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Food security in Tanzania: the challenge of rapid urbanisation

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Abstract

Urbanisation in Tanzania is proceeding apace. This article seeks to identify the challenge posed by rapid urbanisation for food security in Tanzania to 2030, the Sustainable Development Goals horizon. It is hypothesized that urban food security largely depends on the food supply systems and the rural food production potential. The analysis of these interlinkages is based on secondary macro data and own primary micro data. Tanzania has done well to achieve broad self-sufficiency in basic foodstuffs to date, but rapid urbanisation will pose a severe future challenge as regards food security, particularly for the disadvantaged poorer people of the towns and cities in terms of food affordability, stability and food safety. Whether Tanzania can avoid future deterioration in urban food security will depend on how responsive and resilient the urban food supply systems prove to be in the face of continuing urban growth, changing consumption patterns, weak rural–urban food supply linkages and production constraints in the smallholder farming sector.

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Notes

  1. Based on: lack of access to improved water; lack of access to sanitation; non-durable housing; and insufficient living area.

  2. The data has been collected by the Institute for Environmental Economics and World Trade in the context of the Trans-Sec project (www.trans-sec.org) financed by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research.

  3. Over the period 1978–2012, in-migration has accounted for a little over half urban growth in Tanzania (Wenban-Smith, 2015, p.5) but with large variations between regions. In the 2002–2012 period, in-migration accounted for over 60 % of urban growth for 8 regions including Dar es Salaam but for 4 regions (Mara, Singida, Mtwara and Lindi) urban out-migration exceeded natural growth.

  4. This is the 2008 Survey of Industrial Production and Performance. The 2009 survey contained less detail, and there do not appear to have been any subsequent published surveys.

  5. For example, this may explain the rise in net imports of wheat (mainly consumed in urban areas) from 0.3 million tonnes in 2001 to 1.0 million tonnes in 2011 (FAOSTAT Food Balance Sheets).

  6. For around the year 2000, Conforti and Sarris (2010) put the figure at 45 %. However, the revised national accounts based on 2001 put the figure at 30.7 % in 2001, falling to 25.9 % in 2013 (provisional). Over this period, GDP grew at about 7 % p.a. while agriculture grew by only 4 % p.a.

  7. http://sagcot.com/

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Independent Research Economist, London, UK

    Hugh Wenban-Smith

  2. Institute for Environmental Economics and World Trade, Leibniz University Hannover, Königsworther Platz 1, 30167, Hannover, Germany

    Anja Faße & Ulrike Grote

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  1. Hugh Wenban-Smith
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  2. Anja Faße
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  3. Ulrike Grote
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Correspondence to Anja Faße.

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Wenban-Smith, H., Faße, A. & Grote, U. Food security in Tanzania: the challenge of rapid urbanisation. Food Sec. 8, 973–984 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-016-0612-8

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