The study examines the influence of food safety, health and quality standards on smallholders upgrading in local linkages between agriculture and tourism sectors in developing countries. It draws evidence from horticultural-tourism value chain in Zanzibar as a case study. In-depth interviews with the tourist hotels’ procurement managers/chefs, intermediaries, individual smallholders, key informant from farmer organization, focus group discussions, observation and documentary review were conducted. Collected data was qualitatively analyzed through pattern matching technique. The results show that smallholders are heavily challenged to comply with food standards given their small size and lack of resources and support among others. These limit their ability to upgrading farming activities and access tourist hotels’ market. As a result the local linkage between agriculture and tourism in Zanzibar is persistently weak. This suggests that rural policies need to be redesigned to enhance smallholders upgrade and comply with food safety, health and quality standards.DANIDA under BSU-GEP (Building Stronger Universities – Growth and Employment) project and University of Dar es salaam Business School (UDBS)