The Corridors of Power: Inside Tanzania’s Audacious Plan to Remake Itself Through the Soil

Kilimokwanza Correspondent

The air at Mtwara Port, thick with the salt of the Indian Ocean and the sweet, earthy scent of raw cashew nuts, tells a story of transformation. Not long ago, this deep-water port in Tanzania’s south was a sleepy gateway, its potential largely a footnote in national development plans. Cashew farmers from the surrounding regions of Mtwara, Lindi, and Ruvuma—the heartland of Tanzania’s most valuable cash crop—would watch as their harvest was loaded onto trucks for a long, costly, and inefficient journey north to the congested port of Dar es Salaam before it could begin its voyage to global markets in Vietnam or India.

Today, the story is different. A government investment of TZS 157.8 billion has breathed new life into Mtwara. A new, longer berth stretches into the turquoise water, capable of servicing multiple ships at once. Towering gantry cranes, a recent addition, now move with a mechanical grace, lifting containers directly onto vessels bound for international markets. In the 2024/25 season, the number of shipping companies using the port doubled. By late November 2024, 133,000 tonnes of cashews had been shipped, a staggering 121% increase from the previous year. Even Russia has taken notice, expressing interest in using Mtwara as a strategic hub for importing Tanzanian cashews and exporting its own goods into the region.

This revival is not an isolated event. It is a single, tangible outcome of a far grander, more ambitious national project. Mtwara Port is a critical link in a vast, invisible architecture of policy, finance, and infrastructure being constructed across the nation—an undertaking designed to do nothing less than re-engineer Tanzania’s economic destiny from the ground up.

At the heart of this vision is the Agriculture Master Plan (AMP) 2050, a sweeping, generational blueprint for transforming the nation’s fields, farms, and fisheries into the primary engine of its economy. The goal is audacious: to propel Tanzania into the ranks of upper-middle-income countries by mid-century, and to do it on the back of a modern, commercialized, and globally competitive agricultural sector.

Within this master plan, one initiative, Flagship 7, serves as the foundational gear upon which all others turn. Its mandate is not to grow a single crop, but to cultivate the very environment in which all crops can thrive. Its task is to systematically identify and dismantle the biggest barriers—regulatory, financial, and logistical—that have long constrained agribusiness and exports in Tanzania. The story of Mtwara Port is, in essence, the story of Flagship 7 in action. It is a story of how a nation is attempting to clear the path for its farmers, one corridor at a time.

From a Single Path to a National Highway

The blueprint for this national overhaul was born in the Southern Highlands, a vast and fertile region stretching from Dar es Salaam to the Zambian border, long known as Tanzania’s breadbasket. In 2010, a unique public-private partnership was launched there: the

Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT). The idea was to create a concentrated zone of investment and support, a platform where government, private companies, and smallholder farmers could collaborate to overcome the systemic bottlenecks holding back commercial agriculture.

For over a decade, SAGCOT served as a powerful proof-of-concept. It surpassed its investment targets, attracting US6.34billion,withUS1.32 billion mobilized directly from private firms. Its programs reached over a million farmers, introduced climate-resilient practices across 1.3 million hectares, generated more than US$600 million in new farm revenues, and created an estimated 253,000 jobs. It became a laboratory for what was possible when public will and private capital were aligned.

But the SAGCOT experiment also revealed deep-seated challenges. Progress was sometimes slow, hampered by the sheer complexity of coordinating so many different actors. More critically, its focus on large-scale investment raised uncomfortable questions about social equity. In the district of Bagamoyo, a flagship sugarcane plantation project, part of a G7 initiative, put some 1,300 people at risk of losing their land, often with little consultation or compensation. The story of Mziray, a smallholder farmer who spoke of being “forcefully kicked out to give way for the project,” became a cautionary tale about the human cost of development when safeguards are weak. Civil society groups warned that without robust protections, the push for commercialization could marginalize the very small-scale farmers it was meant to uplift.

Armed with both the successes and the hard-won lessons of the pilot, President Samia Suluhu Hassan issued a directive on March 17, 2023: the SAGCOT model was to be expanded nationwide. This was the genesis of the

Agricultural Growth Corridors of Tanzania (AGCOT), officially launched in April 2025. This wasn’t just a scale-up; it was a strategic pivot, institutionalizing the corridor approach as the central delivery mechanism for the entire Agriculture Master Plan.

