Dodoma, 1 August 2026

Tanzania is at a transformational moment in its agricultural trajectory. As the country accelerates its push to meet surging domestic demand for white meat, driven by population growth, urbanisation, and rising consumer preference, the government is today launching a decisive step to systematise one of the sector’s most critical pillars: poultry production, encompassing both chicken meat and eggs as integrated products of a unified value chain.

On the first day of the Nane Nane International Exhibition in Dodoma, Tanzania is expected to launch its long-anticipated National Poultry Development Strategy (NPDS), signalling a fundamental shift from ad-hoc interventions to evidence-based, nationally-coordinated policy. For a sector that engages 2.4 million households and stands as the backbone of Tanzania’s white meat economy, producing both protein-rich eggs and chicken meat, this launch represents the institutional clarity and strategic commitment necessary to unlock competitive scale across the entire poultry ecosystem.

From Compact to Strategy: A Multi-Year Collaborative Journey

The pathway to today’s ministerial launch began with the signing of a landmark Poultry Stakeholders Compact, a collaborative agreement that brought government agencies, private sector players, and development partners around a unifying vision. The compact explicitly mandated the formulation of a dedicated national strategy and established a dedicated Secretariat to ensure accountability and progress tracking.

Recognising that transformation of this scale demands institutional rigour and cross-sectoral coordination, AGCOT Centre partnered with the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries (MLF), the Tanzania Poultry Entrepreneurs and Exporters Council (TPEEC), and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to establish the National Poultry Delivery Lab, a collaborative hub designed to integrate expertise and resources across the entire poultry ecosystem. This institutional architecture reflects an understanding that poultry development cannot succeed through government action alone, nor through fragmented private initiative; it requires structured, ongoing dialogue between policy makers, producers, traders, and exporters working across both meat and egg value streams.

Technical Alignment and Rapid Progress

Over recent months, intensive technical engagement between the MLF’s Directorates of Policy and Planning and Veterinary Services, the Tanzania Livestock Research Institute, and commercial poultry stakeholders culminated in a comprehensive Implementation Plan for the Poultry Compact. This plan details specific activities, measurable targets, Key Performance Indicators, and realistic budget frameworks, translating political will into operational reality across broiler production, layer production for eggs, and supporting hatchery and feed systems.

A nominated technical drafting team moved swiftly into execution, successfully completing the first three chapters of the NPDS whilst simultaneously convening policy dialogues and stakeholder consultations. This iterative approach ensures that the strategy is grounded in the practical realities of smallholder farmers, commercial operators, and exporters, not confined to ministerial offices, and addresses the full spectrum of poultry operations from genetics and hatchery systems through live-bird farming to egg production and value addition.

What the NPDS Addresses

The strategy targets the sector’s most pressing systemic constraints across the entire poultry ecosystem: prohibitively high commercial feed costs affecting both broiler and layer operations; fragmented supply chains for both meat and eggs; inadequate access to credit and extension services; critical shortages of high-quality day-old chicks from certified hatcheries, essential for both meat and egg production; disease prevalence and high mortality rates in live-bird systems; insufficient layer-flock genetics for commercial egg production; and limited processing and cold-chain infrastructure for both meat and egg products. By providing a structured, nationally-endorsed roadmap, the NPDS offers a framework for coordinated investment, regulatory reform, and capacity building across both smallholder and commercial operations in all poultry value streams.

World Bank Backing and Path to Approval

The strategy has advanced to Stage 3 (the Drafting Stage) of Tanzania’s national policy formulation process and has secured substantial institutional backing, including direct financial support from the World Bank to fund the final phases of document completion, stakeholder review, and approval.

Why This Moment Matters

The NPDS launch at Nane Nane, Africa’s premier agricultural showcase, is not merely a bureaucratic milestone. It signals that Tanzania’s government now recognises poultry not as a supplementary enterprise, but as a strategic pillar alongside maize, rice, and other staple commodities. As Tanzania targets higher GDP growth and improved rural incomes, a thriving, productive poultry sector, producing both affordable eggs and chicken meat, offers millions of households and entrepreneurs a rapid, capital-efficient pathway to protein self-sufficiency and export earnings.

