Tanzania Country Climate Risk Profile Series: Iringa District

Highlights

• Agriculture plays an important role in the economy of Iringa District. The sector employs about 73% of economically active people and generates nearly 99% of the GDP of rural Iringa. More than 70% of the women work in agriculture.

• Crop production is the most important agriculture sub-sector, supporting nearly 70% of all agricultural households in the district.

• Climate change impacts are felt along the entire agricultural value chain; input acquisition, on-farm activities, post-harvest handling, and marketing. Of these, on-farm production is the most vulnerable to climate variability.

• Youth engagement in agriculture is low, primarily due to marginalization in development projects. Policies that encourage youth engagement are weakly enforced.

• Women provide 70-80% of agricultural labor in the district, and produce over 80% of staple foods. However, social norms and the policy environment prohibit economic gains accrued from these activities to women. Cultural practices also marginalize women in terms of decision-making, access and use of resources such as water and land.

• The government plays a major role in resilience building in terms of implementation of policies, marketing of agricultural produce, and design of projects that engage marginalized groups such as women and youth. The government is also the primary provider of agricultural extension in the district.

• Capacity to quantify the effects of climate change in the water sector is currently low. Similarly, the Tanzania Meteorological Agency lacks the financial and human resources to collect and disseminate climate information.

• Scarcity of resources impedes the President’s Office, Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG) in carrying out projects that can increase resilience. The local government primarily depends on funds from the national government.

• Little research on climate change and climate adaptation has been done in the district. As a result, there is a paucity of empirical evidence on existing vulnerabilities and associated adaptation options that could be scaled out.

• There is limited involvement of both governmental and non-governmental organizations along the entire value chain, particularly in regards to provision of inputs, training on use of agricultural inputs, access to credit, value addition, and marketing.

• Lack of resources, especially land, water and finances, inhibits both production expansion and intensification. Farmers use the same poor agricultural methods on the same pieces of land.

• Farmers in the district employ a number of adaptive approaches such as irrigation, “vinyungu”, improved varieties among others. However, adoption rates remain low especially for women farmers, primarily due to lack of financial resources, lack of markets, and poor access to reliable information on the practices. In addition, women never make major decisions on use of productive resources.

• Provision of timely and accurate climate information, in combination with other adaptive approaches, such as use of early maturing, high yielding, and drought tolerant varieties, presents an important opportunity to enhance resilience among farmers.