Japanese Grant for the Food Security Project for Underprivileged Farmers (KR2)

On 1 st October, 2013, the official handing over ceremony for a consignment of fertilizer supplied under “ The Food Security Project for Underprivileged Farmers” will be held in Dar es Salaam.

H. E. Mr. Masaki Okada, Ambassador of Japan, and Hon. Eng. Christopher Chiza, Minister for Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives, will attend the ceremony.

The Government of Japan has provided the United Republic of Tanzania with a grant of 380 million yen (approximately 6.18 billion Tanzanian Shillings) for the procurement of 6,003 tonnes of fertilizer. This grant aims to improve food production, especially for underprivileged farmers, and with the ultimate goal to enhance food security in Tanzania.

In addition, by utilizing the income derived from the sale of the fertilizer, the Government of Tanzania will be able to support agricultural development and poverty alleviation.

These aims are also being supported by several other projects which have been launched or will be launched in the future, such as “The Small Scale Irrigation Development Project”, which launched this May. That project provides a loan of approximately 54 billion Tanzanian Shillings and aims to improve the productivity of farming and to stabilize the supply of food through increased irrigated farmland.

There is also the “Project for Supporting Rice Industry Development”, called “TANRICE2”, which has been implementing training programs for irrigated rice farming, and some other projects that aim at capacity building on irrigation farming or management of irrigation facilities.