In the rapidly growing Tanzanian economy, increasing demand for timber and limited wood supply from industrial plantations and natural forests have opened a new livelihood opportunity for smallholder farmers in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, which is undergoing a tree-growing boom. In the absence of support services, research and statistics, the magnitude of the phenomena has remained unclear, along with the farmers’ capability to meet market demands, access the markets, and negotiate prices. Primary qualitative data were collected to clarify the role of smallholder tree growers in the forest transition process and wood value chain using 60 semi-structured tree farmer interviews in four villages, and through interviews of timber buyers and processors. The findings indicate that the strong market demand has created dual markets, where higher quality industrial plantations mainly supply larger industries, whereas micro and small enterprises source wood from lower quality smallholder plantations. While the markets’ quality criteria are expected to tighten, capacity building is needed to improve smallholder wood quality to ensure the long-run tree-growing livelihood and competitiveness of small-scale producers in the markets.

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绘制小型林农的木材未来市场潜力图：坦桑尼亚南部高原的观点

在快速发展的坦桑尼亚经济中，对木材的需求不断增加，以及来自工业种植园和天然林的木材供应有限，这为坦桑尼亚南部高地的小农户提供了新的谋生机会，而后者正经历着树木生长的繁荣时期。在缺乏支持服务，研究和统计的情况下，这种现象的严重程度以及农民满足市场需求，进入市场和谈判价格的能力仍然不清楚。通过在四个村庄进行的60次半结构化林农访谈，以及对木材购买者和加工者的访谈，收集了主要定性数据，以阐明小农林木种植者在森林过渡过程和木材价值链中的作用。调查结果表明，强劲的市场需求创造了双重市场，高质量的工业人工林主要为较大的工业提供服务，而小型和小型企业则从质量较低的小农人工林中采购木材。尽管市场质量标准有望收紧，但仍需要进行能力建设，以改善小农木材的质量，以确保长期种植树木的生计和小规模生产者在市场上的竞争力。