The strategy represents a watershed: the shift from piecemeal interventions to systematic, evidence-based policy architecture that embraces the full poultry value chain. Over the coming months, as the NPDS moves through final approval and implementation planning begins, Tanzania’s white meat value chain will have the institutional clarity, financial backing, and coordinated stakeholder commitment necessary to meet the nation’s rising demand for affordable, nutritious protein in all forms: from eggs to chicken meat.

Background: Fuelling Tanzania’s Animal Protein Demand

Context for the National Poultry Development Strategy

Poultry and fish represent the fastest-growing sources of animal protein in the Tanzanian diet, driven largely by their affordability and strong consumer preference. As the country’s population expands and urbanisation increases, the demand for these “white meat” sources is surging. Within the poultry sector specifically, both eggs and chicken meat are essential components of this dietary transition. Eggs, in particular, are among the most affordable and nutrient-dense protein sources available, making them critical to food and nutrition security. This presents massive opportunities for the commercialisation of poultry, including both layer and broiler production, and the expansion of aquaculture, which is essential to meet demand sustainably without over-pressuring wild-capture fisheries.

The Strategic Importance of the Sector

The white meat sector is highly inclusive and interconnected with the broader agricultural economy. Poultry rearing alone engages approximately 2.4 million households across the country, making it the most common livestock-keeping activity. The poultry value chain encompasses both meat and egg production: many households operate backyard systems that produce eggs for home consumption and local sale, whilst commercial operators run dedicated broiler flocks and layer operations. Furthermore, the poultry industry creates a crucial market linkage with the crop sector, as it is a major consumer of soya bean, sunflower, and maize for animal feed. Meanwhile, aquaculture holds immense growth potential, offering an environmentally efficient protein solution with vast freshwater and marine resources available for expansion.

Key Value Chain Constraints

Despite the high demand, both the poultry and aquaculture sub-sectors face systemic bottlenecks that hinder profitability and scale:

• High Feed Costs: The domestic feed industry is underdeveloped and heavily reliant on imported ingredients and inefficient formulations. Commercial feed accounts for approximately 70% of the total production costs for both poultry (broilers and layers alike) and aquaculture, severely limiting the profit margins of small-scale farmers.
• Critical Input Shortages: There is a severe deficit of high-quality fish fingerlings and poultry day-old chicks (DOCs) from certified hatcheries. For layer operations specifically, the lack of reliable supply of suitable layer-breed chicks constrains commercial egg production.
• Health and Mortality Rates: Disease prevalence remains high. Indigenous chickens, for example, face mortality rates of around 50% due to inconsistent disease control and massive vaccine deficits. Layer flocks and broiler operations equally suffer from inadequate biosecurity and disease management protocols.
• Knowledge and Processing Gaps: Small-scale producers often lack the technical knowledge, financial access, and processing facilities necessary to transition to commercial-scale operations. This constraint applies across both meat and egg production systems, including insufficient refrigeration and storage for fresh eggs.

Strategic Pathways for Transformation

To unlock the potential of the white meat value chain, Tanzania’s Agriculture Master Plan 2050 and AGCOT initiatives are focusing on building a competitive, integrated domestic system. Key interventions include:

• Feed Integration: Strengthening the linkage between poultry and fish farmers and the soya bean and maize sectors to build a robust domestic feed manufacturing industry. This will ensure a local, affordable supply of high-quality feed ingredients suited to both broiler and layer production requirements.
• Hatchery Investments: Establishing large-scale, modern hatcheries to produce reliable day-old chicks, both broiler breeds and layer-suitable genetics, and high-quality fingerlings for commercially valuable fish species like tilapia and catfish.
• Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs): Leveraging PPP arrangements to rehabilitate and lease existing government aquaculture facilities to commercial players, whilst also establishing demonstration farms to train smallholders in modern, productive techniques applicable to both meat and egg production systems.
• Value Addition and Processing: Incentivising investment in modern processing facilities and cold-chain infrastructure for both eggs and meat, helping smallholder cooperatives meet stringent quality and safety standards, access broader markets, and promote the consumption of chilled and frozen products, as well as refrigerated and packaged eggs.

Addressing the core challenges of feed, genetics, and health through strategic public-private investments, Tanzania is well-positioned to transform its white meat value chain, encompassing both chicken meat and eggs as integrated ecosystem products, into a powerhouse of nutritional security and economic growth.