Wheat, rice, and the future of food consumption in Tanzania.

Long gone are the days when rice was reserved for Sundays and chapatis for special days on the calendar, with a growing middle class, population growth, and rapid urbanization, the Tanzanian dinner plate is changing (more for the urban dwellers, where the majority of the population is expected to reside in the near future), this is self-evident when one looks at the trend of rice and wheat flour consumption data, with rice consumption 818,699 tons in 2011/12 to 976,925 tons in 2015/16.

Rice production has been increasing over the years, with different projects aimed at increasing both acreage planted and yield per acre, this has led to rice production growing from 1.8Mil tons in 2011/12 to 3.4Mil tons in 2018/19 making it the second largest producer of rice in Africa second only to Madagascar and even leading to having a surplus of 1 Mil tons, but even with surplus Tanzania still imports around $40.9Mil (in 2021) worth of rice mainly from Pakistan, India, and Vietnam, the country also exported $315Mil of rice, making it 4th most valued export for the country and the 12th largest exporter of rice in the world.

Even with enough arable land suitable for the cultivation of wheat, the country has seen slow adoption in the cultivation of wheat, with the majority of its stock being imported from countries like Russia, Ukraine, and India, the country is currently producing around 100,000tons and importing 222,758tons a whopping 220% of its domestic consumption, making the commodity susceptible to geopolitical shocks such as the Russo-Ukraine.

The rise in price has been felt by every citizen but thankful to the staple being maize and the ample supply of rice we haven't felt the critical shock as some of our African brothers in North Africa, but we shouldn't take this as congratulatory applause to our state of food security, food preference is changing across the urban areas and wheat is increasingly gaining importance on our plates like the swahili saying goes " Mwenzako akinyolewa, zako tia maji" which the meaning may translate to "be prepared when you see your neighbor is going through hard times, for your turn is sure to com".

With the consumption of the two grains expected to be increasing in the foreseeable future, it is only logical that as a country we look into securing a stable source of supply so as not to fall victim to external geo-political factors that may end us being used as pawns the global arena (wheat supply is now being used by some nations to garner support for their personal agendas, from those who are depending on the supply).

Wheat should be given importance and more initiatives aimed at increasing production, improving seed variety, and increasing the number of processors to cater to the evergrowing demand (wheat processing is dominated by a handful of processors in Tanzania)