The Tanzania Horticultural Association (Taha) is reporting an increase in revenue from the export of avocados which until now were not considered key export cash crop.
However growing demand in the US and Europe has seen the sub-sector increase revenue to US$23 million annually.
Tanzania is the second largest producer of avocado fruit in Africa second only to Kenya. Over the past five years, avocado exports have leap-frogged from 1,877 tonnes in 2014 to 9,000 tonnes in 2019 and were it not for the COVID-19 outbreak, this figure was expected to go higher.
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Kenya is already doing much better with its estimated annual output of about 190,000 tonnes as the country exports an average of 10,000 metric tonnes annually.
In Tanzania, there are about 10,000 farmers of the crop who are spread out across the country and of these, now most have turned to the production of the fruit for export as species keep improving. However, avocados take awhile to mature and so expanding production is difficult.
That being true, the global output of avocados has increased by 178 percent in less than a decade. The growth spans from 891,000 tonnes in 2011 to 2.5 million tonnes in 2018 – mostly driven by high demand in the West.
For now, Taha is working on storage of the available fruit. A major hurdle in the production of avocados is after–harvest losses due to the lack of proper storage facilities.
Loss of quality means the fruit commands lower prices in the world market and so to maintain its value, Taha is reported to be working with the central government to build a state-of-the-art facility in one of the richest agriculture districts like Njombe.
Majority of the export goes to Europe where consumption rate for avocados exceeded one million tonnes a year. The World Avocado Organisation (WAO) expects a growth rate of 50 percent: between 500,000 and 700,000 tonnes in the course of the next decade.
Tanzania is now looking to make the best of this sub-sector by expanding its market capacity to China should Tanzania be able to meet the export requirements that the large consumer has placed on the importation of food products.
Consider the fact that China’s avocado imports are valued at US$105 million per year; that offers a very huge potential market for Tanzania even though China has placed very strict measures on import of food items like avocados.
As the avocado harvest period comes to a close, Tanzanian farmers are happy to close the marketing session on a high note.
Tanzania has many highland plateaus and mountain ranges that offer the perfect conditions to grow avocados. Technically, avocado plantations should be set at altitudes ranging from 1,100 to 1,900 metres and which receive annual rainfall of around 800mm to 1,200mm. However, in Tanzania, majority of the growers of avocados are small and medium scale farmers. Until these farmers are empowered with necessary farming imports, it is a challenge for them to meet the growing demand and the quality requirements that currently hamper all export activities.
