Veteran agricultural policy hand steps up to lead Tanzania’s private sector agriculture apex body at a pivotal moment

The Agricultural Council of Tanzania (ACT) has a new Executive Director — and the man chosen to lead the organisation brings more than three decades of accumulated experience across government, academia and the private sector to one of the most consequential roles in Tanzania’s agribusiness landscape.

Mr. Mark J. Magila assumed the position of ACT Executive Director with effect from 23rd January 2026, succeeding Mr. Timoth Mmbaga, who has since retired.

The appointment comes at a moment of reckoning for ACT. The organisation is widely seen as needing rebranding and repositioning to better align private agriculture sector stakeholders behind the implementation of Tanzania’s Vision 2050 — and as an apex body, it is expected to provide the coordination architecture that enables farmers, rural-based agriSMEs and agribusiness firms to engage Government as structured partners, rather than isolated actors.

Magila is not walking into unfamiliar territory. He spent a decade at ACT as Programme Director, where he was responsible for leading, managing and coordinating the organisation’s programmes and projects, overseeing project managers in the development and implementation of programme strategies, managing budgets, monitoring performance, and building working relationships with partners and stakeholders.

Before his time at ACT, he served for 20 years in the Department of Policy and Planning at the Ministry of Agriculture headquarters in Dar es Salaam, and also held the position of Managing Director at a private merchandising firm in Moshi for two years.

Academically, Magila is well-credentialed for the complexity of the task ahead. He holds a Bachelor of Agriculture in Rural Economy from Sokoine University of Agriculture and a Master of Science in Agricultural Economics from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. He further holds postgraduate certificates in Project Planning for Agro-Industrial Projects from the University of Bradford, and in Management of Agricultural and Rural Development from the University of Manchester.

His core areas of competence span agribusiness development, agricultural marketing policies, project design and management, and monitoring and evaluation — a profile well-suited to steering ACT’s twin mandate of private sector coordination and policy advocacy.

With Tanzania’s agricultural transformation ambitions accelerating under Vision 2050, the pressure on ACT to deliver coherent, sector-wide leadership has never been greater. Whether Magila’s institutional depth translates into the bold repositioning the organisation needs will be one of the more closely watched stories in Tanzania’s agribusiness sector in the months ahead.