reliable market and will be motivated to increase coffee production and improve their living standards. Further, other growers in the southern highland regions will also be motivated to grow more coffee.
Reliable markets
Mr Nyabundege said it was important to give capital to projects like the Mbozi curing plant because they offer reliable markets to farmers and increase national prosperity. He also said the bank would continue to give farmers soft loans to secure in time good seeds, farm inputs, and good farming tools to increase productivity so that farmers can produce quality crops for local and foreign markets.
The bank will also support active agro-industries that buy crops directly from farmers and are capable of repaying loans after processing the crops and get profit. Mr Nyabundege explained that loans that improve production capacity of farmers and processors also improve growth of the national economy. As of June this year, the TADB had disbursed 99,466,324,946.21 to improve coffee value chain.
The government wants to increase coffee production because the crop is one of the nine natural strategic cash crops alongside cotton, tea, pyrethrum, cashew nuts, sisal, sugar and tobacco. During the 2018/19 fiscal year more than 60,000 tonnes were harvested countrywide.
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