The agricultural sector in Tanzania has great potential:
Tanzania has more than 44 million hectares of arable land, and a wide variety of ecological zones, climates and water resources. The country could feed most of the East, Central and Southern African countries with food deficits

80% of the population in Tanzania lives in rural areas and are in some way or another depending on agriculture. The agricultural sector is vital to Tanzania’s economy and therefore also to the reduction and eradication of poverty.

Still, agriculture is in broad terms neglected and unexploited. Exports are lower now than in 1960s and 1970s (WB 2000), and productivity is very low. A Tanzanian farmer produces food for two people (a farmer from EU produces enough food for 130 people). As a result there is food shortage and food is imported.

Julius Nyerere, the founder of the Tanzanian nation, pointed already more than 20 years ago at the neglecting of agriculture in spite of its importance for development. "…we have treated agriculture as if it was something peripheral or just another activity in the country, to be treated at par with all the others, and used by the others without having any special claim upon them…"(1982).

What agriculture in Tanzania needs: Investment
The business climate in Tanzania is constrained and it affects investment in the agricultural sector.
The idea of investment should not only be of technical inputs (like tractors) to farmers but also of investment in infrastructure and the access to market.


Tanzanian farmers, livestock keepers, processors need everything!
Some of their main constraints are:

• Producer taxation and local government levies put on farmers and livestock keepers as well as processors keeps many investors away
• Problems with using land as collateral are a major barrier
• Commercial banks’ lack of incentive to lend to agricultural sector