Our Correspondent
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), other organizations of the United Nations, NGOs, CSOs, the Group of Partners for the Development of Agriculture and Nutrition, farmers, the private sector, and researchers and academic institutions met in Morogoro in Tanzania to review and improve the priorities and roadmap of Food systems established in 2021 through integrated dialogues led by the National Conference on Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar.
The meeting was organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in May 2024, whereby the Director of Marketing and Food Safety from the Tanzanian Ministry of Agriculture, Gungu Mibavu after opening the meeting and discussion said, “The main mission of this meeting is to reveiw the past meeting of stakeholders (Food systems meeting held in March 2021), to discuss what is there and what are its changes so far, with more than three years having passed, since many things have happened and we the Ministry have continued to improve many issues related to the development of the Food Industry Agriculture, therefore, what we want to see is whether the existing one still reflects the things that we continue to do as a Ministry, but also to know what new areas we can enter, I talked about the issues of coordination and good governance, if you look at our priorities you will see if they are not aligned, and that is why I emphasized that these the efforts made by various Institutions, without coordinating them and setting firm plans for them, we will find that everyone repeats the plans that have been made by others, an issue that wastes resources and time”
From the Tanzania Island side, the Head of the Policy Division in the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, Natural Resources, and Livestock in Zanzibar, Sihaba Haji Vuai explained the improvements they have that are in line with the priorities to achieve the goals of the SDGs.
“We are in line with the existing priorities in the food systems, our efforts in reforming Agriculture, we have had six priorities in Agricultural products, fruit products, spice products and we have livestock products, therefore, following the existing priorities, we have focused more on strengthening production infrastructure in the Agriculture Sector as a whole and Irrigation Agriculture in Rice, but there is also Irrigation Agriculture in vegetables, we are also focusing on ensuring crops produced, are processed to the extent that they can be used by reaching the consumers directly in a more secure way, therefore, this reform we have aimed to have centers for the processing of agricultural products for each District,” said Sihaba
Among the six priorities discussed in the Food System Conference in 2023, the achievement of which has been discussed in this Conference, include production in the sub-sectors of crops, livestock, and fishing, agricultural financing, and the participation of the private sector in the system of food, adaptation to climate change, adaptation and protection of biodiversity.
