ENABLE-TAAT has held the Tanzanian edition of its open day to increase youth inclusion and development in agriculture value chains. The open day provided an excellent networking forum for farmers and youth in Tanzania to share different knowledge and ideas about agribusiness to develop their capacity and promote and showcase youth agricultural products to increase their income.
The exhibition brought stakeholders from different sectors, including financial institutions like the Equity Bank, which encouraged youths to engage in best entrepreneurial practices, such as forming affiliated groups to make it easier for them to obtain bank loans to advance their agribusiness activities. The bank also promised to provide loans to all youth who formed cooperative groups.
“Our main goal is to help young people achieve their goals, so we pledge to provide them with helpful loans. Our best initiative is to encourage all young people who have not yet formed cooperative groups to do so and give us their proposal so that we can provide them with a loan according to their needs,” said Equity Bank Loan Officer, Clara Nyalusi.
In addressing marketing challenges, Dar es salaam Regional Agriculture Officer Dr. Elizabeth Mshote stressed the importance of using the different experts available to resolve the problem that has proven to be a significant impediment to farmers in achieving their objectives. “If we want to solve our marketing problems, we need to strengthen close cooperation with marketing officers and business development officers so that they can tell us what is needed and what we are supposed to do to reach the needed target,” Mshote said.
The participants visited demonstration fields to observe and learn from various activities conducted by youth and experts. The youth and farmers applauded the event for the opportunity to interact with experts and find solutions to problems across value chains. Rosemary Mbaga, one of the youth participants, said, “This exhibition has inspired me a lot to be consistent in my agribusiness establishment, and I urge IITA to continue with this initiative so that more young people would benefit from this.”
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