Tanzania Prison Services (TPS) has singled out an ambitious plan to intensify irrigation farming by using modern equipment in its various prisons in efforts to feed prisons countrywide instead of depending on subsidies from the government.
Addressing a news conference here, the Commissioner General of Prison (CGP), Major General, Suleimani Mzee, said the Tanzania Prison was well prepared in irrigation farming in its different camps so as to have enough productivity all the time.
“In implementing our strategy in our different camps, already, TPS has procured tractors and other machines which can help in irrigation farming,” said the CGP.
Major General Mzee said TPS had already bought a machine for drilling boreholes at a cost of 600m/- so as to enable areas with shortage of water to use the machines in boosting irrigation farming.
According to him, the machine had already arrived in the country and that it was currently being used in drilling boreholes at different prisons implementing irrigation farming.
The CGP said in a short period of three years, TPS had recorded achievements especially in food production in order to feed inmates at different prisons countrywide.
He said the Tanzania Prison’s strategy was to ensure that in the next three years before 2025, the Tanzania Prison was attaining its target to feed itself by 100 per cent.
Currently the prison service is depending itself on food by 80percent but the robust strategy seeks to ensure that it refrain from depending on the subsidy from the government.