Memorandum of Understanding for Poultry and Aquaculture strengthens the cooperation between Tanzania and the Netherlands

Signing of the MoU on poultry and aquaculture

The signing of the MoU will further deepen the 40-year agricultural cooperation between the two countries by focusing on sustainable agribusiness and knowledge transfer through demo-farms and by working together with Tanzanian training institutes. The cooperating public institutions and private companies work together in two Impact Clusters, which are designed to positively impact the growth of the poultry and aquaculture sectors in Tanzania. This public-private partnership aims to strengthen both value chains through capacity building, by value creation for Tanzanian farmers and companies and through awareness creation on the consumption of safe and healthy aquaculture and poultry products. The document was signed by Tanzanian Deputy Minister for Livestock and Fisheries Abdallah Ulega and Dutch Vice Minister for Agriculture, Nature, and Food Quality Marjolijn Sonnema. The signing ceremony of the MoU generated a lot of media attention and was published in several Tanzanian newspapers.

Agrocares mobile lab

After the successful signing of the MoU, Vice Minister Sonnema and Deputy Minister Ulega had received the honours for opening Tanzania’s first mobile lab for soil analysis. With this lab, soil sample testing is reduced to minutes, instead of weeks. The lab is a collaboration between the Dutch Company Agrocares and the Tanzanian Company Live Support Systems.

Want to learn more about the Mobile Lab? Please click this link.

Seminar

Given the importance the Netherlands attaches to cooperation with Tanzania, the Vice Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality of the Netherlands visited Tanzania on 10 and 11 July 2019. With her delegation, she visited and met with companies who are investing in circular and sustainable agriculture to discuss future cooperation strategies between Kenya and the Netherlands.

During a seminar session with the theme: “Netherlands and Tanzania: Strong Partners in Sustainable Agribusiness” stakeholders from the priority sectors, i.e. horticulture, aquaculture, potatoes and poultry, were given the opportunity to represent their sector and showcase the Partnership between Tanzania and the Netherlands in Sustainable Agribusiness, different parties presented and discussed their activities.

At the end of the seminar, all attending business were invited for a network reception where they had the opportunity to meet the Vice Minister.

Field visits: High-Tech and Low-tech solutions for Africa

The next day the delegation set off to meet the entrepreneurs and innovators of the Twende Innovation Centre. This is a social innovation hub supports innovators to develop African innovative solutions for African agricultural problems. Through presentations on the different innovations, such as a specialized fertilizer applicator and a wheelbarrow-manure spreader, insight was gathered on how local inclusive initiatives can benefit the development of Tanzania’s agricultural sector.

Later on, the delegation continued to visit the seed-breeding company Rijkzwaan, which has been active in Tanzania since 2002. Rijkzwaan produces hybrid vegetable seeds and aims to specialize their seeds to sustainably feed the African market.

> During the visit many beautiful pictures were taken that give an impression of the events. Please find the photos here.