Intensive Agriculture as Climate Change Adaptation? Economic and Environmental Tradeoffs in Securing Rural Livelihoods in Tanzanian River Basins

Abstract

Tanzania is one of the East African countries most vulnerable to climate change impacts. Droughts and floods in 2015–16 had devastating effects on food production, crop failures and livestock deaths reaching record levels. One of the underlying projects of the Tanzanian government to mitigate these impacts is the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridors of Tanzania (SAGCOT), an area spanning the country’s largest river basin, the Rufiji, where it collaborates with national and transnational companies to intensify irrigated crop production. Irrigation, drought-tolerant seeds, and employment are three of the key government-advised strategies to help smallholders increase crop yield, adapt to climate change, and alleviate poverty through the corridor. However, little research is available on whether these goals have been achieved. This paper aims to contribute to the literature by assessing harvest and income levels following the 2015–16 drought. Through fieldwork conducted in 2016–17 in Usangu, a key paddy production area in the Great Ruaha Basin within SAGCOT, data is collected from documents and 114 informants. This study finds that irrigation did not significantly contribute to rising paddy production in the case study. Prioritizing the downstream national park and the energy sector, the government periodically cut down the water access of the case-study irrigation scheme, which exacerbated water stress. Moreover, though farmers widely shifted to intensive farming and used hybrid seeds, mainly, the high-income groups ensured and increased the crop yield and profit. The-low income groups encountered crop failure and, due to rising production costs, debt. Many of them left farming, impoverished, and sought to secure subsistence through wage laboring. This study discusses the shortcomings of the transitions from traditional to intensive farming and from farming to employment as climate change adaptation strategies and draws critical policy-relevant conclusions.

Revealing diversity among narratives of agricultural transformation: insights from smallholder farmers in the Northern Kilombero Valley, Tanzania

“…It was reported indeed that they could successfully overcome the 2015-16 drought and even increase their harvest. The situation was however very different for smallholders, who still highly depend on rainfed agriculture and have scarce access to water for irrigation (Ires, 2021). Women also seem to be particularly affected, as their access to land is limited (Landesa, 2017;Sulle and Dancer, 2020).…”

“…As much as land, indeed water in the Northern Kilombero is essential for agriculture, conservation, restoration, tourism, domestic uses, and energy, as Nyerere hydropower station depends on the Rufiji River and competition amongst sectors characterises the use of this resource. In the occasion of the 2015-2016 drought, for instance, the Tanzanian Electric Supply Company, managing the Nyerere dam, blamed irrigation schemes and farmers of the electricity crisis that pervaded the nation (Ires, 2021). As sugarcane production is highly dependent on irrigation (Hess et al, 2016) and with the construction of a new mill, it is not clear how water will be distributed in the region after the Kilombero Sugar Company expansion.…”

Climate change impacts on global potato yields: a review

“…The global climate is changing and is presently a big challenge that has attracted substantial attention [20,71,72]. GHG is an anthropogenic emission causing significant planet-warming [73], influencing the world's climate, and leading to climate change [74,75] Climate data sources are available, and they include private or government organizations [72,76]. Models generate predictions using soil, meteorological and crop data in numerical simulations.…”

Investigation of Temporal Trends and Spatial Patterns of Extreme Temperatures and Their Relationship to Climate Circulation Indices in Tanzania

“…The earth's surface has been steadily warming over the course of the last three decades, particularly from 1983 to 2012, which were the warmest years; and have varied considerably over most parts of the globe with observable regional variations (Ires, 2021;Sun et al, 2023). Tanzania, like other regions, is also characterised by a variety of extreme temperature events with high frequency and seasonality, which encompass a wide range of impacts, such as droughts and floods that have occurred frequently over the past few decades (Mdemu, 2021 &Luhunga andSongoro, 2020).…”