Digging Deep: Clim-Eat leaps to Tanzania’s soil health

Today, we can announce that... Clim-Eat is expanding to Tanzania! And on World Soil Day – how fitting!

In 2025, learning from our work in Malawi, Clim-Eat will dig into soil health and incentivisation for healthy soils in Tanzania.

Agriculture, whether subsistence or commercial, has always been important in Tanzania. Local agricultural production surpasses the national food requirement and significantly contributes to the country's GDP. More than 65 per cent of the population is employed in agriculture (URT, 2024). Natural disasters such as droughts, heavy rains, flooding, diseases and pests, and soil degradation are some climate conditions that affect crop and livestock production. Due to these climatic challenges, soil erosion is a major problem causing poor soil fertility in Tanzania, further exacerbated by increasing environmental threats.

Soil health in many southern African ecosystems is in decline, with problems ranging from low nutrient levels, high levels of acidification, highly weathered soils, and more. From our work in Malawi, we are familiar with the consequences of soil fertility problems, including the increased use of inorganic fertilisers to reduce the impact on farmer’s livelihoods. Across Tanzania’s different agroecological zones, the combination of dry periods, heavy rainfalls, and an inadequate land maintenance system aggravate the land degradation process and make the country’s agricultural production highly vulnerable to weather-related shocks.

Over recent years, several policies and projects have been introduced to transform Tanzania’s agricultural sector and address problems of food security and agricultural production. Soil health solutions have far-ranging benefits, including enhancing human nutrition and providing climate adaptation and mitigation practices. The Government of Tanzania has a strong foundation with its fertiliser subsidy programme and has allocated substantial amounts to fertiliser subsidies. Incentivising the uptake of fertiliser subsidies could benefit from promoting balanced soil health management, including less distortive fertilisers and other smart agriculture practices while supporting awareness creation through information availability and support for farmers.

From our work in Malawi, we know we should not get rid of all inorganic fertiliser use in one go, as it could have devastating effects on yields and food security. However, they can also be harmful and must be used with further soil ameliorative measures and a wider package of public support that will eventually steer towards circumstances where organic fertilisers are the best and most easily available option.

In 2025, Clim-Eat will dive deeper into soil health and fertiliser transition in Tanzania, consulting relevant stakeholders across government, farmers and union representatives, and other experts to unlock the main lock-ins and identify the right solutions to improve soil quality nationwide.