United Republic of Tanzania

General Information

· Main climates: Tropical Wet and Dry, Tropical Steppe and Semiarid, Tropical Steppe and Semiarid at 600 m above sea

· Total land area: 88 604 000 ha

· Internal renewable water resources: 80 km³

· Incoming water flow: 9 km³

· GNP per capita, 1998: PPP$ 483

· Main food consumed: Maize, Roots & tubers, Rice, Pulses, Oil & fat

· Rice supply, 1999: 21.5 kg paddy/capita/year

Basic Statistics

Producing Zones and Cropping Seasons

Rice is planted on both the mainland and the Zanzibar Island. The following table shows the distribution of harvested areas from producing zones on the mainly.

Most rice crops are grown during the rainy season. In irrigated areas a second rice crop may be planted.

Production Practices

The following figure shows the harvested areas from different ecologies during the last five years.

Upland rice is grown as a mono-crop or as in a mixture with other food crops following the slash-and-burn shifting cultivation almost without any application of chemical fertilizer and other agro-chemical. In rainfed lowland and irrigated rice production, land preparation is done by varying methods from manual land preparation using only hand hoe to land preparation with either animal traction or with tractors, depending on the farm size and available means. Transplanting is the popular method of crop establishment. Farmers generally apply little fertilizer to rainfed lowland, but moderate to high rates of inorganic fertilizers may be applied to irrigated rice. Information on rice response to fertilizer application, however, is limited. Weeding is generally done manually, although the use of herbicides is increasing in irrigated rice. Farmers do not have adequate appropriate tools and equipment for harvesting and threshing of rice. A number of rice varieties have been released for cultivation.

Constraints and Issues of Sustainable Production

There are several constraints to sustainable rice production in Tanzania. Following are the majors:

• Drought in upland areas and drought and flash flood in rainfed lowland (or inland swamp) areas due to irregular weather

• Infestation of red rice in the irrigated schemes

• Inadequate and Irregular input supplies: seeds, fertilizer and credit

• Lack of small farm equipment especially for post harvest operations

• Lack of effective farmer organization and co-operative

• Poor maintenance of irrigation facilities

• Lack of a well-defined rice policy

• Poor road networks and marketing systems

• Labour shortage due to competition from other crop

• Weak research and extension support

Sustainable rice production would greatly depend on the establishment of appropriate policy to provide support to farmers especially in-terms of input supply and output marketing. The development of lowland rice production with improved water supply and control would be essential.

Research and Development Institutes

· Tanzania Agricultural Research Organization, P.O. Box 9761 Dar-es-Salaam Phone: 44753

· Rice Research Programme, Ministry of Agriculture, c/o CRT-Temeke, P.O. Box 2066, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Tel (255-51) 860326.

· Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Natural Resources, P.O.Box 159, Zanzibar, Tanzania.

· Central Research and Training Institute, Ilonga Private Bag Kilosa

· Katrin Research Centre, P.O. Box Ifahara Morogoro Region