RICE farmers from Tanga, Mbeya and Coast regions have trained on modern farming technologies to enhance productivity of the food and cash crop.

Senior Business Development Officer with the state-owned agricultural bank, Angelina Nyamsambo said the capacity building training was also aimed to ensure they shift from subsistence to commercial rice farming.

She said they are mandated to provide short, medium and long-term affordable credit facilities to farmers to achieve inclusive socio-economic development.

“We have been training rice framers so that they are able to adopt modern farming technologies for enhanced harvests. We also provide them with loans for expansion and improvement of their farming activities,” she said.

Nyamsambo said those benefitted with the training includes rice farmers from the Ruvu Irrigation Cooperative Society (CHAURU) and Tanga’s Mombo Irrigation Cooperative Society.

She said apart from acquiring the knowledge, farmers also visited one of the rice milling factories in Mbeya—Raphael Group Company Limited as well as rice farmers of the Mbuyuni Irrigation Cooperative Society also based in the region.

Rice is the second most important food grain crop after maize, produced in 64 districts and widely consumed in the country, according to the national rice development strategy 2019-2030.

About 71, 9 and 20 percent of rice cultivation in Tanzania takes place under rain fed lowland, lowland irrigated and upland conditions, respectively.

More than 70 percent of rice production in the country originates from six leading rice producing regions—Shinyanga, Tabora, Mwanza, Mbeya, Rukwa and Morogoro. Other regions include Songwe, Katavi, Arusha, Kilimanjaro, Kigoma, Manyara, Iringa, Mara and Tanga.