Tanzania’s coffee sector is undergoing a dual transformation as climate change and domestic regulatory reforms reshape who controls value chains, with researchers warning that smallholder farmers are likely to shoulder disproportionate adaptation costs while global buyers retain structural power.
The new study, led by University of Basel researchers and published in the European Journal of Development Research, analyzes how changing weather patterns and procurement rules are reorganizing coffee governance across four districts—Kyerwa, Mbozi, Mbinga and Rombo—using 1,446 household surveys, 113 key informant interviews and 128 focus group discussions, according to University of Basel news.
The Basel team reports that changing rainfall patterns and rising temperatures are affecting yields, quality and the geographic distribution of coffee cultivation in Tanzania, based on farmer and stakeholder testimony from 32 sampled villages stratified by elevation and rainfall change, as detailed in the open-access article on Springer. Complementary work under the five-year PACSMAC research project, involving a University of Dar es Salaam team, found farmers consistently reporting erratic rainfall, prolonged dry spells, rising temperatures and increased pest pressure as key threats to coffee production.
On the policy side, the Basel study finds that Tanzania’s domestic procurement reforms have transformed how coffee is traded and exported. According to the same University of Basel news release, these reforms were designed to strengthen cooperatives and improve smallholder bargaining power but have introduced greater uncertainty for international traders sourcing from the country.
One of the clearest shifts documented in the research is in sourcing models. The Basel team notes that long-term sourcing partnerships—often tied to agronomic support and sustainability initiatives—are declining, while traders are increasingly shifting from cooperative-based sourcing toward large coffee estates, as reported in the same University of Basel summary. The authors state that in this new configuration, smallholder farmers are likely to bear a disproportionate share of adaptation costs even as global lead firms maintain their structural power in the value chain.
Findings from related research deepen this picture of uneven burdens. A separate study on “Climate Change as a Business Strategy in the Coffee Sector” by Janina Grabs and colleagues, summarized by the University of Basel, concludes that climate-related initiatives are generating new sources of “green capital accumulation” for midstream traders and downstream companies, while the associated costs and risks are often borne by smallholder farmers.
The Tanzanian work also situates national reforms within a broader regulatory landscape. The PACSMAC team, in collaboration with the University of Dar es Salaam, examined the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and reported that such policies could unintentionally disadvantage smallholders who lack resources for compliance. In the same project, climate model analyses suggested a contraction of suitable coffee-growing areas in Tanzania by 2050 under high-emission scenarios, including substantial losses in Arabica suitability in Mbinga district, according to the UDSM news summary.
The Tanzanian case forms part of a wider body of research on coffee and climate led by Janina Grabs and international co-authors. A World Development article titled “Resilience of what and for whom? Climate change mitigation and adaptation in the global, Ethiopian, and Tanzanian coffee sectors” draws on five years of research and multi-country farmer surveys to examine whose resilience is prioritized in climate responses, as described by the University of Basel. The DANIDA-funded PACSMAC project underpinning much of this work runs through 31 March 2026, according to the project page hosted by Universe Basel.
