AS Zanzibar boasts of big clove harvest
this year, plans are underway for census of clove trees, the Minister of
Trade, Industry, and Marketing, Mr Nassor Ahmed Mazrui, said on Tuesday
that his office was now looking for funds for the project.
“We managed to buy 4,687 tonnes of
cloves from farmers by last Monday and farmers got more than 70bn/-. Our
estimate was to buy 3,000 tonnes,” he said. Mr Mazrui attributed the
success to the campaign against smuggling and good price of 15,000/- per
kilogramme.
“But we need to have strategies to
improve production at 10,000 tonnes in the near future,” he said. The
strategies being implemented include counting all cloves trees in the
islands, replacing old trees by planting at least 500,000 trees annually
for ten years, restructuring the Zanzibar State Trade Corporation
(ZSTC), have new law of cloves and branding before establishing a Clove
Development Fund (CGF).
“As we prepare new clove law, the
government is also considering liberalising the market with great care.
The government will not rush to liberalise the clove to avoid risks of
collapse,” the minister said.
He said although there was control of
cloves smuggling, some greedy people managed to smuggle into Kenya 46
bags full of cloves last week. This year’s clove picking season which
started in July, last year is approaching the end by May, this year.
Source: Daily News
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