Mitigating postharvest losses: A policy-driven approach to empowering smallholder farmers in Tanzania

Postharvest loss is one of the critical challenges facing many farmers in Tanzania, putting their livelihoods and food security in danger while costing the country between 30 and 40 % of its harvested crops annually. In an attempt to address this issue, the Tanzanian government has launched various policy reforms, including KILIMO KWANZA (agriculture first), Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT), and the Tanzania Agriculture and Food Security Investment Plan (TAFSIP). However, despite these initiatives, the postharvest loss challenges continue to prevail, underscoring the need for a comprehensive assessment of the efficacy of these initiatives. Although several previous studies have attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of these policy reforms, none have comprehensively looked at all three at once and from the perspective of postharvest management. The majority of previous studies have also analyzed the performance of these policy reforms from the perspective of a limited number of stakeholder groups, mainly farmers. In light of these observations, our study aimed to simultaneously evaluate the effectiveness of these three policy reforms, specifically in the context of postharvest management and from the viewpoint of multiple stakeholders. Using a qualitative approach, four important themes emerged from the interviews with ten social scientists from several prominent organizations. These include the limited adoption of improved postharvest technologies, the narrow scope and focus of existing policies, insufficient tax incentives, and inadequate specialized financial products for the postharvest sector. The study's findings provide an in-depth understanding of the deficiencies in existing policy reforms and suggest various adjustments that can be made to increase their effectiveness in tackling the problem of postharvest losses in Tanzanian agriculture. Furthermore, the information provided by this study is essential to policymakers, government agencies, researchers, postharvest specialists, farmers, agricultural organizations and any other parties involved in food supply chains.