Agriculture is the main part of Tanzania's economy. As of 2016, Tanzania had over 44 million hectares of arable land with only 33 percent of this amount in cultivation. Almost 70 percent of the rich population live in rural areas, and almost all of them are involved in the farming sector. Land is a vital asset in ensuring food security, and among the nine main food crops in Tanzania are maize, sorghum, millet, rice, wheat, beans, cassava, potatoes, and bananas. The agricultural industry makes a large contribution to the country's foreign exchange earnings, with more than US$1 billion in earnings from cash crop exports.
The 6 main cash crops are cashew nuts, coffee, cotton, sisal, tea and tobacco. At one point in its agricultural history, Tanzania was the largest producer of sisal in the world.
The agriculture sector faces various challenges and had been the governments top priority to develop to reduce poverty and increase productivity. Farming efficiently has been a challenge for many farmers, and lack of finances and farming education has caused many to remain subsistence farmers. Farm sizes remain very small with an average plot size being around 2.5 ha.
Challenges on the agriculture industry of Tanzania include climate change and the resulting droughts, floods, and agriculture temperature shocks and a lack of agricultural technology. These pose severe challenges to the living standards of most of people involved in the agriculture industry in Tanzania and create huge increases in unemployment, hunger, malnutrition and starvation, and diseases rates.
Large declines in commodity prices, decreased export revenues, increased trade and budget deficits all amount to hindering the growth of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). The Agriculture Industry in Tanzania represents 32.4 percent of GDP of Tanzania.
Soil and topography
Tanzania has an area of with inland lakes covering 6 percent of that (). The Great Rift Valley runs north to south and contains most of the country's lakes. The country is home to the highest point in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro, and the lowest point in the continent, Lake Tanganyika.
Soil types vary drastically throughout the country. There are six main types of soil types in the country as follows;
Volcanic soils: predominantly in the northern highland regions. Sandy soils: predominantly in the coastal regions and used mainly for grazing. Granite/Gneiss soil: predominantly in the northern regions of Mwanza and Tabora. Red soils: predominantly in the central plateau, including the Dodoma Region. Ironstone soils: predominantly in the western regions like Kagera and Kigoma. Vertisol: called mbuga black soil, spread across most of the country.
In summary for the variety of soil types studies still do not indicate which type of soil suits best for farming of a cash crop or a food crop.
Production Tanzania produced in 2018:
5.9 million tons of maize; 5 million tons of cassava (12th largest producer in the world); 3.8 million tons of sweet potato (4th largest producer in the world, second only to China, Malawi and Nigeria); 3.4 million tons of banana (10th largest producer in the world, 13th adding plantain production); 3 million tons of rice; 3 million tons of sugarcane; 1.7 million tons of potato; 1.2 million tons of beans (6th largest producer in the world); 940 thousand tons of peanut (7th largest producer in the world); 930 thousand tons of sunflower seed (12th largest producer in the world); 808 thousand tons of sorghum; 561 thousand tons of sesame seed (5th largest producer in the world, losing only to Sudan, Myanmar, India and Nigeria); 546 thousand tons of coconut (11th largest producer in the world); 454 thousand tons of mango (including mangosteen and guava); 389 thousand tons of pineapple; 373 thousand tons of orange; 356 thousand tons of tomato; 238 thousand tons of cotton; 171 thousand tons of cashew nuts (6th largest producer in the world);
In addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products, like tobacco (107 thousand tons, 8th largest producer in the world), coffee (55 thousand tons), tea (36 thousand tons) and sisal (33 thousand tons).Tanzania production in 2018, by FAO
Cash crops
Coffee production
Coffee is grown on a large scale on both estates and by smallholders that form co-operatives and involves over 400,000 farmers. Coffee has been grown in the country since the colonial times and is a major export crop, earning over 17 percent of the country's foreign exchange. Tanzania mainly grows the arabica type; however, small farms in the Kagera Region grow Robusta coffee. Tanzanian coffee is globally more commonly known as Kilimanjaro Coffee.
Sisal production
Sisal was brought to Tanzania from Mexico by the German East Africa Company in the late 19th century. Sisal is grown in the northern regions of the country, such as Tanga and Kilimanjaro. At the time of independence in 1961, Tanzania was the largest producer of sisal in the world. Sisal production continued to decline after the Ujamaa movement and the continued depreciation of world prices. In recent years, the government has tried to liberalize the sector to encourage growth and increase export revenues.
Cashew production
Food Crops
The 11 food crops grown in Tanzania are as below list; Bean Cassava Maize Millet Oil palm Potato Rice Sorghum Sugarcane Sunflower Wheat
Herbs, vegetables and spices in Tanzania
Herbs, vegetables and spices in Tanzania include in the list below; Cabbage Capsicum Carrot Clove Cinnamon Cucumber Garlic Mint Onion Pea Spinach
Fruits in Tanzania
Fruits in Tanzania include in the list below; Avocado Banana Coconut Clementine Guava Grape Jackfruit Lemon Lime Lychee Mangoe Orange Okra Passion fruit Papaya Pear Pineapple Tamarind Tomato Strawberry Watermelon
Statistics
Main crop production
The ten non-cash crop production from 2013 as reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as below table:
NumberFood CropArea HarvestedYield Hg/HaProduction, 1000 tonnes1Casava950,00056,8425,4002Maize4,000,00011,7504,7003Sweet Potatoes675,00045,9263,1004Sugar Cane30,0001,000,0003,0005Rice, Paddy900,00020,8891,8806Potatoes175,00074,2861,3007Beans, dry1,300,0008,8461,1508Sunflower seed810,00013,3701,0839Sorghum900,0009,44485010Groundnuts, with shell740,00010,608785Source: FAO
See also Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives Tanzania Mercantile Exchange
References
External links