• Govt to drill 500 wells across 178 districts, benefiting nearly 59,000 farmers
• $498.2M invested from 2015–2025, but funding still falls short of full potential
• Only a fraction of 29.4M ha of irrigable land currently developed

In most African countries, including Tanzania, agriculture remains largely rain-fed. The government continues to strengthen irrigation efforts to improve the resilience of the agricultural sector against climate challenges.

The Tanzanian government plans to drill 500 irrigation wells across 178 districts of the country during the 2025/2026 fiscal year, according to Agriculture Minister Hussein Bashe. Details obtained from the local Daily News paper reveal that this project, to be implemented through the National Irrigation Commission, will irrigate 30,393 hectares of agricultural land, benefiting 58,900 farmers.

The construction of these new infrastructures aligns with the country's ongoing development of irrigation. Between 2020/2021 and 2024/2025, the number of irrigation projects increased from 13 to 780, covering 543,366 hectares with an estimated total investment of 1.345 trillion shillings ($498.2 million), based on Agriculture Ministry data.

However, despite these various projects expected eventually to irrigate a total of 1.27 million hectares, the investment mobilized is still insufficient to fully utilize Tanzania’s irrigation potential. According to the Tanzania Investment Center (TIC), this East African nation has 29.4 million hectares of arable land suited for irrigation.

In Tanzania, the agricultural sector contributes 23% to the GDP and employs approximately 65% of the workforce. The main irrigated crops are rice, corn, and sugarcane.