DAR ES SALAAM: President Samia Suluhu Hassan says as much as youths form the large part of the African population, Tanzania has embarked in engaging them into the food systems through Building a Better Tomorrow (BBT) programme that allows youth and women to be fully committed to the agricultural sector and upgrade their livelihoods.
Speaking during the ongoing Africa's Food Systems Forum 2023 Summit at Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre (JNICC) in Dar es Salaam on Thursday, President Samia says that the move is one of the government's plans which aims at improving agribusiness for the young population through addressing challenges facing the sector.
"It is an opportune time for our governments to engage in discussion with youth and women on barriers and bottlenecks that prevent them from embracing agriculture as a productive sector...," President Samia says.
Speaking on BBT, Tanzania's leader says the programme was formulated through the government's participation, researchers, private sectors, youth and development partners with the vision to create 3 million direct and indirect jobs by 2030 while also expected to cause the establishment of 12 thousand profitable youth enterprises.
Since its inception in 2022, she adds, BBT has successfully recruited 1,252 youth and women and so far, a total of 812 have been enrolled to undertake a four-month agribusiness training in 13 incubation centers for crops and 240 for livestock and 200 for fisheries.
Additionally, the Head of State said youth can be a center for food systems transformation in Tanzania by the genuine support and commitment of the private sector and other sectors like development partners.
She further states BBT's is designed to inspire youth to engage in sustainable and profitable projects through crop production, livestock keeping and fisheries, empowering them through training, mentoring and coaching, youth engagement in profitable and sustainable agribusiness management and to enable youth led enterprises by improving their business environments.
After her speech, in a dialogue with youths present at the event, Hadija Jabiri, the founder and MD of GBRI Business Solutions in Tanzania sought to know from the President about the major ways used by the government in helping farmers to get markets.
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President Samia mentions two challenges her government has discovered so far and already started working on, which are the food balance sheet requirements and market.
"The most interesting thing that has happened now is that in the last two years farmers cultivated a lot of peas but because they were not connected with the market and hadn't good plans the price of peas dropped massively and discouraged the farmers. Last year, pea was sold for only 300/- per kilo, but this year farmers have sold the same quantity as 2,000/- and we are embarking in this way for all other crops as well," she states.
