DODOMA: Bill on arable land in the offing

By The Citizen Reporter, Dodoma.

The ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives is preparing a bill to enact a law for safeguarding arable land.

The minister, Eng Christopher Chiza, said this when he was moving his ministry budget for 2013/14.

He noted with concern that the size of arable land has been diminishing in recent years.He said Tanzania has 44 million hectares of land which is ideal for farming, but there has been constant pressure on it because of increasing human activities.

“We have realised that the size of farmland has been diminishing in recent years due to expansion of other human activities, such as construction, development of infrastructure and mining,” he said.Mr Chiza also noted that the land has not produced to its maximum capacity because many people have not been observing modern methods of agriculture and better land use.

He said failure to observe this has also led to a deterioration of the quality of land as well as floods.Apart from affecting land quality, this was also detrimental to human life, he noted. The minister said he believed that a law for protecting arable land would help to enlist the type of crops which can be grown in certain areas depending on the soil.

“This move is important in order to achieve the government’s aim of safeguarding land for agriculture and help users to have title deeds which they can use to boost their capital for investment in farming,” he said.

Mr Chiza added that the law would help to reduce land conflicts because each piece of land wouldbe marked and set aside for farming activities only, and likewise in the case of land for wildlife, forests and mining.

Source: The Citizen (22/04/2013): http://thecitizen.co.tz/news/4-national-news/30762-bill-on-arable-land-in-the-offing