The new AGCOT framework carves the country into four strategic zones, each with a distinct economic purpose :

• The Mtwara Corridor, building on the port’s revival, is being positioned as a global hub for cashew nuts and large-scale horticulture.
• The Central Corridor, stretching from the capital Dodoma to the Lake Zone, is envisioned as a high-value export hub, with ambitious plans to transform it into a major producer of mangoes for the global market.
• The Northern Corridor, encompassing the rich agricultural lands of Arusha and Kilimanjaro, will build on its existing strengths in coffee, tea, and high-value horticulture.
• The original Southern Corridor will continue its role as the nation’s breadbasket, now integrated into a more cohesive national strategy.

To steer this complex national machine, a new central coordinating body was created within the Ministry of Agriculture: the Agriculture Transformation Office (ATO). The ATO’s mandate is to be the nerve center, harmonizing policy and investment across all four corridors, ensuring that the left hand of government knows what the right hand is doing.

This ambitious national rollout received a major vote of confidence in early 2025. The Government of Norway, in partnership with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), signed a landmark agreement, pledging US$15 million to support the ATO and the implementation of Flagship 7. This funding is not just a blank check; it is a strategic injection of capital and technical expertise aimed squarely at the core mission: unlocking regulatory barriers and attracting the private investment needed to make the corridors a reality.

The War on Red Tape

For decades, Tanzanian farmers and agribusinesses have navigated a labyrinth of regulations, fees, and levies that often seemed designed more to generate revenue for local authorities than to promote growth. A multiplicity of agencies with overlapping mandates created confusion and inflated the cost of doing business. This regulatory thicket is the first major barrier Flagship 7 was designed to clear.

The government’s primary tool for this task is the “Blueprint for Regulatory Reforms,” a comprehensive framework launched in 2018 to systematically simplify processes and cut compliance costs. The results have been tangible. In a landmark move, the government eliminated

108 different levies that had long burdened farmers, including scrapping a US1,000feeforacoffeeexportlicenseandaUS4,000 license to buy tobacco.

More recently, the focus has turned to the produce cess, a local government tax on marketed crops that could be as high as 5%. Studies showed this single levy could reduce a farmer’s income by as much as 21%. In response, policymakers are now moving towards a uniform, lower rate, recognizing that what is good for the farmer is ultimately good for the national treasury.

The macroeconomic impact of these reforms is already visible. Agricultural exports have nearly tripled, surging from US1.2billionin2019/20to∗∗US3.54 billion in 2023/24**. The Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) registered a record 901 projects worth US

7.7billionin2024,withtheagriculturesectorattractingUS599 million of that investment.

Yet, the war on red tape is far from over. In a moment of candid self-assessment, the government itself acknowledged in a 2024 report the existence of “incomplete reforms” under the Blueprint, setting a new target of December 2025 for their completion. Key legislative changes, such as amending the acts governing the livestock and fisheries sectors to reduce fees, are still navigating the government approval process. An IMF report noted that challenges like inadequate personnel at one-stop investment centers and slowdowns in new electronic systems persist, highlighting a gap between policy ambition and administrative capacity. This is the slow, grinding work of reform that happens far from the ribbon-cutting ceremonies—the second-generation changes that are often more complex and politically fraught than the initial, headline-grabbing fee abolitions.

Fueling the Green Revolution

Clearing regulatory hurdles is only half the battle. An engine, no matter how well-designed, needs fuel. For Tanzania’s agricultural transformation, that fuel is a combination of productive dialogue, streamlined investment, and, most critically, accessible finance.

The primary forum for this dialogue is the Tanzania National Business Council (TNBC), where the private sector has a direct line to high-level policymakers. At a June 2025 meeting of its Agriculture Working Group, the discussion was not about abstract principles but concrete action. The group passed resolutions calling for the creation of a dedicated task force to tackle logistics bottlenecks in the export supply chain and the establishment of a unified payment system to simplify the collection of government fees—recommendations born from the daily frustrations of business operators.

This responsive dialogue is complemented by a newly energized investment promotion apparatus. The Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC), recently merged with the Export Processing Zones Authority to create a single investment gateway called TISEZA, has overseen a dramatic surge in investment. TIC’s data reveals a powerful truth about agriculture’s role in the economy: while it accounts for a relatively small share of total capital investment (just 1.7% in the first half of 2024), it is a job-creation powerhouse, projected to create the vast majority of new jobs from registered projects. This underscores its vital importance for inclusive growth.

But the biggest barrier for most has always been credit. A staggering 95.1% of agricultural households in Tanzania have never accessed a formal agricultural loan, a statistic that lays bare the immense challenge of financial exclusion. Tackling this gap is the core mission of the

Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB), a state-owned institution designed to de-risk a sector that commercial banks have often deemed too perilous.

