Why heavy rains will affect food production in Tanzania

Dar es Salaam. Agricultural stakeholders have identified several types of crops that are susceptible to the impacts of ongoing heavy rainfall in the country.

This comes as various regions continue to receive rains, which the Tanzania Meteorological Authority (TMA) predicts could be associated with El Nino.

A farmer, Audax Rukonge, told The Citizen that the ongoing rains would cause food shortages and high prices for major crops because people could not plant on time.

"We also expect that there will be post-harvest losses and most farmers might experience low production of crops, given the fact that regions considered food baskets have also been affected by the heavy downpours,” he said.

Mr Rukonge urged farmers to look for alternative farmlands, especially in regions with minimal rainfall, to plant short-term crops.

“TMA predicted the El Nino since October 2023 and people could not plant crops during that time because it was not due time for planting... So far, farmers have encountered challenges in sending tractors to the fields because it is difficult to cultivate in waterlogged farmlands,” he noted.

Another farmer, Dr Aloyce Masanja, said cereals and horticultural products are more likely to be affected by the ongoing rainfall.

These include maize, millet, rice, wheat, tomatoes and vegetables.

Tanzania Agriculture Research Institute (Tari) research manager Fred Tairo explained that farmers who took the risk to plant crops in October 2023 must be harvesting their crops, though the possibility of post-harvest loss and aflatoxin is high.

Mr Tairo noted that heavy rainfall can cause aflatoxins in crops because it is difficult and expensive to dry crops in humid situations.

As aflatoxins are known to be genotoxic and carcinogenic, exposure through food should be kept as low as possible.

Aflatoxins can occur in foods such as groundnuts, tree nuts, maize, rice, figs and other dried foods; spices; crude vegetable oils; and cocoa beans as a result of fungal contamination before and after harvest.

In August 2023, TMA said most parts of the country would receive above-normal to normal rains during the Vuli season as a result of El Nino conditions.

The Vuli season is specifically for areas that receive rain twice a year, which includes regions in the North Eastern Highlands and a few areas of the eastern part of the Lake Victoria basin.

The regions are Kagera, Geita, Mwanza, Shinyanga, the southern parts of Simiyu, the northern parts of Kigoma, Dar es Salaam, Tanga, the Coast (including Mafia Island), and the northern parts of Morogoro, together with the isles of Unguja and Pemba.

The rains, which started in the fourth week of September to the first week of October 2023 in the Kagera region and spread to other regions during the second week of October 2023, have continued to rain through January 2024.