Arusha — In the past, trees – wild or planted – were not seen to have any commercial value to many smallholder farmers.
This was the case in many districts, including among the farming communities in the Mbulu highlands in Manyara Region.
Their main assets were livestock and, of course, their small farming plots from where they cultivated staple food crops.
This is not the case now in Mbulu, according to a recently released study by researchers from within and outside the country.
“They now bank on trees as among their assets,” said Deodatus Maasay, one of the researchers. The smallholder farmers in the area have not only embraced agro-forestry but also mixed cropping to increase farm and tree yields.
Trees – and to some degree livestock – were certainly not valuable assets that could be turned into cash among the households.
This is no longer the case and farmers now do purchase seedlings and trees which they now consider to be an investment.
They are no longer getting firewood,building materials,charcoal or tree products free of charge.
Initially, timber species tend to be the property of men and harvesting them was often the work of young men, who pursue this as a day labour job.
But now women are more in control of produce from fruit trees that they sell in the local markets.
Trees are also very useful ways to mark farm boundaries, which is increasingly important in times of land scarcity and competition.
“Farmers consider trees an excellent investment, enough so that land that would otherwise be farmed is being turned into woodlots,” Mr Maasay said.
Households reported several uses for their on-farm trees including firewood (44 percent), timber sales (32 percent), own construction (7 percent), fruit sales (25 percent) and charcoal production eight percent.
Turning land over to tree production is made possible only by expansion into new areas or by intensifying production on other plots.
Trees are planted to meet the cash needs and for soil erosion control on the hillsides and demand for timber.
A total of 99 per cent of survey respondents claimed they had trees on their farms and the average was 227 trees. “Today, trees are our cows,” some respondents said when interviewed as to why they have replaced cattle as a form of wealth.
This is a changing paradigm in the livelihood of the rural dwellers not only in Mbulu but elsewhere in Tanzania as peasants struggle to improve their mode of production.
The changes come with increased income through which they build modern houses away from the grass-thatched huts.”There have been a lot of changes in farming practices too,” said Mr Maasay in a recent interview with The Citizen.
Mbulu highlands due to its cool weather used to be famous for the cultivation of wheat and finger millet.
These have now been largely replaced with irish potatoes and other crops, especially for income generation. The farmers, through interventions by multiple stakeholders, have employed efficient productive techniques with utilization of the recommended inputs.
The changing pattern of livelihood among the rural dwellers in Mbulu is a subject of a research spanning over 20 years in the area.
It has been combined with other studies elsewhere in Tanzania and will be officially launched this week (November 10th) in a book form.
The book ‘Prosperity in Rural Africa;Insights into Wealth Assets and Poverty from Longitudinal Studies in Tanzania’ is to be launched at the University of Dar es Salaam.
It is co-authored by a number of scholars from various universities who contributed to it, among them Emmanuel Sulle, an experienced researcher from Western Cape.
Mr Sulle, currently a PhD candidate on Land and Agrarian Studies, explains as to why most of his research in the 461 page book published by Oxford University Press (UK) centred on Mbulu, the homeland of the Iraqw community.
The cool highlands are among the densely populated areas in Manyara region -at some places over 240 per square kilometre.
Due to its terrain and bad agricultural practices by smallholder farmers, it has been vulnerable to soil erosion.
Besides the Mbulu scenario, the book sheds light on the rural economy in Tanzania in the past two and a half decades.
Scholars have described it as a dazzling compilation of detailed research on smallholder agriculture suitable for agrarian studies.
It will serve as another teaching material at the universities given its collection of case studies and surveys woven around poverty reduction in the rural households.