Towards developing a beef meat export oriented policy in Tanzania: -Exploring the factors that influence beef meat exports-

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that influence beef meat exports in Tanzania, with a particular focus on the years 1985 to 2020, in enhancing the development of beef meat export-oriented policy in Tanzania, thereby enhancing beef exports in Tanzania. A time-series panel dataset was analyzed using both descriptive statistics and ordinary least squares (OLS) linear regression analyses models. As per the descriptive analyses, beef meat exports reached the highest pick of 4,300 tons per year in 1990, whereas from 1991 to date, beef meat exportation in Tanzania has been in declining trends despite an increase in beef meat output and trade openness from 162,500 to 486,736 tons and 7.6 to 98.7%, respectively. Nevertheless, while the prospect of Tanzanian beef meat exports appears bright and promising, the industry will continue to encounter trade barriers and must stay competitive to produce enough volume and quality beef meat to meet the needs of its existing and expanding markets. This is because, Tanzanian beef meat competes for market share with beef meat from other countries in the global markets, where customers pay a premium for lines of beef meat that meet quality standards while discarding those that do not. This indicates that the quantity of beef meat produced has no relevance to its world market share, but its quality standards do. Furthermore, the econometric results revealed that the coefficients of the terms of trade, Tanzania GDP per capita, global beef meat consumption, trade openness, and beef meat outputs were found to be significantly positive (P < 0.05) influencing beef meat exports in Tanzania, whereas the trading partners’ GDP per capita and exchange rate were not. The findings have varying implications as to what factors need to be addressed to further improve beef meat exports. From the farmer’s perspective, better access to adequate funds as a result of increased income benefit from export will assist in improving beef cattle productivity and quality to compete effectively in the global markets. From the government’s perspective, because trade openness promotes economic growth through export benefits, the Tanzania government and policymakers need to establish balanced policies to strengthen bilateral trade relationships to generate more opportunities in global markets.