Marketing of food crops in Tanzania: case study of rice

This study is about marketing of food crops in Tanzania and rice has been used as a case crop. It is our belief that the study of what happens between when food crops have been harvested and just when they reach the consumer is as important as are studies on supply response and consumer demand. The general objective of the study was to assess the efficiency of the official marketing channel for the crop studied. It has been found that much more than proportional amount of paddy/rice is handled and distributed by the open market. This suggests that the official channel has been redundant. It is also shown that the marketing costs have been unrealistically high, and following from which, it has been estimated that the open market in the 1984/85 season was more efficient by 44% when compared to the official market. We believe that this was the trend, as opposed to it being accidental, as it is confirmed by time cries data. This calls for a market reform to accelerate agricultural growth in particular and econornic development in general.