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Chinese agricultural technology boosts Tanzania's farming

Xinhua, May 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Demonstration Centre of China Agriculture Technology in Tanzania has been working effectively in promoting Tanzania's agricultural production, an Chinese agriculture expert said.

In three years' technical cooperation since 2012, the demonstration centre has trained 1,100 Tanzanians, including agricultural officials, technicians and local farmers, with advanced agricultural technology through training courses, said Prof. Chen Hualin, the director of the centre.

"The centre has also provided agricultural consultations to more than 2,000 Tanzanians," he told Xinhua.

Cooperation between China and Africa on agriculture has grown deeper and wider in recent years. Demonstration centers have been built in a number of African countries including Rwanda, Mozambique and Cote d'Ivoire, and another seven is under construction or have been planned.

Chines Ministry of Agriculture said it has signed over 30 cooperation agreements with 17 African nations, a moved highly praised by Tumusiime Rhoda Peace, Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture at the African Union (AU) Commission.

She said China is one of the partners, with whom AU is cooperating in agriculture and Africa is learning a lot from China for the development of the agriculture sector.

Located in Dakawa, Morogoro region, about 250 kilometers from Dar es Salaam, the China agriculture technology demonstration centre was formally established under the third Beijing Summit of the Sino-Africa Cooperation Forum.

The project has been carried out by Chongqing Sino-Tanzania Agriculture Development Co. Ltd. and most of its 11 agricultural experts are from China's Chongqing Academy of Agricultural Science.

With the functions of experiment and research, technical training, demonstration and promotion, the centre has been carrying out trial, demonstration and technical training on rice, maize, vegetable, tissue culture of banana and layer raising.

African countries have been investing with a minimum 10 percent of national budget on agriculture since 2003. However, Around 226 million people, or one out of every five people in Africa, were chronically food insecure, according to the AU.

Since 2009, China has dispatched more than 1,000 agricultural experts to 13 African countries, while the China-Africa Development Fund proposed by the Sino-Africa Cooperation Forum said it has invested over 6 billion U.S. dollars into agricultural projects in Africa.

In Tanzania, Chinese experts from the demonstration centre and scientists from Tanzania's Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives have been carrying out collaboration trials in the field of rice and maize.

"Under the preliminary trials, the calculated unit production of the Chinese hybrid rice varieties have reach 9 to 12 tons per hectare," Chen said, adding that the Chinese rice varieties not only have high yields, but also have good tastes.

According to the professor, after adopting Chinese technology last year, a local farmland in Dakawa yielded 40 percent more rice than other farmlands which are not using Chinese technology.

"What we've been doing shows that China is helping Africa sincerely," he said. Endi