Due to unreliable weather patterns facing the country, barley farmers have been urged to seek and adhere to advice from farming experts to boost yields.
The call was made recently during an exhibition organized for barley farmers in Njiapanda village in Karatu district, Arusha Region. Speaking to farmers during the special exhibition, Moshi Barley Processing Factory Manager, Mr Vitus Muhusi said in order to get bumper harvests it is imperative that farmers adhere to experts’ advice.
He said that barley farmers in the country have been benefiting from support in terms of education and farming implements from the Tanzania Breweries Limited barley experts.
“Our experts know what the farmers are supposed to do to get good harvests in these times when the weather pattern in the country is unreliable and failing to follow expert opinion from the experts will only result in poor crop yield, and this can affect TBL productions,” he said.
He said that their plant requires about 15,00 tonnes of barley per year to meet the demand, a number which has not been achieved by farmers. The manager said that last year TBL saved about US$8 million when it managed to produce approximately 10,300 tonnes of barley.
“This was the first time in 31 years for TBL to produce this amount of barley through the Moshi plant, and this should be a challenge to the farmers, because we need more quality barley from them,” he said.
Barley expert from TBL, Joel Msechu speaking at the exhibition, said that currently they receive 6,000 to 7,000 tonnes of barley from farmers, saying that this is because farmers produce from habit rather than doing it for commercial purposes.
“From this exhibition, we have discovered that farmers still receive poor harvests, with most producing a maximum of 10 bags per acre, and from experiments we have conducted with them, they saw that they can harvest 16 to 24 bags per acre,” he said. He said that if they listen to the advice and instructions and change their farming practice and techniques, they are guaranteed to produce more barley.
“This year alone, farmers have planted about 28 hectares of barley and expect to harvest more than 10,000 tons,” he said. A barley farmer from Rotia village in Karatu, Anatoly Lohay said that he is now confident of planting 200 acres of barley after getting reassurance of a reliable market from TBL.
