Towards unlocking the hidden potential of Horticulture in Arusha Tanzania

Abstract

The role of agriculture in development has received much attention in the last decade. Early literature considered the role of agriculture in economic development to be a supportive one to industrial sectors such as ensuring a supply of cheap labour and food for workers in industrial sectors (Andersen and Shimokawa, 2006). However, agriculture is currently back on top of development agenda especially in African countries including Tanzania. The awakened involvement in agricultural activities for development is in consonance with World Bank’s conviction that agricultural development is the most viable tool to achieve the first Millennium development goal of reducing extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 in the region (Mwase, 2015). This is after witnessing impressive economic growth of many developing countries but with insignificant reduction in poverty. It is argued that agriculture sector which employs majority of the poor in agricultural economy led countries has not been growing at the same pace as other sectors of the economies, therefore failing to make the poor also benefit from the economy growth. Horticulture development especially, is claimed to be in a good position to benefit the poor due to the fact that horticulture crops offers better prices than prices offered for traditional staple crops such as maize. Additionally, horticulture accommodates majority of the poor population because of its nature to require intensive labour, skilled and unskilled. Therefore, any efforts to boost the horticulture is claimed to have positive impact on the living standard of the poor. This research examines the horticulture sector in Arusha Tanzania, exploring how it is organized, the main players, its potentials and bottlenecks it faces, the existing interventions to boost the growth of the sector by specifically giving attention on one physical infrastructure intervention, KIA rehabilitation, on trying to understand how those interventions help to unlock the potential of horticulture industry to benefit the poor, by asking the following research question, “How will the rehabilitation of Kilimanjaro Airport contribute to the growth of the horticulture sector in Arusha Tanzania?”