March 24, 2003

General Agriculture
Food production dominates Tanzania’s agriculture economy with over 5 million hectares cultivated per year of which 85 percent is food crops.  Corn is the main subsistence crop, and is grown by more than 50 percent of Tanzanian farmers.  Rice is the second most important staple, and is grown mainly by small-scale farmers for domestic consumption. Other major food crops include sorghum, millet, wheat, pulses, cassava, potatoes, bananas, plantains, sugar, groundnuts, sesame, coconuts, and soybeans. 

Corn
The main corn producing regions in the country are Arusha, Dodoma, Iringa, Mbeya, Rukwa, and Ruvuma, which account for approximately 50 percent of total production.  The vuli season (October-December) contributes approximately 15 percent of the total annual corn production with Mara, Arusha, Kilimanjaro, Tanga, Morogoro, Mbeya, Coast, Kagera, Kigoma, and Mwana regions having two agricultural seasons per year (vuli and masika seasons). The remaining corn production is from unimodal musumi and bimodal masika long rain seasons.

Sorghum
Sorghum is grown in marginal rainfall regions, and Dodoma, Singida, Tabora, Shinyanga, Lindi, Mwanza, Morogoro, and Mara regions account for over three quarters of total production.  

Wheat
Large-scale private farmers produce wheat in Arusha, Iringa, and Kilimanjaro regions, with some small scale farmers in the southwestern highlands of Iringa.  Arusha typically accounts for over 70 percent of total wheat production.

Millet
There are two types of millet grown in Tanzania, bulrush and finger millet.  The bulk of millet is produced for local brewing purposes, and bulrush millet is a staple food for people in Dodoma, Singida, and Shinyanga regions where over 80 percent of bulrush millet is produced.   Finger millet is very popular in the southwestern regions of Ruvuma, Iringa, Mbeya, and Rukwa.

Paddy Rice
Small-scale farmers produce most paddy rice by rainfed methods, but many lowland areas use traditional irrigation technologies.  The major paddy rice producing regions are Shinyanga, Mwanza, Morogoro, Mbeya, and Tabora which account for nearly two thirds of the total production.

For more information, contact Curt Reynolds
with the Production Estimates and Crop Assessment Division, at Curt.Reynolds@fas.usda.gov or (202) 690-0134.