Challenges for Small Scale Rice Farmers- A Case Study from Tanzania

Abstract

The present study was conducted in the Lake Zone of Tanzania, with a sample size of 265 rice farmers has been selected. The objective was to find out the constraints faced by rice farmers to propose Government’s policies regulating to overcome the constraints of rice production promotion and marketing in Tanzania. The study found that the agro-ecological constraints faced by farmers, ranked from more to less serious, were related to production and marketing problems; the major production challenge was drought faced 89.81 % of rice farmers from attaining the high rice production potential in the Lake Zone, followed by pests 34.34 %, shortage of inputs 31.32 % and diseases were the other major challenge encountered by the 25.29 %. The major diseases were the Yellow Mottle Virus and rice blast. Further, it shows that the low price of rice was a major marketing challenge faced by 38.95 %, followed by price fluctuations of 17.90%, and improper measurement scale was observed to be a challenge faced by 14.90 % of rice farmers.