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Agriculture Existing Situation
About 85% of People in Mbeya District are agriculturalists; they cultivate cash and food crops. Traditionally, the farmers in Mbeya District have been dependent on rain for their agricultural activities. However production has started falling hence there is a need to take measures such as increased use of fertilizers, irrigation and mechanization so as to arrest the situation. Cash crops available from improved varieties are coffee, pyrethrum and sunflowers. An average production of cash crops is 3590 tons per year.
As for food crops they cultivate maize, Cabbages, Carrots, Green beans, Tomato, Leeks & Onions, Cucumber and Irish potatoes. There is also a practice in horticulture whereby they cultivate Peaches, Avocado, Passions, Mangoes and Macadamia. Majority of farmers in the District are smallholders who depend on tradition tools such as machete or “nyengo” and the bush knife or “panga”, as they are commonly known for land clearing and hand hoe for cultivation. The use of tractors and draft animal technology (ADT) are very limited, as a result fields are fairly small.
Animal Production Given the climatic conditions and an ample land for grazing, livestock production is getting an upper hand in Mbeya District. Approximately 4.2% of the population engages in livestock keeping and it is their main source of income. The common livestock kept at larger number include cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and poultry.
Mbeya District has a total of 196,768 livestock (2007/2008). This is an increase of 31.1% compared to the number livestock recorded in 2006/2007. Table No 5: Livestock Sales for the Year 2007/2008 | | Type of animal | Number | Average price (Tshs) | Value (Tshs) | | 1 | Cattle | 14,728 | 250,000 | 3,682,000,000 | | 2 | Goats | 6,752 | 20,000 | 135,040,000 | | 3 | Sheep | 849 | 15,000 | 12,735,000 | | 4 | Pigs | 3,924 | 50,000 | 196,200,000 | | 5 | Chicken | 62,753 | 3000 | 188,259,000 | | 6 | Ducks | 6,113 | 2000 | 12,226,000 | | | Total | | 4,226,460,000 | Source: DALDOs Office Mbeya District Council 2008.
Dairy Farming
There are two major donor funded programmes /projects that have been supporting Dairy farming in Mbeya District for the past 14 years. These are SHDDP, which has been replaced by SHILDA and HPI. With these two programmes farmers have benefited a lot in terms of improved nutritional status and income. The system applied under HPI is technically known as Heifer in Transfer, that is heifers are distributed to few farmers to start with as seed capital. As such the first heifer’s products are transferred to another group of farmers. The system is closely monitored to ensure sustainability of the programme. The programme covers about 50 villages. So far there are 1981 Dairy Cattle and 372 Dairy goats in the District. In this case, zero grazing is highly emphasized.
Investment Opportunities
The potential areas to invest are in agricultural are cultivation and in agro processing of cash crops, food crops and horticulture. In this case investor can construct secondary industries for different packing materials e.g. crates, bottles, perforated packing materials, labels, Oil processing industries, plantations & contract farming and Agro processing industries.
Area of Investment | CROP | PLACE (WARDS) | AREAS OF INVESTMENT | | Coffee | Igale, Iwindi, Ut/Usongwe, Mshewe, Iwiji. | Contract farming & Plantations and value addition | | Pyrethrum | Santilya, Iyunga Mapinduzi,Isuto. | Contract Farming& Plantations and Agro processing Industries | | Sun flower | Mshewe, Ut/Usongwe, Inyala, Tembela, Ulenje. | Contract Farming& Plantations and Agro processing Industries Large scale production of oilseeds, Processing animal feeds from oilseeds. | | Food crops | Ut/Usongwe, Mshewe, Tembela, Inyala, Ihango, Isuto, Igale, Ikukwa, Ilungu, Ulenje and Santilya. | Agro processing industries, Plantations | | Fruits | Ut/Usongwe, Mshewe, Tembela, Inyala, Ihango, Isuto, Igale, Ikukwa, Ilungu, Ulenje and Santilya. | Establishment of fruits and vegetables processing industries, Investment in provision of fruit and vegetable seeds, |
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Districts 
