Hiked hybrid coffee seedling prices are aimed at enabling Tanzania Coffee Research Institute (TaCRI) and private plant breeders supply farmers with 20 million seedlings per annum for the next two decades.
TaCRI Chief Executive Director, Prof James Teri said the price increase from 150/- to 500/- per seedling was endorsed by coffee sector stakeholders last year to boost multiplication of hybrid seedlings which are proving to be popular among farmers in the country.
“Annually TaCRI presents proposals to stakeholders which are aimed at addressing the problem of hybrid seedling shortages, the most important being massive investment for the accelerated multiplication and distribution,” said Prof Teri.
He was responding to concerns raised by some farmers in Kilimanjaro Region who said the price increase was huge hence a hindrance to their efforts to modernise their aged farms. “Stakeholders resolved last year to have a national programme of replanting with 20 million seedlings each year for the next 10 years or 200 million seedlings in 10 years.
This requires investment from Ministry of Agriculture, district councils where coffee is cultivated and private plant breeders,” he pointed out. TAcRI which developed the hybrid coffee seedlings which are high yielding and resistant to pests and diseases in the past two decades is struggling to reproduce the same in abundance as the hybrid has become popular among farmers.
Despite the price increase, TaCRI chief said production of the hybrid seedlings cost 1,000/- each which means already the price will be subsidized by 50 percent. With a production of over 10.4 million seedlings per annum TaCRI’s capacity has been dwarfed by growing farmers demand.
Coffee which accounts for about 20 percent of the country’s foreign exchange earnings and directly supports an estimated 450,000 farm families, remains a popular cash crop in Arusha, Iringa, Kilimanjaro,Kagera, Kigoma, Mbeya and Ruvuma. In a bid to assist its members afford to purchase the seedlings, G32 network of primary cooperatives is subsidizing prices by paying 400/- per seedling.
“We know that the price is very high for our members hence we subsidise it to enable them get the hybrid seeds,” said G32 General Manager, Gabriel Ulomi. Mr Ulomi noted that while the group which broke away from Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative Union over a decade ago to market its own coffee, supports the idea of reaching the 200 million mark by 2021, most farmers are struggling due to falling world market prices for the commodity.
According to Tanzania Coffee Board auction data, coffee prices fell from a peak of 350 US dollars last season to 225 US dollars this season due to an increase in production by global leaders, Brazil.
By FINNIGAN WA SIMBEYE, Tanzania Daily News
