Agriculture In Tanzania Essay

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INTRODUCTION
1.1 Brief Introduction of Tanzania
Tanzania is among of the Eastern African countries, bordering Kenya and Uganda to the North, Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC to the West, and Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique to the South. To the East is the Indian Ocean, and the islands of Mafia, Pemba, and Zanzibar (CIM, 2013). The name Tanzania itself derives from the country 's two states, Zanzibar and Tanganyika in 1964. Zanzibar is an archipelago off the coast of Tanzania. Tanzania is the 31st largest country in the world and the 14th largest in Africa, with 947,300 square kilometers of land (WPR, 2014). According to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report of 2014 based on 2012 Population and Housing Census, the estimated 2014 population of Tanzania is 50.8 million with a growth rate of 2.8% per year (CIA World Factbook, 2014). Tanzania 's …show more content…

Over 80% of the population lives in rural areas and their livelihoods depend on agriculture. The sector accounts for 26.4% of the GDP, 30% of export earnings and 65% of raw material for domestic industries, however, the sector experience low growth. Given the importance of the sector as a source income, employment and food security, this low growth has translated into little progress on poverty reduction (Hepelwa, Selejio, and Mduma, 2013).
According to Hepelwa et al, (2013) agriculture in Tanzania is dominated by smallholder farmers with typical farm sizes ranging from about 0.9 to 3 ha occupying 91% of the total area under agriculture while the remaining 9% of the land is held by large scale farmers.

The country has 95.5 million hectares (ha) of land, of which 44 million ha are classified as arable, but only 27 per cent of the arable land is under cultivation. The area suitable for irrigation is estimated to be about 29.4 million ha, but only 0.34 million ha are under irrigation (IFAD,

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