Tanzania: Company lends Sh100m tractors to farmer groups

04 February 2010, The Citizen
URL: http://thecitizen.co.tz/newe.php?id=17112

Dar es Salaam:  A tobacco company has loaned farmers in Chunya District, Mbeya Region, four tractors worth Sh100 million.  The Tanzania Leaf Tobacco Company (TLTC) handed over the tractors to four agricultural societies in the district.  The tractors will belong to tobacco growers in Chunya district, but would also be used to till the land for growing other crops, depending on the needs of farmers.

TLTC group corporate affairs director Richard Sinamtwa said the company was working with growers in the district to implement the key pillars of the Kilimo Kwanza initiative.  He said the tractors were bought for groups, namely Majengo, Upendo, Kalangali and Nkung'ungu, under a special partnership arrangement in which farmers, through their cooperative movement, would pay back less than the purchase price.

"TLTC, working with their partners within the cooperative movement, will help primary cooperative societies to meet their objectives through extension services and provision of certified high yield seeds," Mr Sinamtwa said.

TLTC has also initiated a tobacco seedbeds irrigation project in the same area, and has distributed to farmers at no cost 200 irrigation pumps to be used in growing tobacco and other crops.

Chunya District Commissioner Rashid Ndaile said mechanisation of agriculture was given priority through the National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (Mkukuta) as well as Kilimo Kwanza.