Trade evolution of medicinal plants’ products in Tanzania: an explorative study
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Date
2022
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Leibniz Information Centre for Economics
Abstract
In Tanzania, a complex rural to urban supply network for the medicinal plants' products trade has
developed over time driven by environmental changes and the response of traders. The
environment changes include policy, regulatory frameworks, and pandemics. These environmental
changes and responses of traders shaped the current trade practices. However, the response of
traders to environment dynamics and the evolution paths over time to the current status is not well
documented. Therefore, this paper aimed to synchronize environment dynamics incidences for a
period of time and empirically determine the respective responses of the medicinal plants' traders
in Tanzania with respective evolution paths. The study applied economic evolution theory to
describe the interactions of environmental changes and responses of traders and to determine the
evolution stages. Primary data were collected from traders, regulators, and researchers through 10
focus group discussions and 16 in-depth interviews from five regions of Tanzania. The traders
followed the market in urban areas and establish supply chains to meet market demand. While
environment changes caused de-coordination, the traders responded by re-coordination to explore
market opportunities. Four evolution stages of trade in medicinal plants products were identified
in Tanzania: Colonial era (1882 -1961), government supremacy era (1961 - 1984), emergency of
private sector era (1985- 2004), and the market and regulation integration era (started in 2005). As
a result of the partial implementation of the regulatory framework, the fifth stage of trade evolution
is expected. The fifth stage is when the regulatory framework and market forces will work
together. The study recommends proper enforcements measures to be put in place to ensure desired
results whenever there are environmental changes in traditional medicines. Because the fifth stage
is expected, potential business models to be adopted can be studied to ensure firms' survival during
stiff competition.
Description
Research article
Keywords
Critical incidences, Traditional medicine, Business growth, Legitimation-products
Citation
Mpelangwa, Eziacka Mathew/Makindara, Jeremia Ramos et. al. (2022). TradeEvolution of Medicinal Plants’ Products in Tanzania : An Explorative Study. [S.l.] : SSRN.