Brief History & a Normative Gesture on the Agro Institutional Frame Work

Brief History & a Normative Gesture on the Agro Institutional Frame Work - Tanzania

Ibrahim .A.S. • September 25, 2021

Tanzania, just like other Sub-Saharan African countries were going through a series of trade reforms in the 1980’s as part of their structural adjustment programmes.

Like all other sectors agriculture sector was not spared from the reforms. Accounting the Agricultural sector the programmes were aimed at (Eskola, 2005);

a) Facilitating trade by decontrolling Input and Output prices

b) Eliminating regulatory control over input and output marketing

c) Restructuring public enterprises

d) Reducing marketing board activities in pricing and marketing

At the time the reforms were aimed at improving price incentive and would liberalize the markets such that it would induce supply response of inputs and outputs in the hope that they would have achieved what they called “Well-functioning markets”. However, two decades later into the millennium these tactics proved failure as countries in the Sub Saharan Africa were still falling behind from the economic development compared to other developing countries not to mention the OECD counties (Kherallah, 2000)

For pro-reformers (Eskola, 2005) on the defense for failures of the policy reforms claimed that;

a) It was assumed that the country was operating under a fully liberated environment. It was claimed that in de-facto terms the policies were never really implemented and at a point they were even reversed.

b) It was also brought forward that there had been government intervention from the marketing side.

c) It was also observed that for countries where governments have withdrawn the private sector has not always been able to replace the role previously occupied by the government.

However for some believe that there are other underlying reasons that impeded the policy reforms which might also hold true in our current times. These might be such as; Lack of commitment from political leadership, Fear of disturbing the existing client-patron relationship and Concern of losing important source of public revenues (Kherallah, 2000)

While we can dwell on what the challenges were or still are, my take on is to put in more work in the institutional frame work of the whole industry taking into account all stake holders. Normatively it should fix the current situation in which the;

a) Institutional frame work is unable to support the formation of strong traders and producers,

b) Boards and association that cannot weed out shady entities and personnel that destroy the image of the country

c) Weak legal framework that is prevalent in the country such that contracts are not respected and cannot be enforced in a timely manner.

All this leads to a weak sector with respect to the frame work and all we have to do correct it is to dive into the process and try to integrate the; Legal aspect, Trade aspect, Food security aspect, Financing and Marketing aspect to better our position and have the upper hand in negotiating better fairer terms of trade at the world stage. It is not rocket science to achieve this, in fact some of our own home sectors at home have tried to achieve this in some aspects, exemplary, the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) in the issuing of permits.

It is in my understanding that in doing so we will enter in an intensive debate, which by the way is inevitable, one with a lot of polarized actors from the government, cooperative unions, processors, traders e.t.c, with different perspectives which all maybe right. I am not sure that I am advocating a liberalized market but I am sure that I am advocating a market of consensus that takes into considerations all variables, each being weighted correctly to bring about a sustainable environment within the sector.

Source of information:

Eskola, E. (2005). Agricultural marketing and supply chain management in Tanzania : a case study. ESRF Study on Globalisation and East Africa Economies, p. 1 to 3.
Kherallah, M. – Delgado, E. – Gabre-Madhin, E. – Minot, N. – Johnson, (2000) Agricultural Market Reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Synthesis of Research Findings, revised draft, International Food Policy research Institute, Washington D.C.
Kaleshu, J. (2000) Consultancy Report on Cashew nuts Marketing in Tanzania, made for the I.C.A. Regional Office.
Government of Tanzania & Ministry of Cooperatives and Marketing (2005), Agricultural Marketing Policy (Second draft).
Badiane, O. (1998), Marketing Policy Reform and Competitiveness: Why Integration and Arbitrage Costs Matter, IFPRI Discussion Paper No. 22.

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