Dar es Salaam. When Edwin Mtei resigned as Tanzania’s Minister for Finance, few would have imagined that the former technocrat, once at the centre of global financial decision-making, would soon be waking before dawn to ferry coffee pickers across the foothills of Mount Meru.
Yet that is precisely how Mtei’s unlikely transformation from public financier to large-scale farmer unfolded.
Mtei, who died in the early hours of Tuesday, January 20, 2026, recounts this story candidly in his autobiography, From Goatherd to Governor.
Immediately after leaving Cabinet, Mtei moved swiftly to implement a long-held plan to acquire Ogaden Estate, a coffee farm near Arusha.
Anticipating bureaucratic hurdles or deliberate delays in securing formal government approval for land ownership, he opted for a more pragmatic route: acquiring shares in the company that owned the estate.
Since he was no longer bound by the Arusha Declaration’s restrictions on shareholding, the transfer to him and his wife proceeded smoothly.
By New Year’s Day 1980, the former minister had traded the corridors of power for a farmhouse at Ogaden. His belongings were transported from Dar es Salaam by rail, then ferried from an Arusha warehouse to the estate.
The symbolism was striking: a man who had once negotiated with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank was now settling into the rhythms of rural life.
The transition, however, was anything but romantic. Ogaden Estate employed about 30 full-time workers and while most stayed on, the farm manager and a supervisor resigned, doubtful of the new owners’ ability to finance operations. Their departure forced Mtei into the unfamiliar terrain of hands-on farm management.
“I learnt a great deal about the details of coffee growing and processing,” he writes, noting that the replacement manager effectively ran the farm during his subsequent four-year stint in Washington.
The first harvest season of 1980/81 was lean and hectic. At peak picking time, the estate required at least 100 casual workers daily to ensure ripe coffee was pulped on time.
Competition for labour was fierce. With neighbouring smallholders harvesting simultaneously, Mtei found himself driving a pick-up truck at 5am, making multiple trips—sometimes as far as Karangai, 16 kilometres away—to collect workers. At the height of the season, he hired an additional vehicle to fetch labourers from Doli Sisal Estate in Usa River, more than 20 kilometres away.
Financing the farm was made possible through membership of the Tanganyika Coffee Growers’ Association (TCGA), a cooperative established in 1945. Through TCGA, inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides were obtained on credit, with costs deducted from coffee sales after auction by the Tanzania Coffee Board.
The arrangement suited Mtei’s background in finance. Large overdrafts negotiated collectively with the National Bank of Commerce allowed estates to operate smoothly during harvest seasons. Because the loans were reliably repaid at the end of each crop year, TCGA enjoyed more favourable terms than individual borrowers.
Beyond financial support, TCGA offered Mtei a new platform. Despite lingering fears among farmers of further nationalisations, he became an active member and was elected chairman in 1981/82.
The role drew on his technocratic skills, particularly as government boards shifted deliberations from English to Kiswahili, making his fluency and experience invaluable.
Through TCGA, Mtei found himself once again shaping policy—this time from the vantage point of agriculture. His board positions at the Coffee Authority of Tanzania and the Tanganyika Coffee Curing Company kept him abreast of shifting government strategies, while fellow farmers increasingly saw him as their spokesman.
All this unfolded against a tense political backdrop. President Julius Nyerere’s famous Kigoma speech, rejecting IMF and World Bank prescriptions and reaffirming socialism, sparked nationwide demonstrations. Although not directly named, Mtei was frequently cited in the international press as a supporter of IMF policies.
Foreign journalists sought him out, sometimes inventing stories. One Nairobi newspaper even reported, falsely, that he had been detained under the Preventive Detention Act. The episode ended in a libel settlement, but it underscored the delicate balance Mtei had to maintain as a former insider now living outside government.
Despite modest means—a small pension and uncertain farm income—Mtei persevered. His wife ran a chicken project, while he explored joint ventures and board appointments. Relief came with the 1981/82 bumper coffee harvest, which enabled him to clear debts, buy an Isuzu lorry and stabilise operations.
That success did not draw him away from farming; rather, it allowed him to combine it with renewed public service. Appointments to key commissions on banking, taxation and public finance followed, placing him once again at the heart of reform debates that would reshape Tanzania’s economy in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Yet Ogaden Estate remained central. It was there that international figures such as Nigeria’s former president Olusegun Obasanjo visited, sharing local cuisine and conversations about Africa’s future. It was also from the farm that Mtei balanced manual labour with intellectual engagement, refusing, as he puts it, to “rust”.
Looking back, his shift from technocrat to farmer was less a retreat than a recalibration. Farming grounded him during a politically uncertain period, provided financial independence and offered a vantage point from which to continue influencing national policy.
In the end, Mtei’s story is not simply about coffee or land. It is about adaptability—how a man shaped by spreadsheets, balance sheets and boardrooms found purpose in soil, seasons and sweat, without ever abandoning the ideas and convictions that had defined his public life.
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