viii
Acknowledgements
The assessment team wish to express its sincere gratitude to the Ministry of Agriculture
Livestock and Fisheries (MALF), the President’s Office - Regional Administration and Local
Government (PO-RALG), and the Disaster Management Department (DMD) for their
support throughout the implementation of this work. Special thanks goes to the team
members of this assessment namely, Mrs. Shakwaanande R. Natai, Dr. Ssendi Lucy, Mr.
Julius Crispin Moshi, Mr. Kalisa Diomedes, Ms. Kimambo Stella, Mr. Fredrick Kiango, Mrs.
Marstella Mtalo and Mr. Khowe Malegeri who have been participating in the data collection
exercise and provided valuable inputs during the compilation of this report, showing a very
professional and committed attitude throughout the process.
Sincere words of thanks goes also to all the representatives of the Regional and District
Offices of the PO-RALG, as well as other national and local stakeholders met during the
assessment, in addition to all affected communities who have spared their time and shared
their perceptions and hardship with us.
Last but not least, we would like to thank all the FAO staff in Tanzania Office for their
support, particularly Mr. Otto Patrick (acting FAO - Representative) and Mr. Kivaria
Frederick (FAO - Head of Programme) for their kind guidance during this work.
ix
Executive summary
As results of the heavy rains attributed to “El-Niño” event, since October 2015, more than
25 000 households have been directly affected by floods in six assessed regions of the United
Republic of Tanzania namely Arusha, Dodoma, Mara, Morogoro, Mwanza, and Shinyanaga.
This has had severe repercussion on the livelihood of the affected population who have lost
crops, agricultural inputs and tools, animals, pasture land and other sources of income such as
agriculture casual labour, in addition to houses properties.
In order to estimate the damages and losses occurred in the agriculture sector and sub-sectors,
thus assess the impact on the agricultural livelihoods and come out with necessary emergency
response interventions, the Ministry of Agriculture Livestock and Fishery (MALF), the
President’s Office Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG), the Disaster
Management Department (DMD) with technical and financial support from FAO, jointly
conducted a rapid agriculture needs assessment in the aforementioned most affected regions.
The key findings of the assessment show that floods have been the most devastating natural
hazard. Despite this, heavy rains coupled with incidences of storms and hails led to additional
problems resulting in water-logging of large agricultural and pasture areas, spread of animal
diseases, accumulation of debris on agricultural land, mainly silt and stones, as well as
collapse of animal shelters and storage facilities.
The crop sector has been the most affected with rice and maize cultivated areas resulted to be
the most impacted, followed by cassava, pulses and vegetables. Many of these affected areas
were totally destroyed by the effects of the floods or have resulted in reduction of production
especially among important staple crops such as rice, maize, cassava, sorghum and millet,
leading to decreased yield by approximately 41 percent, 57 percent, 30 percent, 58 percent
and 38 percent respectively.
Agricultural inputs and storage / shelter facilities were also lost or damaged with 57 percent
of respondents reporting loss of seeds, 27 percent loss of fertilizer, 12 percent loss of hand
tools, 16 percent loss of shelter and others reporting on loss of food and inputs storage
facilities. The effects of the floods also led to blockage of irrigation schemes, mainly due to
deposition of mud and silt, collapse of channel in-lets and damages on pipes and other
equipment. Nonetheless, irrigation access was reported to be very low among the
communities interviewed, resulting in a less severe impact on this sub-sector.
On the other hand, livestock, considered as the most important productive assets and source
of animal proteins across all six regions visited, were also affected but to a less extent
compared to the crop sub-sector. Most of the respondents indicated loss of chickens
(35 percent), followed by ducks (15 percent), goats (5 percent) and sheep (2 percent).
Generally, bigger animals such as cattle were rescued in time, therefore resulting in
negligible losses. In addition to animal losses, an increased outbreak of animal diseases was
reported due to the fact that many areas were still flooded, resulting into prevalence of water-
borne disease.
Changes in market prices, in relation to food commodities, were also underlined by the
majority of the population affected across all regions. On average, prices of staple crops such
as cassava, maize, sorghum and rice have raised by 60 percent, 40 percent, 37 percent and
18 percent respectively since the occurrence of the flood. Whereas for other food
commodities such as green gram and sweet potatoes, prices have decreased by 48 percent and
10 percent respectively due to recent harvest.