accumulation by land dispossession and labor ... - Land Portal

change) but for me our reason is that we are farming in unproductive lands. Increased
biofuel production has resulted in massive deforestation and has severe implications for
our food security, as energy crops replace our normal land uses. Please tell the
government we do not like this behavior of biofuel farms (In Jimwaga, Albert (2010)).
5. 3 Bio-diversifying Labour
As it has been shown above, BioShape‘s entrance ‗grabbed‘ a significant portion of the
labour force that was involved in farming food crops. But this ‗diversification‘ resulted in
what is referred as casualisation of labour, that is, a creation of a pool of cheap, casual
labour with no job security. For instance, out of the estimated 1,750 workers referred to
above, only about 120 had permanent contracts with BioShape. This ratio between
contractual and casual labour is close to what was observed two years earlier by Songela
& Mclean (2008): 90 permanent employees out of 600. As it was observed in Kilolo in
regard to the investor‘s devaluation of labour, there were a lot of complaints about how
the investor in Kilolo treated workers. The working conditions, it was claimed by
villagers and village council members consulted in Mavuji, were drastic, leading to a
number of respiratory diseases. For instance, a case was reported of a worker who
contracted tuberculosis due to smoke in the company‘s cooking area. This worker, it is
claimed, was ‗retired‘, or rather fired, with a ―pole‖, that is, ‗gratuity‘, of Tsh 121,000.
By early May, 2010 he had not yet received his National Social Security Fund (NSSF)
pension presumably because BioShape had not submitted it. Since he worked for 1 year
and the pension due is said to be Tsh 150,000 the salaries could have been as little as Tsh
125,000 per month given that NSSF is 10% of the salary. This is within the salary scale
of Tsh 100,000 - Tsh 120,000 recorded by Shemdoe & Mwanyoka (2010). Thus a lowly
paid permanent worker only earn about Tsh 4,000 ($2.80) per day.
Other complaints include long working hours with little or no breaks (from 6am to 6pm);
little payment for casual labour (Tsh 15,000 per week as in Tsh 3,000 ($2.15) per day
from Monday to Friday); heavy workload for women (including walking to and fro
between 1 and 2 kilometres to fetch food). Incidences of being bitten by snakes were
common not least because gumboots were provided much later. It is reported that one
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