A Dissertation Submitted in Partial/Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Award of Master of Science in Accounting and Finance of Mzumbe University
Zanzibar‟s economy is characterized by presence of high level of agriculture and
tourism. Agriculture is the main economic activity for most people in Zanzibar. About
60% of the active labor force derives their livelihood from agriculture – related activities
and the majority of farmers are women who mostly used traditional methods of farming.
This research base on the contribution of agriculture in the economic growth of Zanzibar
which was focused on three specific objectives which are Trends of agriculture, the
areas of agriculture that contribute significantly to the economic growth and the
relationship between agriculture and economic growth.
The methodology used was Quantitative approach as a design whereby a sample taken
from a population from the year 2005 to 2013. Time series data used and has been
collected from office of chief government statistician (OCGS), the period of study was
2014 and the variables used was Crops, Forest and Fishing as independent and Gross
domestic product(GDP) as dependent variable. The tools of analysis applied in this study
include descriptive statistics followed by tsline(y), multiple regression, co-integration
followed by Granger causality test for the first, second and third objective respectively.
The findings revealed that the agriculture appear to have a random walk trends
(stochastic trends) due to prolonged increase followed by prolonged decrease. With
regard to the subsector of agriculture, the study identified that only crops products
contribute significantly to the economic growth. With regard to the third objective the
results suggested that agriculture and GDP are not co-integrated and only crop products
among the subsector of agriculture is co-integrated with GDP but in only one direction
where by crop products contain information that can predict the GDP. The study took
only three elements of agriculture for analyzing trends, subsector of agriculture
contribute significantly and the relationship between GDP and agriculture. The study put
forward some recommendation including broadening.
Keywords: Economic growth, Crops products, Fishing products, Forest products and
Gross Domestic Product (GDP).