Seven research briefs from the CGIAR Science Program on Better Diets and Nutrition paint a detailed and troubling picture: nearly all women surveyed consume far below the recommended daily fruit and vegetable intake, and the consequences are showing up in blood pressure readings, body weight, and market stalls alike.

Walk through any market in Arusha or Kilimanjaro on a busy morning and the stalls overflow with colour: tomatoes stacked high, bunches of amaranth, pyramids of onions, mountains of cabbage. Yet a sweeping new body of research by the CGIAR Science Program on Better Diets and Nutrition (BDN) tells a more sobering story. Most women in these regions are not eating nearly enough of what surrounds them, and their health is paying the price.

Between 2023 and 2025, CGIAR researchers working across Arusha and Kilimanjaro produced seven research briefs covering diet quality, health outcomes, nutritional status, food environments, safe vegetable production, postharvest losses, and variety promotion. Taken together, they sketch an uncomfortable portrait of a food system that produces abundance while delivering inadequate nutrition.

Almost Nobody Meets the Daily Minimum

The brief on Fruit and Vegetable Intake in Arusha and Kilimanjaro, which assessed dietary intake among approximately 2,600 women of reproductive age, found that the average usual intake of fruit and vegetables was just 279 grams per day. Nearly all of them, 98.8%, consumed less than the WHO-recommended 400 grams per day for a healthy life.

The breakdown is telling. On average, women consumed only 35 grams of fruit per day, while vegetable intake averaged 245 grams. Vegetables are present in the diet but fruit is almost absent, and even vegetables fall short of what good health requires.

Fruit and vegetable intake was higher among women from wealthier and more food-secure households, pointing to a gap that is as much economic as it is behavioural.

A Hypertension Emergency Hidden in Plain Sight

The dietary shortfall is not merely a nutritional footnote. The brief on Diets and Health in Arusha and Kilimanjaro, which assessed blood pressure and blood sugar in 807 women, found that 47% in Arusha and 63% in Kilimanjaro had above-normal blood pressure. Yet most of these women had never been tested: while 43% had their blood pressure measured by a doctor before, only 8% had their blood sugar measured before.

The majority of women in both regions had normal blood sugar, though nearly one-quarter of women in Arusha were pre-diabetic, compared to only 9% in Kilimanjaro. Additionally, 10% of women showed symptoms consistent with depression: 7% in Arusha and 12% in Kilimanjaro.

The researchers are explicit about the connection: unhealthy diets, including low intake of fruit and vegetables, are a major risk factor for non-communicable diseases like hypertension and diabetes, and they are testing whether targeted dietary interventions can reverse this trajectory.

The Weight Burden Falls Unevenly

A companion brief, Diets and Nutrition in Arusha and Kilimanjaro, assessed nutritional status across the same population of approximately 2,600 women. It found that 24% of women in Arusha and 31% in Kilimanjaro were living with overweight, while 16% in Arusha and 30% in Kilimanjaro were living with obesity.

Overweight and obesity were more prevalent among older and less educated women, as well as among women in the wealthiest households and those living in more urbanised villages. This pattern confounds simple narratives about poverty and body weight, and warrants attention from policymakers designing nutrition interventions.

A higher proportion of women in Arusha (53%) compared to Kilimanjaro (35%) were considered normal weight. The prevalence of undernutrition was generally low but somewhat higher in Arusha than Kilimanjaro, at 8% versus 3%.

The Market Is Not Delivering

Why are women who live near productive agricultural zones still not eating enough fruits and vegetables? The brief on Food Environments in Arusha and Kilimanjaro, which drew on a census of 1,184 retail outlets and bi-monthly in-depth follow-ups across 15 markets and 108 retail outlets between September 2023 and January 2025, offers a partial answer.

A lower percentage of vendors in the study area sell fruits (22%) and vegetables (33%) compared to other food groups, including processed and packaged foods (60%) and fried foods and snacks (65%).

Open-air markets stock a wider range of produce, but they are often far from households and many consumers face transport challenges. Community-level kiosks are more convenient, but their fruit and vegetable offerings vary.

Then there is the question of price. The median cost of a healthy diet was estimated at TZS 1,842 per person per day, which is 20% higher than the median daily food expenditure in the sample, based on the baseline survey conducted between October 2023 and January 2024. Eating well costs more than most households are currently spending on food.

Good Farming Practices Are Closing the Supply Gap

On the production side, the brief on Increasing Production of Safe Vegetables in Arusha and Kilimanjaro shows that sustainable intensification methods can make a significant difference in the availability of vegetables, even as climate pressures mount.

Fields where good agricultural practices (GAPs) were applied showed lower disease pathogen incidence, covering bacterial, fungal, and viral threats, compared to standard farmer practices. Chemical pesticide application decreased by 50% for cabbage, 30% for tomatoes, 35% for African nightshade, 40% for onions, and 25% for butternut. At the same time, yields increased by 48% for cabbage, 144% for tomatoes, and 63% for African nightshade.

Releasing New Varieties to Farmers

Complementing the production research, the brief on Promoting Vegetable Varieties in Arusha and Kilimanjaro reports that 19 tomato, chili pepper, habanero, and African eggplant varieties were released for commercial production in Tanzania. A further 1,889 beneficiaries, including 770 farmers, received African eggplant and amaranth seed kits, while 4,975 farmers were trained in safe vegetable production practices covering soil health, plant health, and irrigation water management. Twenty-three amaranth breeding lines were also evaluated for vegetable and seed yields in two locations in Tanzania.

Losses Between Farm and Fork

Even what farmers produce is not all reaching consumers safely. The brief titled A Dual Threat: Postharvest Losses and Food Safety Issues in Tanzania’s Markets found that in Northern Tanzania, postharvest losses of up to half of all perishable goods, combined with chemical and microbial contamination of fresh produce, are major food safety concerns.

There is limited knowledge and investment in facilities that ensure food safety and reduce postharvest losses in most markets in Tanzania, with emphasis still placed more on volume than on the quality of food.

Yet the informal actors who dominate fresh produce trade may be part of the solution. These actors have demonstrated their willingness to support desired changes and, if carefully engaged, can serve as key entry points for initiatives that bring positive change within a short time.

What This Means for Tanzania’s Agricultural Corridors

The CGIAR findings carry direct implications for the agricultural development agenda in northern Tanzania. Investment in food production corridors that generate considerable agricultural output must be matched by investment in nutrition outcomes. Growing more is not enough if what is grown is unaffordable, spoils before reaching consumers, or is displaced on market stalls by processed foods and snacks.

The research suggests that closing Tanzania’s nutrition gap will require simultaneous action on at least four fronts: improving what farmers grow and how they grow it; reducing postharvest losses in informal markets; reshaping food environments so that fruit and vegetables are accessible and affordable; and changing the dietary behaviours of consumers, particularly women, who remain the primary gatekeepers of household food choices.

The good news is that the evidence base for doing all of this, field by field, market by market, household by household, is being built right now, in Arusha and Kilimanjaro.

This feature draws on seven research briefs produced by the CGIAR Science Program on Better Diets and Nutrition (BDN), implemented with support from IFPRI, the World Vegetable Center, TARI, UC Davis Institute for Global Nutrition, and IWMI, among others. Full findings are available at cgiar.org.