Agricultural Production and Economic Growth in Tanzania: Implication for Sub Sectoral Contribution

Abstract

This paper attempts to examine the role of agricultural sub sectors in contributing to economic growth of Tanzania. It provides empirical evidence from time series data for the period from 1971 to 2013. It employs the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Newey-West estimators to analyse the contributive effect of crop, livestock and fishery sub sectors to economic growth in Tanzania. The primary finding reveals that, agricultural sub sectors have positive effect to Tanzanian economic growth. A comparative analysis provides a suggestive evidence that livestock production exhibits the highest contributive effect to economic growth followed by crop and fishery sub sectors respectively. The policy outlook implies that more resources should be reallocated in livestock sub sector in order to boost the overall performance of agricultural production as one of the key out of poverty strategies for economic growth in Tanzania.