Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute

The National Technical Committee has been held on 12 July, 2024 in Shinyanga region by bringing together cotton stakeholders from eleven Tanzanian regions in which Cotton Victoria Project is in implementation. The regions involve Mwanza, Simiyu, Geita, Mara, Shinyanga, Tabora, Katavi, Kigoma, Singida, Dodoma and Morogoro.

Among the attendees included the Acting Director General of the Tanzania Cotton Board (TCB), Mr. James Shimbe, project coordinators and researchers from the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) Ukiriguru centre, project supervisors from the participating regions and other government officials in charge of agriculture coordination.

The key intent of the meeting was to evaluate the project’s development in the last farming season (2023/2024) and to set strategies of uplifting its performance in the next season of 2024/2025.

In his presentation Dr. Paul Saidia who doubles as coordinator of the project from TARI also Ukiriguru centre director said in the 11 regions of project’s implementation, 217,061 farmers out of 517,343 equivalents to 42% adopted the new planting spacing of 60cm x 30cm.

“We have moved from 40 percent to 42%, This is achievement and thanks to all kind of efforts that project participants were undertaking” He said calling for more joint efforts that will enable to reach about 600,000 farmers in the next seasons.

In the next faming season of 2024/2025, stakeholders have pledged to put more muscles in many areas including increasing pre basic seed production to reach a target of 20 tones cotton, updating dose rate of insecticide according to new spacing in different soil types, updating social economic information according to new spacing in different soil types and also to ensure more media coverage, farmer’s field days, and demo plots to disseminate new technologies to new cotton growing areas.

On his part Acting Director General of the TCB Mr. James Shimbe said the Cotton Victoria project has positively impacted the industry as farmers have been eye-witnessing how other fellow farmers harvest to 2,000kg per acre through 60cm x 30cm spacing. He also commended TARI researchers for innovating the planting machine ‘Rafiki Plater’ that simplifies planting activities in a recommended spacing.

In Tanzania, the Cotton Victoria Project was established in 2016 under the partnership of Brazilian and Tanzanian government with the aim to solve the challenges facing Cotton Sub-Sectors in the country. It also includes other stakeholders from inside and outside the country such as the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI), Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC) the Brazilian Cotton Institute (IBA), the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA), Tanzanian Cotton Board (TCB) Local Government Authorities just to mention a few.