STAKEHOLDERS in the Katavi region have been asked to take advantage of the various opportunities available in the whole issue of environmental protection in order to get rid of themselves economically.

The call has been made by the Business Development Manager Herman Bashiri when he represented the Executive Director of the Private Agricultural Sector Support Trust (PASS Trust) in the continuation of the 'Kijanisha Maisha' campaign that continues to be held in various regions of the country.

Bashiri has said that the PASS Trust institution is engaged in empowering all entrepreneurs in the agricultural chain such as breeding, fishing and forest products.

He said that the aim of the campaign is to support the government's efforts in the whole issue of environmental protection, especially in agriculture, which is a large part of the country's income and also in terms of employment for Tanzanians.

"We need all our stakeholders to be able to get this information and take advantage of this collaborative Green because it is a special package prepared for all people who use the environment" said Bashiri

And Katavi Regional Agriculture Officer Faridu Abdallah, when he represented the Katavi Regional Administrative Secretary, said that the region has wide opportunities that have not yet been used in the agricultural sector, so he has called on stakeholders to take advantage of those opportunities.

"We have an area that is suitable for agriculture more than 932,136 hectares, but the area that is cultivated so far is about 250,000 hectares, so you still see that there is a large area that is not cultivated" said Faridu

He has said that the government has invested money for the agricultural sector, where for the Katavi Region it has allocated 48 billion shillings for the improvement of irrigation schemes.

He said that in terms of the livestock and fishing sector, there is Lake Tanganyika which has not been used properly to produce results.

"There is an opportunity for fish farming in natural ponds, we can dig and breed because there is potential, if we can dig and find water we can breed fish"

However, he has asked the breeders to breed productively and abandon local breeding to improve breeding including fattening while saying that Katavi Region has many breeding areas but has been facing the challenge of local breeding.

"We breed maybe to see ourselves that we have a lot of cows but we are not set up for business, we go to Kijanisha to improve in the sense of fattening so that we can improve our breeding to be productive"

On his part, the official guest, Assistant Administrative Secretary for Economy and Production in Katavi region, Nehemiah James, when he represented the regional head, Mwanamvua Mrindoko, said the presence of PASS Trust in the region will help farmers and entrepreneurs to use the presence of the organization to improve their business and agriculture. by borrowing loans.

And some of the stakeholders who participated in the event, which was loaded with various trainings, said that the training will be productive for them to do business as well as farming business in order to liberate themselves economically through the various credit opportunities they were told.

PASS Trust provides an opportunity for agricultural business stakeholders from the fishing, breeding, and forestry sectors to obtain loans from financial institutions through the PASS loan guarantee system where these entrepreneurs have the opportunity to obtain loan guarantees of up to 80%.