MAY 2017
19.
2,582,717 tonnes of cereals and noncereal food items nationwide.” Thanks to this surplus of maize and other cereals recorded mid-last year, the report says Tanzania donated a total of 34,877,690 tonnes of maize to displaced people in South Sudan during 2015 / 2016. Yet a little over six months later, the country is suffering such a large shortage that the price of maize has more than doubled. What is more shocking is that, according to the report, even the ministry predicted that the country was to continue enjoying surplus harvests for at least the next foreseeable year.“ Based on a reliable rainfall pattern, Tanzania expects to harvest abumper crop in many parts of the country. If this happens, Tanzania will record a three-consecutive year surplus of food crop production.” The future of maize production seemed so bright that the cover story of the Agribusiness Zambia Magazine edition of January – March this year states:‘ Zambia and Tanzania to post surplus maize again’ and it also bears an editorial titled‘ Goodbye El Nino’ Draught. So promising was the region’ s maize output that in October of last year, grains. com, the grain and grain processing site, published a report titled,‘ Maize production soaring in Eastern Africa.’ In it, it acknowledges maize as‘ the most important cereal crop in the four largest countries of eastern Africa’ and that despite the drought, the combined production as of 2016 was 17.2 million tonnes and that Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda enjoyed a nearly 70 % increase in maize output. 8 Clearly, while the‘ Little Boy’ caused his share of havoc, he is not behind the sudden shortage of maize because it is evident that the country had bumper harvest up to the close of last year. Ironically, that is when the prices started to defy gravity. So what happened to all the maize? To answer that question, we resign ourselves to President Magufuli’ s assertion:- unscrupulous businessmen are hoarding the grain.
HARD FACTS
Cost of Living Dar es Salaam, for example, is 9.3 % more expensive than Houston, TX for groceries, 84 % more expensive for household costs than Kuala Lumpur, and 38.7 % more expensive for transport costs than Dubai.
Unemployment Unemployment in Tanzania decreased to 10.30 percent in 2014 from 10.70 percent in 2011. It averaged 11.46 percent from 2001 until 2014, reaching an all-time high of 12.90 percent in 2001 and a record low of 10.30 percent in 2014.
Africa Population 2017 Africa is the second-largest and second most populous continent on earth with an estimated population in 2016 of 1.2 billion people. Africa is home to 54 recognized sovereign states and countries, nine territories and two de facto independent states with very little recognition. The UN Population Fund stated in 2009 that the population of Africa had hit the one billion mark and had therefore doubled in size over the course of 27 years. The population in Africa has grown rapidly over the last 40 years and it has a relatively young population, with more than half under 25 in some states.
Citations
1.
The current population of Eastern Africa is 413,982,688 as of Saturday, April 8, 2017, based on the latest United Nations estimates. This is equivalent to 5.54 % of the total world population.
2.
Paul H. Walgenbach, Norman E. Dittrich and Ernest I. Hanson,( 1973), Financial Accounting, New York: Harcourt Brace Javonovich, Inc. Page 429.
3
Png, Ivan( 1999). pp. 129 – 32. The Second Law of Supply states that supply is more responsive to price in the long run. While the Second Law of Demand depends on how responsive consumers are to a change in price, the Second Law of Supply relates to how flexible producers are in terms of how much of a good they produce
4
On a monthly basis, consumer prices advanced 1 percent, following a 0.8 percent gain in the previous month.
5
National Bureau of Statistics | Deborah Neves | deborah. neves @ tradingeconomics. com 3 / 8 / 2017 12:00:33 PM
6 www. worldgrain. com October 17, 2016, report by David McKee
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