Tanzania embarks on strategies to address edible oil shortage

The government of Tanzania has embarked on several strategies to address shortage of edible oil in the country. Minister for Agriculture, Professor Adolf Mkenda said some of the strategies include increasing production of improved seeds of sunflower, groundnuts, oil palm and sesame for the farmers, increased budget and extension services and research activities.

He said the current production of edible oil in the country is 290,000 metric tonnes, while the rest is imported from outside, which cost a total of 470bn/-.

“This is a big money that if retained, could be used to create employment to our youth who have no jobs,” he said.

Commenting on sunflower production, Prof Mkenda said at the moment, ordinary farmer gets an average of 0.7 tonnes per acre while under best agronomy practices, the farmer can produce up to 4.0 tonnes per acre. He said the government is planning to purchase 2,000 bicycles for extension services, smart phones and soil testing kits in its plan to boost edible oil production in the country.

Edible oil production

According to Prof Mkenda, Tanzania leads for edible oil production in East Africa, followed by Uganda while Ukraine leads the world. Sunflower oil processors Association (TASUPA) has said it is facing shortage of sunflower by 1,363,092 metric tonnes to effectively and efficiently operate and contribute to address the problem of edible oil in the country.

The Association’s Chairman Ringo Iringo explained that the current production capacity of smallholder farmers is only 352,908 metric tonnes but the demand to feed the processing industries is 1,716,000 metric tonnes per year.

This means, the processors are working only for a short time let say three month or so then are compelled to close down production due to lack of raw materials supply. In order to bridge the gap, Iringo has asked the government to allocate at least 2.1 million hectares to commercial farmers to produce enough sunflowers for the processors.

“Therefore, we are under utilization because there are low supply of seeds from the farmers. What we are doing now is to increase production of sun flower seeds from the farmers. We are working with the government, the Ministry of Agriculture, Tanzania Agricultural Bank (TADB) and other development partners to increase quality and quantity of sun flower,” he said.

He added; “We are also working out strategies to support small scale min-refineries which can be available for cheap in rural areas and will be sold on credit bases to improve the production of safe sun flower edible oil to the market.