Crops production subsector depends on various factors including natural factors as well as non-natural factors. Meanwhile, in vast areas of Tanzania including the Mbeya Region, rice farmers struggle to make their living through rice farming regardless of various challenges with which the subsector is crumbled. This study aimed at assessing the factors influencing the performance of rice farming in the Mbeya Region of Tanzania. Multi-stage sampling technique was applied to obtain representative samples. Data was collected from a field survey of 240 small-scale farmers by the use of questionnaires from January to March 2018. Descriptive statistics method was used to analyze the data and the Ordinary Least Square regression model was used to estimate parameters. The results indicate excess rainfall and droughts events significantly influenced rice production negatively by reducing 3 and 5% for each occurrence, respectively. Marital status and gender significantly influenced positively rice production in the study area. Other influential production factors including market price lag, pest and diseases, and farm size were statistically significant in rice production. The study recommends possible interventions such as increased accessibility to extension services, agricultural financial services, improved seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides to mention a few by government and other responsible institutions which hamper the growth of the rice industry to increase food security to the farming populace. Key words: Rice, performance, factors, regression, Tanzania. Crops production subsector depends on various factors including natural factors as well as non-natural factors. Meanwhile, in vast areas of Tanzania including the Mbeya Region, rice farmers struggle to make their living through rice farming regardless of various challenges with which the subsector is crumbled. This study aimed at assessing the factors influencing the performance of rice farming in the Mbeya Region of Tanzania. Multi-stage sampling technique was applied to obtain representative samples. Data was collected from a field survey of 240 small-scale farmers by the use of questionnaires from January to March 2018. Descriptive statistics method was used to analyze the data and the Ordinary Least Square regression model was used to estimate parameters. The results indicate excess rainfall and droughts events significantly influenced rice production negatively by reducing 3 and 5% for each occurrence, respectively. Marital status and gender significantly influenced positively rice production in the study area. Other influential production factors including market price lag, pest and diseases, and farm size were statistically significant in rice production. The study recommends possible interventions such as increased accessibility to extension services, agricultural financial services, improved seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides to mention a few by government and other responsible institutions which hamper the growth of the rice industry to increase food security to the farming populace. Key words: Rice, performance, factors, regression, Tanzania.

Aims: The study examines the profitability of rice production, its key factors, and the consumption shares at household level. Study Design: A cross-section study design was used in this research. Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted in the two Districts of Mbarali and Kyela in the Mbeya Region of Tanzania from January to March 2018. Methodology: Structured questionnaires were used to collect primary data from 240 small scale rice producers. Data analysis was performed by descriptive statistics and Farm Budgetary Techniques was used to calculate farm economic viability variables including profitability index, return on investment, capital turn over and benefit cost ratio. The Kendall’s coefficient of concordance was used to pinpoint and examine the key factors affecting rice profitability by farmers in the study area. Results: Descriptive statistics revealed that majority farmers have 45 years and below, 95.8% of the farmers are married. Majority (83.3%) households have family size of 2-4 individuals indicating shortage of family labor. About 80.8% of the respondents allocated farm size of 1-3 hectares. The budgetary farm technique revealed that average total cost, gross margin, and net farm income was 846450 (~ US $ 368.08), 1484175 (~US $ 645.41) and 1357975 (~US $ 590.73) Tanzania Shillings respectively. The profitability index, return on investment, capital turn over and benefit cost ratio for producers were 9.5%, 160, 2.6 and 3.1 respectively. According to Kendall’s coefficient of accordance, the identified main constraints for economic viability of rice production were weather variability, lack of access to irrigation services, rice price instability, lack of access to agricultural information and technology, and poor access to the key production inputs. Conclusion: It indicates that rice production is a profitable business in the study area and still there is potential for improving from the current yield. It was demonstrated that most of rice outputs are for commercial purposes with regards to consumption shares. This shows that rice is highly growing as commercial food crop in the Tanzania.

