Agricultural Marketing Reforms and Privatization in Tanzania

Abstract

This work attempts to examine the evolution of agricultural marketing institutions and the public vs private debate within a wider context. The paper reviews briefly Tanzanian development strategy and discusses the dynamics of state intervention in the economy in order to understand the process of political control and patronage. Critics argue that both the degree to which economic policies have been distorted and the type of political and bureaucratic intervention that have followed to achieve these policies have made the strategy so unviable economically as to threaten its major achievement. As a consequence reforms in agricultural marketing institutions become inevitable and privatization is advocated. Sources of impetus toward privatization and the major constraints against policy reforms are considered in the context of major interest groups in Tanzania.