ABSTRACT A heavy burden of lack of employment, poor social services, and bureaucratic hassles drives many producers into the informal sector. This situation is a consequence of either the ignorance or the negligence, of the state authorities. Moshi municipality is among the towns in Tanzania where “marching trade” is practiced. This is an exceptional case where through observation women are highly involved in marching trade. This study was designed to determine factors contributed to wom...
EXTENDED ABSTRACT Raising chickens is rapidly gaining popularity in the developing world. However, high feed costs associated with intensive poultry rearing as well as increased competition between humans and animals/chicken on feed demand have necessitated the need for exploring new options in chicken feeding. Furthermore, chickens have a limited foraging range a factor that translates in a very narrow array of feeds they can access. Sorghum is one such feedstuff which is widely grown in Ta...
ABSTRACT The main objective of this study is to determine how HIV/AIDS affects rural women`s production activities. The data were collected from two Divisions of Mvomero District in Morogoro. The specific objectives were, to identify and characterize the rural women`s production activities, to compare the time spent in household production activities before and after HIV infection, to determine the household production and income levels before and after HIV infection and to asses household e...
ABSTRACT A Warehouse Receipt System (WRS) is important in a paddy value chain because the commodity requires storage before it reaches consumers. Furthermore, a WRS may enhance speed of transactions and lower costs along the supply chain. However, little is known about the overall profit efficiency of paddy-rice farmers using warehouses. This study investigates the profit of the farmers in Kilombero District by examining the role of WRS on profit. In this study, a stochastic profit frontier ...
ABSTRACT Rice Yellow Mottle Virus (RYMV) is the most important pest constraint of rice in Tanzania and other sub Saharan Africa countries. Fertilizer management is recommended to minimize incidence and development of the disease in affected rice ecosystems. Field research was carried out in the 2014 cropping season at Sokoine University of Agriculture to determine the effect of nitrogen fertilizers on the development of RYMV and grain yield of rice. Split-split plot in a randomized complete ...
ABSTRACT A study was carried out in Magu and Ilemela districts in Mwanza region to characterize cattle finishing systems and identify the factors limiting cattle growth performance. A total of 120 agro pastoralists and 30 cattle finishing entrepreneurs were interviewed using questionnaires. Seven focus group discussions were also performed. In addition, monitoring study on cattle growth performance was done for 56 days on a total of 105 cattle, of which body weight gain of cattle was measure...
ABSTRACT The study was conducted in Sumbawanga Rural District in Rukwa region. Its objective was to examine the influence of grain quality and standards in maize trading. Specifically, to find the significance of maize cleaning, grading and standardizing in grain marketing, to examine the significance of the road condition in determining maize buyers’ accessibility to buying posts and the significance of the number of maize buyers in fluctuating farmers’ maize selling price. Purposive mu...
ABSTRACT Household food insecurity in Tanzania is widespread even when the country experiences bumper harvest. Food insecurity is widespread and chronic that there is always a certain degree of household food deficit at a given part in a year. Despite the government’s efforts to improve agricultural production, food insecurity has persisted. Thus, this study was conducted to assess causes of food insecurity and coping strategies of smallholder farmers in Chamwino district, Dodoma region. S...
ABSTRACT The study on contribution of valley bottom cultivation (vinyungu) to poverty alleviation in Mtitu River Basin in Kilolo District was conducted in order to examine the role of this type of agriculture to rural livelihood. This type of agriculture has been practiced over many decades. In Mtitu River Basin almost all valley bottoms are used by small farmers who practice farming in lowlands, usually called vinyungu, a type of farming practiced in dry season. Tanzania Government has been...
ABSTRACT Agricultural sector in Tanzania and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa is dominated by smallholder farmers. This has made the smallholder-led growth strategy to be widely accepted as the pathway for achieving economic transformation and mass poverty reduction in Africa. Recently, however, concerns have been raised on the validity of favouring small farmers because small-scale farming in Africa has historically provided very low returns to labour. Also unlike earlier findings of the inv...
ABSTRACT The field experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of bean plant population under conservation and conventional tillage systems in suppressing weeds in maize-bean intercropping systems was conducted at the Tropical Pesticides Research Institute (TPRI) for the 2010 short rains and 2011 long rains season. A split-split plot experiment laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) was used with three replications. The main treatments were: the conventional and conservation till...
ABSTRACT Malnutrition is among the serious health problems affecting infants, children and women of reproductive age in Tanzania. Various approaches have been adopted to address this problem. Such approaches include; importation of food, food aid and medical treatment. Despite these efforts, however, millions of Tanzanians particularly women and children continue to suffer from one or more forms of malnutrition. Agriculture has been currently taken as great measure to harness malnutrition am...
ABSTRACT The study was conducted to assess contribution of soil and water conservation practices on household food security and income in East Usambara highlands, Tanzania. Purposive sampling procedures were used to obtain six representative villages. In each village, 40 respondents were randomly selected leading to a sample size of 240 respondents. Structured and non-structured interview questions were used to collect data. Data collected by using questionnaires were supplemented by field o...
ABSTRACT The assessment of technology adoption for free range local chicken improvement was carried out using a sample of one hundred and twenty (120) farmers, fifty trained farmers, fifty neighbouring farmers and twenty control farmers. A structured questionnaire was used. Other data were obtained by direct measurement of eggs and adult live birds. Multiple Range Test (MRT) was used to separate the means especially for the production data. Results indicated that adoption rate among the trai...
EXTENDED ABSTRACT Growth performance and productivity of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) is highly influenced by water quality in the pond. On the other hand, water quality is influenced by the climate and ecological conditions of the place. This study evaluated the growthperformance, survival rate, yield, body length-weight relationship and condition factor of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) cultured in two districts; Mbarali and Mufindiof Mbeya and Iringa regions,respectively. Fu...