SAGCOT Centre Ltd Chief Executive Officer Geoffrey Kirenga told a two-day high level Ihemi Cluster Leadership Compact review meeting held in Njombe Region recently.
Kirenga said by 2030 SAGCOT partners sought to have brought 350,000 hectares of land into profitable production while transforming 100,000 smallholders into commercial farmers.
He said the move aimed at creating 420,000 new employment opportunities, lifting two million people out of poverty, while raising their annual incomes to $1.2 billion.
The SAGCOT boss however said such investment would be done in partnership with the government and the private sector, with the private sector having majority shareholding.
“The private sector is an economic engine of growth. We project it to contribute $2.4 billion in capital for investment. The remaining capital would be footed by the government,” he said.
The SAGCOT initiative recognises various opportunities within the corridors along the Rufiji, Kilombero, Ihemi, Sumbawanga, Ludewa and Mbarali earmarked clusters.
Acting Njombe Regional Commissioner Anatory Choya, on behalf of Njombe Regional Commissioner Dr. Rehema Nchimbi, said the SAGCOT Centre and its partners had been facilitating agricultural consultation with the stakeholders from government agencies, civil society organizations, development partners, agribusiness companies, research institutions, financial institutions and also farmers’ representatives.
Choya said such consultations had developed strong partnerships among agriculture stakeholders in the region’s Ihemi cluster.
Since the launch of SAGCOT in 2010, there has been an increase in the number of partners willing to invest in the project from just 20 in 2011 to about 100 by this year, according to the regional commissioner, with about 65 per cent of such partners being private sector institutions.
Farmers in the region, for their part, have urged the government, through public-private partnership, to provide smallholder farmers with quality agro-inputs and seeds, thereby improving their livelihoods.
They said that the question of raising production of their crops needed to go hand in hand with securing markets for their farm products.
Beno Mgaya, a sweet potato farmer from Njombe region, said despite bumper harvest of the crop, he had constantly been faced with lack of markets.
SAGCOT aims to help small-scale farmers in the country have access to modern inputs, be able to address climate change impacts while at the same time connecting them to international markets.
It also aims to link farmers to modern farming techniques as well as supply chains while making agriculture a profitable activity in a country where more than 75 per cent of the population is engaged in the sector.
Such initiative is also said to enable farmers easy access to their market through the interconnection of roads, rail, power and an international port at Dar es Salaam and be able feed the East Africa region and the rest of the world.
