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CHAPTER FIVE SMALLHOLDER AGRICULTURE IN TANZANIA – CAN ECONOMIC LIBERALISATION KEEP ITS PROMISES?1 Rune Skarstein Background Smallholders are the main producers of food crops in Tanzania.1 In 1994/95, approximately 88% of the total agricultural area in Tanzania was under smallholdings, which accounted for 97.8% of total maize production , 97.3% of total paddy production, and almost all production of sorghum/millet in the country (cf. URT, 1996: 38, URT, 1997: vi-vii). For this reason, the focus of this paper is the impact of economic liberalisation on smallholder productivity. Let me start by recapitulating the stagnation inTanzania’s agricultural production in the late 1970s and early 1980s.The first serious setback was in 1973/74 and 1974/75, associated with the villagisation campaign, but also attributed to bad weather. In 1976/77, agricultural production recovered again. But in the subsequent years, there was a persistent stagnation until 1983. In the period 1976-77 to 1982-83, the average annual growth of maize and rice production was 1.0% and 0.2%, respectively, while the agricultural GDP (crop and animal husbandry) increased by only 1.3% per year. With a population growth rate of 3.2% per annum in this period, per capita production of the two major food 1 I am also grateful to Amit Bhaduri, Kjell J. Havnevik and Anders Skonhoft for helpful comments. Last but not least, I wish to thank Dennis Rweyemamu at the Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF) for his assistance in collecting data. The paper has been prepared as part of the research project “Global Models and Local Realities - African Peasants in the Age of Liberalisation ”. Financial support from The Research Council of Norway is gratefully acknowledged.) In this article, the term “smallholder” has the same meaning as in official Tanzanian statistics. According to the National Sample Census of Agriculture of 1994/95 (URT, 1996), there were 3,873,000 smallholders in Tanzania Mainland. In the masika season (the great rain season), average planted area per smallholder was 0.86 ha. 9.9% of all smallholders had a planted area of more than 2 ha, while only 1.4% had a planted area of more than 5 ha. 99.9% had a hand hoe (jembe), while 9.3% had an animal operated plough. 17.6% employed temporary worker(s), while only 1.1% employed permanent wage labour. Thus, the Tanzanian smallholders operate their holdings mainly with family labour, the great majority using only hand tools. 100 Chapter Five grains declined by 2.2% and 3.0% per year, respectively.2 Thus, production of the by far most important staple food, maize, dropped from an average of 93.5 kg per capita in 1976-77, to 82.1 kg per capita in 1982-83. On the other hand, it is notable that in the years 1983 to 1986 − which have often been considered as the worst crisis years − there was, according to official statistics , actually a strong upswing in agricultural production (cf. table 1). Maize production rose by more than 26% from the crop year 1982/83 to 1984/85, reaching a historical high of 2,093,000 tonnes, corresponding to 96 kg per capita of the population, in the latter year. In the period 1984 to 1986, both maize and paddy production increased every year; maize production rose by an average of 10.2% per year, while paddy production increased by more than 16% per year (cf. also table 1). The stagnation of agricultural production in the late 1970s and early 1980s contributed to Tanzania’s increasing dependency on large imports of the major food grains maize and rice. In the period 1972-1986, Tanzania had net imports of maize in all years except in 1978 and 1979. Total net imports of maize over the whole period amounted to 1,587,1000 tonnes, i.e. an average of 105,800 tonnes per year. In the same 15 year period, Tanzania was a net importer of rice every year, amounting to 770,000 tonnes over the whole period, corresponding to an average of more than 51,000 tonnes per year (cf. Bryceson, 1993: 239). There can be no doubt that these imports contributed to Tanzania’s mounting balance of payments crisis in the 1980s. The crop data up to 1983 stem from various publications from the Ministry of Agriculture. The data for the period 1983-1985 are from the Crop Monitoring and Early Warning Unit (CMEW), while the data from 1986 onwards...

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