Tanzania Agricultural Sector Policy.

Tanzania Agricultural Sector Policy 2003 is a national cross-sectoral policy with an overall goal to promote sustainable development of the agricultural sector for economic, social and environmental benefits for its people.Improvement of food insecurity and nutrition is amongst the objectives of this strategy. To this end, the government will institute and promote water control management, encourage intensification of rice and other crops, and increase the production of livestock and fish, promote agricultural diversification towards high value products, continuously assess food sector performance to identify constraints to food production and take remedial measures, improve sanitary conditions and promote preventive measures to reduce communicable diseases, and encourage different sources of income generation activities for increasing the smallholders' income.Increased and sustainable growth of agricultural production will be based on structural changes, aiming at increasing productivity, developing new technology and producing new products. To this end, the following development strategies will be employed: Enhanced management of agricultural research, extension and training; Closer monitoring and evaluation of agricultural development; Identification of new products, technologies, and promotion of new production processes; Promotion of private sector participation in agricultural commercial activities; Regular reviews of the impact of agriculture policies; Quality control of agricultural inputs and products; Control of epidemic pests and diseases; Providing an adequate legal and regulatory framework; Promotion and monitoring of farmer’s associations; Improved management of natural resources; Promotion of institutional structures in the agricultural sector; Promotion of small-scale irrigation; Policy management structures to articulate the sector’s priorities, translating larger policy decisions into sector specific actions, and monitoring the impact of policy reforms on agriculture.These strategies will also contribute to development of more inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems. Further, to reduce poverty the government will promote investment in the agricultural sector, higher agricultural productivity among poor farmers, and off-farm income generating activities. To this end, the policy strategies will aim to intensify agricultural production through improved technologies, encourage more investment in smallholder irrigation systems, and initiate and promote poverty alleviation projects to be implemented by NGOs and CBOs. Further, to promote gender equality in agricultural development in order to ensure that women have equitable access to and control over productive resources including land and water, as well as access to support services particularly credit and extension services, efforts will focus on developing programmes to sensitize the public on gender issues, review and enact of laws that promote gender equality in the ownership of, and control over productive resources, and encourage NGOs and community based organizations to initiate programmes and projects that support women farmers.Regarding governance, the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Co-operatives is the responsible institution for strategy implementation and coordination. Some of the performance indicators that will be used are: Agricultural GDP linkage with overall growth;Tracking and monitoring the growth of GDP per capita; Agricultural productivity of food crops, cash crops, livestock and fisheries Products; The quality of agricultural products; Performance of traditional exports (cloves, copra etc); Share of per capita income earned from agriculture; Use of organic and inorganic fertilisers; Gender equity ratio; Quality of the environment; Investment in agriculture; Self-sufficiency in food; Trade; and Non-farm incomes.