Tanzania: plan for resistant coffee underway
Mugini Jacob, Voices of Africa mobile reporter in the Mara Tanzania
Coffee Berry Disease (CBD) has badly affected coffee production in the Tanzanian Northern Tarime District. Coffee farmers are now complaining that the disease has spread to all coffee growing zones of the district, hence contributing to worsen their living conditions.
‘I have 200 coffee plants but I have harvested only four bags and this is a huge loss. When I use I spray pesticides the number of bags increases but if you don't apply pesticides you end up with nothing’, Eliasiri Chacha, one of the popular coffee growers in Tarime laments.
The disease, he says has affected many farmers despite that the cash crop was fetching sweet price in the world market at the moment.
The Tanzania Coffee Research Institute (TaCRI) has embarked on special programme aimed at replacing the old coffee plants with new varieties that resistant to diseases.
Ms Sheila Mdemu an official with TaCRI says the new varieties will also double production of the cash crop in the Tarime and other coffee growing zones in East African country.
‘So far we have 20 farming groups who have embarked on multiplication of the new varieties in Tarime with the support of TaCRI’, she says.
Majority of Tarime residents rely on coffee as their major cash crop.
12 July 2010, 18:03