Instead of lending directly to millions of farmers, the TADB has pioneered innovative solutions. Its flagship Smallholder Credit Guarantee Scheme (SCGS) acts as a catalyst, providing guarantees of up to 70% on loans that commercial banks extend to smallholders, women, and youth. This government-backed insurance encourages private banks to enter the agricultural market, as seen in a partnership with Exim Bank that committed TZS 30 billion to the sector. The TADB also serves as a conduit for major international financing, such as a

¥22.7 billion (approx. TZS 354.45 billion) loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which will provide long-term, affordable capital to farmers and agribusinesses in key value chains like rice and sunflower.

The Last Mile: A Chain is Only as Strong as its Weakest Link

The story of Mtwara Port shows what is possible when the final link in the export chain is strong. But for many of Tanzania’s most promising agricultural products, the chain breaks long before it reaches the sea.

The horticulture sector is a case in point. With exports soaring to US417.9millionandanationaltargettohit∗∗US2 billion by 2030**, it is one of the country’s brightest economic prospects. Yet, it is hamstrung by a critical infrastructure deficit: the lack of a modern cold chain. An estimated

40% of all horticultural produce is lost post-harvest, spoiling on poor rural roads or in inadequate storage facilities long before it can reach a port or market.

This is the “last mile” problem. While the government plans a modern “Green Terminal” with cold storage at the Port of Dar es Salaam, the real bottleneck lies inland. The solution lies in a network of decentralized cold storage hubs in the heart of production zones, a public-private effort to build the infrastructure that will allow a farmer’s high-value produce to survive the journey from the farm to the global consumer.

A similar story is unfolding in the “blue economy.” Tanzania has vast, untapped potential in aquaculture, but the sub-sector contributes less than 4% of the country’s total fish production. The barriers are familiar: poor infrastructure, limited access to quality feed and fingerlings, and a lack of finance. The Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries has established a

Private Sector Desk to act as a facilitator for investors, and has successfully reformed over 200 taxes and levies in the sector. But the dream of a true “one-stop shop” for aquaculture licensing remains a work in progress, a concept being studied rather than a reality on the ground.

A Difficult Harvest: The Human Cost of Transformation

For all the talk of master plans, investment billions, and export targets, the true measure of Tanzania’s agricultural revolution will be its impact on the lives of the millions of smallholder farmers who remain the backbone of the rural economy. And here, the story becomes far more complex, fraught with tension and risk.

The AGCOT model, like its predecessor SAGCOT, is built on the promise of linking smallholders to large commercial enterprises, creating a symbiotic relationship where everyone benefits. But the lived experience can be starkly different. The push for large-scale, capital-intensive agribusiness creates an inherent conflict over the most precious resource of all: land.

The ghosts of Bagamoyo still linger over the growth corridor concept—a powerful reminder that without ironclad legal protections and genuine community participation, the arrival of large investors can feel less like an opportunity and more like an eviction. This is the central paradox of commercialization: while it can generate wealth, it does not automatically reduce poverty. Research from Kilombero, a major rice-producing area, found that some medium-scale farmers who achieved high levels of commercialization by expanding their land area actually experienced higher levels of multidimensional poverty than their smaller-scale neighbors. The cash income from selling their crop was not enough to offset other factors affecting their well-being.

This is the tightrope that the AGCOT initiative must walk. It must balance the need to attract large-scale private investment with the imperative to protect the land rights and livelihoods of its most vulnerable citizens. It must ensure that the drive for efficiency and export earnings does not come at the cost of food security and biodiversity at the local level.

The Road Ahead

Tanzania stands at a pivotal moment. It has crafted a sophisticated, multi-layered, and ambitious strategy for national transformation. The early signs are promising: reforms are taking hold, investment is flowing, and key infrastructure is being built. The creation of the ATO and the strong backing from international partners like Norway provide a solid institutional foundation for the journey ahead.

But the path forward is littered with the same stubborn obstacles that have constrained development for decades. The “reform fatigue” noted by development partners is real; the institutional capacity to implement such a complex vision across a vast nation is still being built. The systemic constraints—the crippling lack of access to finance for the vast majority of farmers, the crumbling “last mile” infrastructure, and the ever-present threat of climate change—remain formidable.

The ultimate success of the Agriculture Master Plan, Flagship 7, and the entire AGCOT initiative will hinge on bridging the persistent gap between the gleaming vision articulated in Dodoma and the muddy realities of the farm gate. It will depend on whether the new corridors of power and commerce can be built not just for, but with, the smallholder farmers of Tanzania. The transformation happening at Mtwara Port is real, but it is only the beginning of the story. The final chapter, yet to be written, will be determined in the countless villages and small farms that lie at the heart of this great African nation.