introduction
Agriculture in Tanzania is an important occupation for over 75 per cent of inhabitants. It is the mainstay of the majority of the households in the Southern Highlands where weather conditions are favourable for growing various food and cash crops. Paddy, maize and sorghum are the most important cereal crops in this zone. Root and tuber crops like cassava, round and sweet potatoes, horticultural crops and fruits are also grown in some parts of the zone.
the link to the rest of the chain were to be broken the whole would be susceptible to collapse. This situation is more or less true for all other links in the chain. Each link takes the product from its immediate predecessor and ‘processes’ it to an output that is used by the next link. Nominally, the value of the product increases at each stage until it reaches the consumer. It is possible to provide a succinct list of most of the participants in the chain (see Table 2), but pivotal roles are played by the middle links of the chain through which all products must pass. Many participants in the chain (see Table 3) occupy more than one rol
