By Kilimokwanza
Tanzania’s agricultural export performance has been one of the sector’s genuine success stories in recent years. The value of export crops nearly tripled from USD 1.2 billion in 2019/20 to USD 3.54 billion in 2023/24. Avocado exports surged from 17,000 to 35,000 tonnes in just two years. Meat and leather exports are growing. The numbers, taken at face value, tell an encouraging story.
But look closer, and a structural weakness becomes hard to ignore.
More than 90 percent of Tanzania’s agricultural exports remain in raw form — cashew nuts, cotton, tobacco — limiting opportunities for value addition and job creation. Post-harvest losses exceed 40 percent for some perishables. The country that grows the cashew captures a fraction of the value of the country that roasts, packages, and brands it. And while Tanzania works to expand its export earnings, it simultaneously imports vast quantities of products it could, with investment, produce at home: annual edible oil imports stand at around 350,000 tonnes at a cost exceeding USD 170 million, while wheat imports reach approximately 900,000 tonnes valued at around USD 220 million.
The picture in livestock is similarly mixed. Growth is real — annual meat exports have reached 9,800 tonnes generating USD 44 million — but the sector faces competition from imported livestock products and is constrained by limited private investment in agro-processing.
A new PFADC policy brief on developing efficient and profitable food, agriculture, and livestock markets takes all of this seriously — and proposes a course correction that goes well beyond production targets.
The brief looks to Nigeria’s Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) model for inspiration: facilities deliberately located close to farmers, designed to reduce post-harvest losses, produce for export, create jobs, and capture value that currently leaks out of the system. It points to Uruguay’s nationwide cattle traceability system — integrated with sanitary and export certification — as evidence that quality-verified, traceable products command premium prices in international markets that Tanzania currently cannot access.
Closer to home, it highlights the untapped potential of the Kibaigwa Grain Market in Dodoma — often called the “Grain Hub of East Africa” — and recommends establishing milling, packaging, and processing facilities at or near the market to enhance efficiency, create jobs, and increase earnings for farmers.
The policy recommendations centre on fiscal incentives to attract agribusiness investors, stronger trade facilitation under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), and strategic engagement with large regional trading houses that have the capital and supply chains to anchor domestic value addition at scale. Digital commodity marketing systems — including the Tanzania Mercantile Exchange (TMX), Warehouse Receipt Systems, and mobile platforms — should be scaled up to enhance transparency in price discovery and market stability.
Tanzania has set a target of USD 5 billion in crop export earnings by 2030. Hitting that number with raw commodities is possible. Hitting it with processed, value-added, traceable products would transform not just the balance of trade — but the livelihoods of the millions of farmers, workers, and entrepreneurs connected to the agri-food system.
Read the full Policy Brief No. 9, 2025 — “Developing Efficient and Profitable Food, Agriculture, and Livestock Products’ Markets” — attached below.