Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy

Every year, the Annual Agricultural Policy Conference (AAPC) convenes a range of critical policy decision-makers and stakeholders in Tanzania’s agricultural sector to share the latest empirical findings, assess progress in agricultural policy reforms, share successes, lessons learned, identify remaining gaps and chart out agenda for future reforms.

The 5th AAPC took place from 13- 15 February 2019 in Dodoma and was officiated by Hon. Angella Kairuki (MP), Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, responsible for Investment.

During her opening remarks, the Minister highlighted that the research results discussed during the 5th AAPC, will help the Government come up with the best policies to advance the sector’s performance and to farmers’ livelihoods. She also acknowledged the role of key players in the sector including ASPIRES.

Themed “Prioritizing Agriculture in the Industrialization Agenda for Tanzania under the Agricultural Sector Development Program (ASDP-2)”, the 5th AAPC tapped onto existing efforts by the Government of Tanzania and unique to the 5th AAPC was the adaption of a value chain approach.

The policy dialogue helped to broaden the industrialization agenda into the big picture of economic transformation in a manner that is inclusive by capturing economic growth, poverty reduction, food and nutrition security and job creation especially for youth and women. The sub-theme captured value-chain specific regulatory reform.

Invited speakers delivered over 20 technical presentations tailored to the conference’s theme and addressing value chains including: 

1. Staples Value Chains
2. Traditional Export Value Chains
3. Non-traditional Exports Value Chains
4. Livestock and Fisheries Value Chains
5. Import Substitution Value Chains
6. Farm Inputs Value Chains
7. Farm Services Value Chains

These were followed by panel discussions where key sector influencers shared experiences in the local, regional and international contexts. 

Some of the key policy recommendations/ emerging issues from the 5th AAPC include:

• Establish a regulatory framework to support policy reforms in the agricultural sector
• Ensure consistent, predictable and sustainable policies to attract domestic and foreign investment
• Policy interventions to support replication of success stories
• Formulate policy on risk management and agriculture insurance schemes
• Increased direct public funding to agriculture development and research
• Harmonize policy interventions for incentivizing domestic and foreign investors
• Call for more policy interventions in support of liberalized agricultural marketing and trade policies
• It was recommended for PAG to collate and lead the implementation of policy recommendations emerging from the 5th AAPC
• It was recommended to pursue policy actions to enhance trade within East Africa. For example, ratification of the East Africa Sanitary and Phytosanitary Draft Protocol for the purpose of enhancing intra-regional trade
• Harmonize the operations of the regulatory bodies in the agriculture sector and accelerate the implementation of the Blueprint

In his closing remarks, Hon. Mahmoud Mgimwa the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Agriculture, Livestock and Water reiterated his Committee’s support and cooperation with PAG and invited all stakeholders to freely consult and inform the Parliamentary Committee on any issue which require high level discussions.