The Tanzania Coffee Board (TCB), a government body tasked with regulating the East African country’s coffee industry, announced that it has begun taking steps to increase crop production.
TCB plans to increase production from 70,000 tons per year to 300,000 tons per year by 2025.
The chairman of the TCB board of directors, Aurelia Kamuzora, stated that the board was working with coffee stakeholders in the country to ensure that the target of 300,000 tons by 2025 was met.
The country also expected local coffee consumption to rise from 7% to 15% as a result of the local coffee consumption campaign and the government’s efforts to reduce Tanzanian product reliance on foreign markets.
Speaking at the conclusion of a three-day coffee festival in Tanzania’s northern municipality of Moshi, at the foot of Africa’s highest mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro, Kamuzora stated that the board has already begun increasing the availability of coffee seedlings in large quantities for coffee growers.
The Minister of Agriculture, Adolf Mkenda, stated that the Tanzania Coffee Research Institute (TaCRI) has already demonstrated success in producing drought-resistant coffee seeds.
Mkenda urged financial institutions to assist the government in its efforts to increase cash crop production.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan directed the Ministry of Agriculture in April to increase the production of strategic crops such as coffee in order for the country to earn much-needed foreign currency through exports.
TCB Acting Director General Primus Kimaryo, while commenting on this year’s World Coffee Day, said “The sixth phase government continues to mobilise the use of local products, so as to avoid the dependence of foreign markets in building our economy, this trend as well as the on-going campaign meant to improve the local consumption of coffee will see the increase of the coffee locally.”