Methodology

How Markets.tz sources, verifies and presents Tanzania commodity data — prices, production and trade.

What kind of platform this is

Markets.tz is an independent data and intelligence layer over the Commodities.tz network's structured records. It is not a government statistics office, a commodity exchange, or a real-time trading terminal. Every figure here traces back to a specific cited source and a specific observation or reporting period.

Price data

Every price series carries a distinct price type — farm-gate, auction, wholesale, export, international/reference, or indicative — plus market, location, grade/specification, currency and unit. We never average or plot different price types, grades or locations together as if they were one series. Each observation carries its own observation date, source, and the date we retrieved it. We never interpolate or invent a data point to fill a gap in the chart — where the historical record is thin or absent for a commodity, the page says so explicitly rather than estimating.

Production & trade data

Production volume, area harvested and yield are reported and shown as three distinct metrics, each with its own unit — never combined or used to derive one another silently. Export/import volume and value are likewise kept separate; we do not calculate an implied unit price from trade value ÷ volume anywhere on this platform, since that calculation is only valid under assumptions (single grade, single season, no re-exports) we can't verify from the underlying trade statistics.

Series & datasets

The Data Explorer and Comparison tool work in terms of series — a fixed combination of commodity, metric, geography, unit and frequency — rather than arbitrary rows. This is deliberate: it's the mechanism that prevents comparing, say, a price in TZS/kg against a value in USD/tonne, or an annual production figure against a single price observation.

Source conflicts

Official Tanzanian and international sources sometimes report different figures for the same commodity, metric and period — different institutional definitions, revised figures, or different reporting windows. Where that happens, we show every reported value with its own source, unresolved. We do not average conflicting figures or silently prefer one source over another.

Geography & currency

Figures are shown in the geography and currency they were originally reported in wherever practical. Where a currency conversion is offered, the original source value is always preserved alongside it, with the conversion clearly labelled as calculated (not source-reported), including the conversion date and rate basis.

Update frequency & automation

Some sources (e.g. FAOSTAT bulk production data, daily FX reference rates) are ingested through automated, scheduled jobs; others are added manually as we research and verify them. Every source record in our registry carries an update-frequency expectation and a last-checked date. Automated ingestion never publishes a record directly — new rows are deduplicated against what's already published and queued the same way manually-added data is.

Corrections

If you believe a figure on Markets.tz is wrong, outdated, or missing its source, use the "Report a data issue" link on the relevant page, or visit Corrections directly — we review every report.

Relationship to Commodities.tz

Markets.tz focuses on data: prices, production, trade, comparisons, sources and methodology. Sourcing guidance, supplier discovery and buyer-facing content live on Commodities.tz and its commodity-specific portals — we link to them rather than duplicate them.