Rethinking urban agriculture futures in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: evidence from a rapidly urbanizing city in the global south

Urban agriculture (UA) remains an important but unevenly governed part of urban food systems in many rapidly urbanizing cities of the Global South. Existing research has documented its contribution to food access, livelihoods and urban resilience, but less attention has been given to locally grounded pathways for supporting UA in African cities. This paper examines the current landscape and possible future trajectories of UA in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Using an exploratory qualitative case-study and policy-analysis approach, the study draws on targeted literature and document review, a policy and regulatory scan, and 52 key informant interviews conducted between April and September 2025 with municipal actors, urban farmers and food-system practitioners. The findings show that UA is valued for household food supplementation, small-scale income generation and fresh-food provisioning, particularly through short-cycle vegetable production close to consumers. However, it remains shaped by tolerated informality, insecure land access, fragmented regulation, contamination risks, weak institutional coordination and pressure on peri-urban land. Based on the combined analysis, the paper proposes five evidence-informed trajectories: managed river-corridor cultivation; sacks, buckets and roofs for dense-ward micro-production; institutional land clusters; peri-urban foodshed belts with circular-resource hubs; and small-scale aquaculture and insect-based feed systems. These pathways are not presented as tested feasibility models, but as differentiated options requiring further technical, environmental, spatial and economic assessment. The paper argues that the future of UA in cities such as Dar es Salaam is unlikely to depend on a single large-scale model, but on risk-sensitive and institutionally grounded forms of support that align food access, livelihoods, public health and urban planning.