Rice farming is characterized by various factors including environmental and non-environmental factors. The current paper analyses the influence of households’ characteristics, and perceptions of weather variability on rice yield. Authors used primary data collected from small-scale rice farmers in the Mbeya region of Tanzania. Garret technique and Stata software were used for data analyses. Results confirmed that farmer’s education, marital status, gender, and land ownership have a positive influence on rice yield. Thus, for every 1% increase in each variable increases rice yield by 14%, 98%, 26%, and 21% respectively. Owing to empirical results on farmers’ perceptions, it is confirmed that if the drought period increased by 1%, would on average reduce rice yield by 20%. The majority of farmers (70%) have perceived that drought period reduced their rice yield. In addition, farmers’ used averagely less quantity of rice seeds which have impaired their rice yields. If farmers increased the seed quantity by 1%, rice yields would increase by 17%. Our findings also revealed that the previous market price has positive association with the next seasons’ rice yield. Therefore, our study concluded that among households’ variables and their perceptions have positive implications on rice yield; however, with the empirical analyses other variables were insignificant due to multicollinearity effects. Authors recommended to the government and other responsible organizations to capitalize on irrigation infrastructures, agricultural extension and technological services to restraint the enduring food insecurity coercions in Tanzania.

The study was conducted to cultivate the understanding of different weather perceptions as well as indicators by rice farmers of Mbarali and Kyela districts in Mbeya region of Tanzania. Primary and secondary data were obtained from the research area and Tanzania Meteorological Agency. Garret technique and Multipredictor logistic regression were applied for data analyses. The result shows that farmers have different perceptions on various weather variables like rainfall, temperature, drought, wind, and floods. Likewise with logistic regression is affirmed that awareness towards weather variations increased by 0.60 times and 2.0 times if farmer's education and extended floods each increase one times respectively. In addition, various weather variability indicators like lack of enough rainfall, increase in temperature, drying of tender tree leaves, and severe sunshine were identified. More so, factors hampering immediate local adaptations to weather variability were also identified. Authors recommended on establishment of a working coordination mechanism by incorporating local perceptions, indicators, and adaptions to rescue rural communities from the ongoing food insecurity threats.

Rural farmers face different challenges from climate change and weather variability, which have threatened crop production and productivity. Small-scale farmers try to cope with the prevailing situations by adjusting to different mechanisms, including adopting irrigation services. This study seeks to determine factors influencing rice farmers' decision to adopt irrigation technology and determine the significant contribution of irrigation to rice yields in the Mbeya Region of Tanzania. Data was collected through structured questionnaires, interviews, and focus discussions. Descriptive statistics, Logistic regression, and Ordinary Least Square regression by Stata software performed data analyses. The descriptive statistics characterized households' socio-demographic and economic characteristics. Logistic regression results affirmed that households' education, labor size, meteorological information, access to financial services, extension services, and previous farm outputs significantly influenced irrigation adoption by farmers. Ordinary Least Square regression results confirmed that irrigation significantly contributed to rice yield at P>0.05 level. The study recommends adopting irrigation technology in Tanzania as a coping strategy for the negative impact of climate change and weather variations.

The study examined the profitability and the present factors for Tilapia production in Tanzania. A purposive sampling technique used to obtain a total of 92 Tilapia farming households from 120 farming communities provided by the Tanzania government. Primary data are collected through the use of a structured questionnaire and analyzed by using descriptive statistics. The Gross Margin tool used to calculate the profitability of the semi-intensive tilapia pond fish farming. The Ordinary Least Squares regression used to determine the novel factors affecting the profitability and Net Present Values determined the viability of tilapia pond farming, respectively. The descriptive findings have revealed that the majority of tilapia farmers had a mean age of 39 years, while male respondents dominated tilapia farming. Among the costs, the feed cost contributed about 73% of the total cost indicating that feeds availability is among the prominent challenge for tilapia farming. The Gross margin obtained by the respondents was averagely 21.7%. The regression analysis has revealed that the cost of feeds, stocking density and the size of seed significantly affected the accrued pond tilapia profit negatively. The result from the Present Net Value was negative; thus, concludes that the current tilapia pond fish farming is not worthy in the study area.