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THE Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) through its Green Reference Group (GRG) met in Dar es Salaam to discuss challenges and opportunities that would enable Kilombero farmers to embrace sustainable commercial farming friendly for environmental conservation.
Speaking during the meeting that attracted different stakeholders from both public and private sectors over the weekend, Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Vice-President’s Office, Mr Abdallah Mitawi said the participants had revisited past meeting recommendations and came up with improved version meant to improve socio-economic growth and development.
“As the world facing the crisis of climate change that experiencing some parts of world to seasonal rains. This has compelled SAGCOT through GRG to come up with sustainable commercial farming suitable and friendly for conserving environment,” Mr Mitawi said.
He said agriculture contributes between ten and 14 per cent of carbon monoxide resulting into climatic change whereas almost 100 per cent of people depend heavily on agriculture.
Speaking at the same venue, Gairo District Commissioner, Mr Jabiri Makame, who was among the two DCs who attended the meeting, said 95 per cent of wananchi in his district were engaging in agriculture and that the meeting served as the best platform to share experiences on how to do sustainable farming.
Mr Makame congratulated SAGCOT for pushing forward the agenda of sustaining the sectors of agriculture, livestock and fisheries with focus on conserving and protecting environment.
Earlier, the SAGCOT for Kilombero Cluster in Morogoro, Mr John Banga said GRG was supervised by VPO and was working as the advisory body of SAGCOT at cluster and national levels with view to coordinating environmental issues in partnership.
“Among the priories signed in our Memorandum of Association (MoU) were modern livestock, prioritising crops which will give economic opportunities to farmers especially farmers in Morogoro Region,” Mr Banga said.
He said the government‘s resolve to establish special programme dubbed ‘Building a Better Tomorrow’ for sectors of agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries would stimulate and increase innovation and production.
