Tanzania bets on new plan to transform agriculture into economic powerhouse

Dodoma. Tanzania is poised to revolutionise its agricultural sector with the launch of the Agricultural Growth Corridors of Tanzania (Agcot), a nationwide initiative aimed at modernising farming and positioning the country as a major global player in food production.

Scheduled for official unveiling on April 27, Agcot is an ambitious expansion of the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (Sagcot)—a public-private initiative launched in 2010 that exceeded its targets ahead of time.

Now a flagship project under the government’s Agriculture Master Plan 2050 (AMP 2050), Agcot aims to replicate Sagcot’s success across three new corridors: Central, Northern and Mtwara.

Speaking at a recent national stakeholder forum, Agriculture Minister Hussein Mohamed Bashe said the new initiative represents a paradigm shift in how agriculture is perceived and implemented in Tanzania.

“Agcot is not just a scale-up. It is a systems-level transformation of how we approach agriculture—one corridor, one cluster, one value chain at a time,” he said.

From vision to reality

Under President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s administration, agriculture has been elevated from a subsistence activity to a strategic sector critical to national economic growth, food security, and industrialisation.

Agcot will act as a platform for targeted, cluster-based public-private collaboration to address persistent sectoral challenges, including fragmented markets, poor logistics, and limited access to finance and modern farming inputs. Planned interventions include investment in rural infrastructure, land governance, climate-smart technologies, and agro-processing capabilities.

The initiative is expected to drive $20 billion in net agricultural exports and create millions of jobs in rural areas by 2050. It also aims to boost smallholder incomes by 25 percent and reduce national undernourishment to below 15 percent, aligning with policy frameworks such as ASDP II, Agenda 10/30, and the AMP 2050.

Key commodities targeted include maize, rice, pulses, horticultural crops, oilseeds, wheat, and livestock, with a strong emphasis on achieving export competitiveness. Inclusivity—especially for women and youth—will be a central pillar of implementation.

Institutional framework

Agcot will be overseen by the Agcot Centre, a newly restructured entity that builds on the S Sagcot Centre’s legacy. The Centre will serve as the operational nucleus of corridor development, with agile teams coordinating investment facilitation, policy dialogue, stakeholder engagement, and results monitoring across the country.

A proven model

The Sagcot initiative serves as a successful pilot for the Agcot model. Over 14 years, Sagcot attracted $6.34 billion in investments—111 percent of its original target. Of this, $5.02 billion came from public investment in enabling infrastructure, while $1.32 billion was mobilised from private firms into commercial agriculture.

Its results are tangible: more than 1 million farmers reached, 1.3 million hectares brought under climate-resilient farming, over $600 million in farm revenues generated, and 253,000 new jobs created.

With global concerns over food security and climate resilience reshaping development agendas, Tanzania’s corridor-based approach places it at the forefront of sustainable agribusiness in Africa.

“Agcot is more than a policy announcement—it is a bet on agriculture as the engine of 21st-century African growth,” said Mr Bashe. “We are no longer speaking of agriculture as in the past. We are positioning it as the future.”