Tanzania: Water Scarcity Threatens Horticulture Industry.
Speaking to the ‘Sunday News’ yesterday, they said the declining water levels also threaten the country’s future food security prospects and calls for immediate action to manage the resource well.
Mr Paul said that when it comes to water scarcity in the past three years; some areas of the country have at times faced acute water shortages.
"As a result, some farm-ers lost crops due to drought.
During heavy rains – infra-structure was destroyed by floods," he explained.
Procedures and processes for sustainable management and development of water in Tanzania are stipulated in the 2009 Water Resources Management Act.
Horticulture though is gradually becoming the main activity in these remote areas, where approximately 300,000 farmers are in dire need of water to irrigate their crops; there is no specific legislation to govern the rural water sub-sector.
"This has resulted into uncontrolled use of water that is not only inhibiting horticultural productivity, but also fuelling conflicts, most-ly compounded by rights to access the resource in Arusha, Kilimanjaro and Tanga regions," Mr Paul explains in his paper presented at a one-day water stakeholders’ dia-logue meeting held in Arusha.
TAHA Chief Executive Officer, Jacqueline Mkindi said the Fifth Phase Government’s industrialisa-tion policy was a blessing to horticultural farmers whose local market will be expanded as a result of crops processing plants to be put up at their disposal.
She said the industry, which currently employs about 2.5 million horticul-tural farmers, 60 per cent of them being women, will attract 10 million farmers in five year-time as a result of TAHA’s five-year strategy.