Clove and seaweed farmers in Zanzibar walked away smiling last season, after the global crops prices increased in 2021 compared to 2020, the Bank of Tanzania economic review has shown.
A sharpest price spiral was recorded by cloves, with a 53.1 percent gain in the period one year, while seaweed price went slightly up by 8.4 percent.
The report covering Tanzania economic review for September shows that the unit price of cloves increased to USD7,321 per tonne, in the year ending August 2021, compared with USD4,780.8 during similar period in 2020.
However, the good news to the farmers is that the monthly price of the commodity continues to rise, as the central bank report says it closed at USD7,414.7 in August 2021.
Despite the rising prices in the world market, Zanzibar earnings from cloves slowed to USD17.30 million, lower than USD17.54 million earned in 2020.
The slowdown of earning was a result of shrinking the volume of the crop to 2,200 tonnes in 2021 from 3,700 tonnes exported in 2020.
During the reviewed period, clove export earnings in Zanzibar accounted for the largest share of total exports earnings amounting to USD42.5 Million in 2021.
As for the seaweed, the price of one tonne of the crop increased to USD717.3 in 2021, from USD661.9 in 2020.
The price rise, together with the increased volume pushed up earnings from USD5.3 million in 2020 to USD13.3 million in 2021.
According to the data, the seaweed exports volume was 18,600 tonnes by August 2021 from 8,100 tonnes sold during a similar period in 2020.
However, the BoT report shows the crop price is continuing to shrink from USD 527.4 per tonne in August 2020 down to USD364.2 per tonne in August this year.
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