‘No country has developed with GMOs’

Business Digest

  EAST AFRICAN BUSINESS WEEK, KAMPALA, UGANDA

Monday, 28 January 2013 08:17 Kenan Kalagho, 

(Pictured Director General of RUBADA Mr. Aloyce Masanja Photo By Kenan Kalagho) 

Recently, Rufiji Basin Development Authority, (RUBADA) received proposals from a Brazilian dam construction company, to construct a dam at Stiegler’s George in Rufiji, along the Southern Agriculture Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT). East African Business Week's Kenan Kalagho interviewed RUBADA Director General Aloyce Masanja about the project. Below are the excerpts:

How is Tanzania intending to benefit from the 2100Mw of electricity considering our consumption capacity stands at 850Mw?
We  intend to introduce  Kilimo kwanza and other initiatives  to launch Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) project.
We aim to turn the whole southern corridor into a modern farming zone where agro processing industries will be built.

Why does RUBADA involve itself in hydro electric power production?
As a Tanzanian, I know in European countries like Norway, Sweden, the commonest source of energy is hydro power.
We agreed to hydro power because it is the cheapest way of generating electricity. What we seem to miss is the idea of conservation.  Europe has the best conservation projects that allow them to have reliable hydro electric power.

Do you think Tanzania lacks conservation experts?
I wouldn’t say we lack conservation experts, but political will to conserve these areas.
What we need is funds to conserve the whole area of about 54 thousand square km along which the project will be implemented.

Apart from this hydro power project, what other projects is RUBADA involved in?
We are a government entity and currently assigned to implement this power project and make sure that the countries have a reliable electricity supply.
We have also been given the mandate by the government to make sure that we promote kilimo kwanza initiatives and we have currently partnered with Agric company, a UK based firm to cultivate rice in Kilombelo, Morogoro to the eastern part of Tanzania and also involve ourselves in the conservation projects.

Is RUBADA willing to embrace GMOs seeds if such seeds are allowed to be adopted by the government in order to increase produce in the Rufiji Basin?
Embracing Genetic Modified seeds in the country is a very wrong concept because there is no country that has developed by embracing GM seeds.
We need to embrace these seeds if we are to promote cash crops like cotton, tobacco but not food crops like Maize Cassava and or Rice. 
What the country needs is to  give the inputs to farmers at the right time, let the farmers get seeds, fertilizers and other inputs at the right time and their produces would automatically be increased.

We often hear about SACGOT agriculture initiatives in as far as the Rufiji basin is concerned, has kilimo kwanza  failed?
The public needs to understand that Kilimo Kwanza is a framework and SAGCOT is going to implement that framework. We have plans to modernise farming that will see the construction of agro processing industries in the region and we will need electricity to do that.