Sesame growers push for govt’s subsidies to boost production SOME sesame growers in Coast Region have asked the government to provide them with agricultural inputs as it is to cashew nuts to increase production.Speaking here on Thursday farmers said that if they are given subsidies for farm inputs many of them would produce sesame in large quantities and will benefit from the crop.One of the farmers, Twaha Simba, said that the biggest cost to sesame farming is insecticides that have been going up from time to time, “so if the government helps with inputs it will have helped farmers”. Kibiti Cooperative Union secretary Abdallah Kigumi urged farmers to continue to focus on the better preparation of sesame seeds and ensure they are clean before getting them into the warehouses. “This action will attract local and foreign buyers and reduce unnecessary complaints,” Kigumi said.Coast Region Cooperative Union (CORECU LTD) manager Mantawela Hamisi said sesame prices had been rising in each auction from 2,878/- per kg in the first auction to 3,222/- per kg in the fourth auction. He added that buyers of sesame seeds have also been increasing from 18 to 23, which encourages farmers to continue growing their crops.He said through the auctions, farmers now see the benefits of selling their produce in the form of warehouse receipts where it is different from the previous buyer to buy from a farmer at prices that sometimes oppressed the farmer.The crop is extremely important in Coast Region and the southern regions of Mtwara and Lindi. According to the most recent research from 2010, 44,000 families grew sesame in Lindi and the neighboring region of Mtwara, about 12 percent of all agricultural households. Tanzania is Africa’s largest producer of sesame seeds and one of the continent’s largest exporters, according to the latest available data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Today, world demand for sesame seeds is on the rise and the market is growing in Tanzania.In 2016, there was a big push from domestic exporters to get more farmers to grow sesame.