Youths to benefit from PASS’ goat fattening camp in Kongwa district

At least 10 youths have been selected to take part in a goat fattening project
in Kongwa district as part of an ongoing initiative by the Private Agricultural Sector
Support (PASS) Trust’s Agricultural Innovation Centre (AIC), that is aimed at
empowering young entrepreneurs.
The new initiative in the district is aimed at mentoring and coaching young
entrepreneurs engaged in livestock keeping on skills and techniques of goat
fattening to enable them venture into businesses.
The youths were selected after a 5 days training that attracted 27 youths in Kongwa
district, interested in learning about new skills and techniques of goat fattening, for
purposes of initiating and running their own businesses
The project that is implemented by the Agricultural Innovation Centre seeks to
introduce youth into the world of agribusiness and livestock production and coach
them into handling their own businesses and self-employment.

“This is a good start in Kongwa and the fact that many youths turned out for this training
actually tells that the youth are ready to create their own jobs in Agriculture and
livestock production. As PASS, we shall support this process to ensure their dreams
are valid “Said PASS managing Director Nicomed Bohay

After the 5-day training, each of the 10 youths will be given 100 goats for fattening.
They will be coached and mentored by experts from both PASS and Tanzania
Livestock Research Institute (TALIRI) on how to go about fattening the goats. The
fattened goats will be sold after every 2-3 months and immediately replenished and
the process continues.

“Each year, we plan to incubate at least 20 youths with these skills so that the youths
can learn to be independent and embrace livestock production as a source of income”
Added Bohay

PASS-AIC are running this program concurrently with yet another agribusiness
incubation program, that is providing an opportunity for youths with any education
background from across the country, to start, operate and own an agri business.

The program being hosted at the Sokoine University of Agriculture and Technology
grounds
has provided walled incubation centres with fully established agribusiness facilities
and services that are provided to youth who enter incubation for a period of one year.

There are 20 operational screen houses where 20 youths are being couched
mentored on tomato production. They receive both technical and business training
where they learn many things including planting, fertilizer application, plant
management, harvest, as well as record keeping, sourcing inputs, banking, expense
accounts, marketing, doing sales, cash management, budgeting, among others.
The good news is that PASS does not leave the incubates after they have exited the
one-year training. Upon exiting from the training, PASS through AIC facilitates
provision of land at various districts for the continuation of the cultivation. It also
facilitates the incubates with access to finance from commercial banks and provides
credit guarantee up to 80%, besides provision of linkages to suppliers of their
products.
Besides the two stations of Morogoro and Kongwa, PASS-AIC is working towards
expanding the services to other centres including agro processing in Dar es Salaam
and Dodoma. Other areas include Zanzibar and Tanga

According to the 2018 results released recently by the managing director, PASS is
targeting to create at least 700,000 jobs in the agricultural sector in the year 2019
MD Bohay also says at least 235,253 families will benefit either directly or indirectly
from the jobs which will be created through PASS model of loans guarantee worth
210.6 billion shillings and business development services.
“Every year, we have over 800,000 youths joining the labour market in Tanzania, yet
there are no jobs to accommodate these numbers. At PASS, we believe that through
mentorship and couching in agri business entrepreneurship, we can help many
youths to start their own enterprises” Said Bohay
A total of 929,172 agricultural entrepreneurs have benefited from PASS guaranteed
loans amounting to Tsh. 712 billion between the years 2000 to 2018.In the year 2018
alone, PASS benefited a total of 196,873 agribusinesses through loans guarantee as
well as business development services in 26 regions spread across Tanzania.