Tanzania Agriculture Sector

Since 1985, the country’s overall agricultural GDP has grown at an average annual rate of 3.3 percent while the country’s main food crops have been growing at 3.5 percent annually and its export crops at 5.4 percent annually.

Today, approximately 80 percent of Tanzanians are employed by the agriculture sector plays, which accounts for half of the national income and three quarters of the merchandise exports in the country.

The majority staples that are produced by Tanzania include maize, sorghum, millet, rice, wheat, pulses (mainly beans), cassava, potatoes, bananas and plantains with the bulk of the country’s export crops being composed of coffee, cotton, cashew nut, tobacco, sisal, pyrethrum, tea, cloves, horticultural crops, oil seeds, spices and flowers.

Smallholder farmers in Tanzania, who are the dominant leaders in the sector as a whole, support average farm sizes of between 0.9 hectares and 3.0 hectares and cultivate 5.1 million hectares annually, of which 85 percent is food crops.

Today, women compose the primary source of the agricultural labor force in the country, however as a result of the application of poor technology and a dependence on unreliable and often unreliable weather conditions, both the labor force and land productivity of the sector have begun to act as a limitation to the sector.

The significance of the agricultural sector in terms of potential economic growth and poverty reduction in the country has been recognized by Government, which has also recognized the role that outside factors including infrastructure, rural financial services, land ownership and good governance have played and continue to play in the development of the sector.

The Government has prioritized several tasks in a continued effort to strengthen the sector including the pursuit of macroeconomic policies in order to stimulate investment in agriculture by small holders and large–scale commercial farmers; the creation of an enabling environment and the provision of proactive support to private operators, farmers organizations, NGOs and CBOs who supply inputs and credit to small farmers thus ensuring a strong regulatory mechanism; the concentration of budgetary allocations in agriculture research and extension; the provision of special support to investments in agricultural processing, particularly in fruits and vegetables, while, at the same time, granting top priority to the implementation of new land Act.

According to the country’s national website, the agriculture sector has been largely influenced by past and current macro-economic reforms, which have helped to open up the sector to private investment in production and processing as well as input importation and distribution.

Today, farmers are allowed to sell their crops both to cooperatives and to private traders and, as a result of increased competition, normal producer prices for food and export crops have also increased, making it easier for farmers to sell their products at a faster pace

Currently, the private sector has absorbed much of the responsibility for the production and processing functions, while the Government has maintained its position in the facilitation of regulatory and public support functions.

Because the sector relies heavily on rainfall, adequate irrigation methods are crucial to the stabilization of agricultural production in the country, a result of which will be improved food security, increased productivity and incomes for farmers, and an increase in the production of higher valued crops such as vegetables and flowers.

The potential for attaining sustainable irrigation development exists in the availability of the country’s natural water resources via its network of rivers and lakes as well as the availability of1 million hectares of irrigatable land at 1.0 million, only 150,000 of which are cultivated under irrigation.

A National Irrigation Development Plan and an Agriculture Policy have also been put in place in order to help develop the country’s irrigation system, which will act as a potential source of revenue in the form of a user charge once it has been regulated.

In addition to its firm connection to the farming sector, the Tanzania agriculture sector is also linked to the non-farming sector through its associations with agro-processing, and consumption and export as well as through the provision of raw materials to various industries and by acting as a market for manufactured goods in the country.

General opportunities for investment in the sector include the establishment of farm machinery and equipments plants; the operation of tractor hire centers; the establishment of ox training centers; the establishment of training institutes; the establishment of research centers; the development of human and animal power technologies; the operation of agriculture mechanization centers; the provision and/or training of extension experts; the employment of agriculture researchers; and the establishment of agricultural information centers.