A new dam will be built in Tanzania. This was announced recently by Hussein Bashe, the Tanzanian Deputy Minister of Agriculture. The future dam will be built in Kalebe, a village in the Kagera region. The new facility will have a holding capacity of 268 m3. The dam will be built on the Ngono River to irrigate 11,700 hectares of virgin land over the next five years. “In addition to irrigation, the future dam will be used to generate electricity, water for pastoralism, fishing and flood control,” says Hussein Bashe, Tanzania’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture.
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According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Tanzania is experiencing continued growth in its agricultural sector. The East African country is considered largely self-sufficient in some staple foods, including maize, cassava, paddy, sorghum and bananas. The future dam will further boost the production of Tanzanian farmers, thus improving the food security of the population.
In Tanzania, the Songwe River is also the focus of attention. In 2019, the country has partnered with Malawi in a project to upgrade the river. The 472 km long Songwe River originates in Poroto-Berge in Tanzania and zigzags between the two borders before flowing into Lake Malawi.
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The project, developed by the Tanzania-Malawi Joint Commission on Songwe River Basin Management, involves the irrigation of 6,000 hectares of plantations on both sides of the border. The irrigation water is pumped from the Songwe Dam.
Inès Magoum