Browsing by Author "Friis-Hansen Esbern"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1

Upgrading trajectories in domestic value chains: experience from non-industrial private forestry in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania
(Mkuki na Nyota Publishers Ltd., 2025) Martin Respikius; Friis-Hansen Esbern; Larsen Marianne Nylandsted; Mhando David Gongwe
For many years, investing in the agricultural sector has been regarded as a key to poverty alleviation in developing countries. In Tanzania, a!er independence and until Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), the investment focused on cash crop production (i.e. sugar, co"ee, sisal, tea and cotton) for export (Gibbon, 2011) giving little attention to forestry production by smallholder farmers. However, timber production by smallholders (referred to as non-industrial private forestry in this paper) is gaining economic importance in di"erent parts of Africa (Arvola et al., 2019). In Tanzania, this timber production is largely occurring in the Southern highlands. In fact, some studies (for example, Asiad, 2016; Pedersen, 2017; Lusasi et al., 2019) suggest that the forest area under smallholder tree growers in the Southern highlands in Tanzania has surpassed the industrial forestry which is owned and managed by the government and corporate companies. In addition, as observed by Harrison et al. (2004) and Malkamäki et al. (2018), issues of indigenous land rights and land claims also constrain expansion of the industrial forestry in developing countries, including Tanzania. Empirical evidence shows that the current consumption of wood in Tanzania exceeds the supply, leading to a de#cit of 19.5 million m3 and this situation is expected to persist for many years to come (MNRT, 2015). $is needed timber, we argue, will depend to a large extent on the supply from nonindustrial private forestry, implying that there is a huge potential for smallholder tree growers to expand their woodlots and hence improve their household income.