Increased palm oil farming to reduce cooking oil prices in Tanzania

Currently, Tanzania is a net importer of around 400,000 tonnes of palm oil from Malaysia. The annual cooking oil demand is estimated at 600,000 tonnes. Under the move, the government has directed district and regional authorities and other leaders of political parties to use their platforms to spearhead the exercise so as to boost the production of crop to halt the importation of edible oil in the country. The initiative also reinforces the engagements of palm oil stakeholders such as seedling producers, village leaders, financial institutions leaders, council leaders mostly in Kigoma Region which leads in palm cultivation. Tanzania has for years been grappling with perennial shortage of cooking oil, thus sending a fluctuation of prices to go up in the local market whose great share is being dominated by imports at 70 percent level. Data show Tanzania is spending a total of 500bn/- annually to import cooking oil. Despite being the leading among the EAC countries, it is very ...