Serengeti Advisers and AgriSol Energy are partnering to contribute to Tanzania’s long-term food security. Tanzania has abundant arable land, much of which is not currently being farmed, and yet we face periodic food shortages. We have joined in this investment with AgriSol Energy because we see an opportunity in the short-term to help develop a solution for our country’s food security challenge through the use of modern, sustainable agricultural methods and, in the longer-term, the ability to help address the East African region’s food security issues.
In Western Tanzania there is extremely limited modern, large-scale farming. Our project plans to develop two farms in Kigoma of approximately 13,750 hectares. The project will use world-class, sustainable and environmentally responsible farming methods. Such farming methods will dramatically improve yields of maize and other food crops over current average yields in our country. In 2010, Tanzania’s maize yield of about 1.2 tonnes per hectare was approximately half that of Zambia’s (2.2 t/ha), a third of those achieved by South Africa and Brazil (4.1 t/ha) and just 13 percent of U.S. levels (9.2 t/ha).