Workshop Paper
The agricultural policies advocated by the Tanzanian government for the cooperative societies and the coffee sector have not been stable. Frequent changes in policy have affected the sector, hindering the effectiveness of the institutions that deal with the coffee sector. Most of these policy changes have failed to foster growth of coffee production. Despite the market potential of Tanzanian coffee, policies and institutional constraints have resulted in the stagnation of annual coffee production at 50,000 tons per year for over four decades. Currently, the Tanzanian coffee sector is challenged by lack of political will to develop and increase the productivity of coffee. Thus, institutional constraints have led to a failure to support research and extension activities, limited production and distribution of hybrid seedlings, and failed to support data collection on production, number of coffee farmers and farm size. Weak cooperative organizations and failure to take private sector aboard are further consequences of institutional constraints. This paper discusses the institutional constraints facing the coffee sector and capitalizing on available opportunities for increasing coffee production in Tanzania. Since coffee production in Tanzania has the potential to reach its optimum production level, it is therefore recommended that the government address the identified constraints, commit itself to development of the crop and reinvest part of the revenue collected from the coffee sector in research and development. Public Private Partnership could be forged to revive the coffee industry by bringing onboard the private sector to invest and assist in the provision of extension services, which are important for enhancing production growth through improvement of the recommended agricultural practices, marketing efficiency and technological change.