Contribution of district agriculture development plans to poverty reduction at the household level: a case study of Korogwe district, Tanzania

Agriculture is a key element of the Tanzanian economy, it contributes about 46% of the GDP. It is not well mechanized, most of small scale farmers using rudimentary and poor technologies. Following the decentralization policy, the District Agriculture Development Plans (DADPs) established project programme to boost up agriculture to promote economic growth and poverty reduction at household level. This study was conducted in Korogwe District, Tanga Region in order determine the contribution of the DADPs to poverty reduction at the household level. Random sampling was used to select 6 villages and 20 households (DADPs and non DADPs member) in each village. Data collected was edited, coded and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) Computer programme version 16.0. The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) using the Least Significant Difference (LSD) was used to test the difference between the means. The paired t-test was used to assess for existence of significant difference between the means annual incomes between the DADPs and non DADPs households. It was observed that plough and Cart was the most adopted (51%), followed by the powertiller (24%) and lastly the poultry and the improved goats (25%). However households participation in DADPs projects was through monetary contribution (55%) and activity packages that combines materials and money (30%) and monetary and labour (15%). It was also observed that the remarkable important improvement in the programme activities gained by the households were the expansion of cultivation land which ultimately increased the crop yields (62%), means of transportation of goods (33%) and education (20%). Moreover the mean annual income DADPs member was TZS 702000 and while Non DADPs member was TZS 302385. The most limiting factors were shortage of tools (33%) and tools breakdown (23 %). Furthermore, the most important intervention measures suggested were tools (49%) and tractor (24%). The study recommends provision of pair of oxen’s as loans to the households and access to credits facilities