Tanzania Horticultural Association (TAHA) is a perfect example of how supporting local organizations and local talent can transform the agriculture sector. 

TAHA is a private sector member-based organization that advocates for the growth and competitiveness of the horticultural industry in Tanzania. Since its inception in 2004, TAHA has been providing technical support, market analysis and political advocacy services to a wide range of Tanzanian businesses in the horticulture sector. In December 2012, USAID/Tanzania, through Feed the Future, awarded a four-year, $4 million grant to TAHA with the goal of expanding the organization’s membership and services to the Southern Agriculture Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT), a region identified by the Government of Tanzania (GoT) as having significant potential for growth in horticulture. Over four years, this grant enabled TAHA to grow its membership base from only 212 companies to over 700 companies, bringing together large producers, exporters and processors, suppliers of agri-inputs and other service providers, as well as smallholder farmer groups and associations representing approximately 42,000 farmers. 

USAID/Tanzania financial and technical support has transformed TAHA into a vibrant institution, resulting in the rapid growth of Tanzania’s horticulture industry. In 2006, there were less than 50 horticultural farmers in the country with insignificant production volumes for export markets. The funds provided by the United States boosted TAHA’s ability to provide technical guidance to farmers, advocate for policy changes, and promote Tanzania horticulture products both locally and abroad, critical elements to the success of this multimillion dollar industry. 

According to TAHA, yields of fruits and vegetables have increased by 200-300 percent and exports have grown to over $779 million in 2021. TAHA has advocated for policy reforms on more than 50 issues that have resulted in a better business environment for Tanzania’s horticulture growers and value chain actors. The sector employs more than 450,000 people, 65-70 percent of whom are women. TAHA’s work in nurturing the horticultural sector from scratch to a multi-million dollar industry has been recognized by the GoT, which seeks to increase exports to $3 billion by 2025.

Supported by USAID in its nascency, TAHAs has since achieved impressive accomplishments including successfully advocating to have the GoT waive the 18-percent value-added tax placed on airfreight for horticulture goods, allowing Tanzanian businesses to become more competitive while increasing their earnings. TAHA also engaged with the Government of Kenya, successfully cutting the road-toll fee in half, and removing Kenya’s import ban on cut roses, allowing Tanzanian firms to increase exports. Over the years, TAHA's work to reduce post-harvest losses among member farmers has resulted in a reduction of loss from 50-60 percent to 5-10 percent in various horticulture crops.

Building on its post-harvest loss work, TAHA is now working to tackle post-harvest loss to combat food insecurity and climate change, while improving livelihoods. Through their strategic partnership, USAID and TAHA identified major causes for post-harvest losses in Tanzania, and existing barriers and opportunities for addressing them. The results of this exercise will focus on work that ensures (i) actors along the value chain use best practices and invest in food handling, storage, and value addition; (ii) producers are able to access a functional market system with their agricultural goods; and (iii) policy and regulatory constraints that hinder business operations and market functionality are removed. The project will also strengthen the organizational capacity of TAHA to enable them to lead on post-harvest management and expand and strengthen their network of engaged market actors. With a total budget of $24 million over 5 years, this will be the largest locally implemented project in USAID/Tanzania’s Economic Growth portfolio. 

At the recent launch of the GoT’s new horticulture strategy, Jacqueline Mkindi, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for TAHA, credited USAID’s early interventions with laying the foundation for the horticulture sector in Tanzania.

A local businesswoman, Mkindi has provided strong leadership in shaping and transformed the multimillion-dollar horticultural industry in Tanzania. With support from USAID and now other actors, Mkindi and TAHA are active in various business and trade facilitation processes at the national, regional and international levels. Mkindi serves on advisory boards of several public and private local, regional and international platforms and has created and established transformative partnerships with the GoT and international development partners. Through these partnerships, she has facilitated several trade deals through the East African Community, Southern African Development Community, the Economic Community of West African States, European Union, and others to successfully increase trade, including large bilateral agreements on avocados with India and South Africa in the past year. 

The initial grant from the United States Government gave TAHA the credibility and capacity to accelerate its transformation into an organization capable of managing a multi-million-dollar project. TAHA’s success highlights the power of development assistance to local partners to strengthen the local system, empower local leaders and drive the local agenda to transform the agricultural industry.