View/Open - Sokoine University of Agriculture

Another interesting finding is that households in Masugu have significantly more axesthan the other villages. Similarly to Lunenzi as being the village with a high emphasison agriculture, Masugu is as shown the village that is most engaged in the forest. Thisthen follows the assumption that available tools and technology (together with otherfactors) have an effect on the resource base. However, we must ask which comes first,tools or easy access to forest resources, or maybe a combination? In terms of accessand use of tractor we only recorded two people in Masugu that were using it. We weretold that this was because few could afford the prices of renting it for ploughing ($67per ha.). Tractors were generally not seen in any of the villages, but for Nyali andLunenzi, tractors could not be used at all given their remote location and steep slopes.From our focus groups, the participants voiced their grievances with their “primitive”agricultural tools, stating that if they had the capital, they would invest in improvedtools and methods so they would be able to produce more. Only a few reported to usefertilizers 40 . Most of them came from Masugu, which now is more dependent on usingfertilizer and pesticide to get sufficient output. We were told that the nationalagricultural programme “Kilimo kwanza” (“agriculture first”) provides every villagewith a certain amount of subsidized fertilizer so that poor farmers are able to buy anduse it. However, in many instances this fertilizer has been bought up by businessmenand sold at a higher price, depriving it from the poorest farmers for which it wasintended.Each village had access to rice or maize mill, and there are a few in each village. Thevillagers would go to those owning such mills and pay around 1000Tsh ($0,67) for18kg of unprocessed maize. Several people mentioned that they lacked proper storagehouses for their produce as well as good knowledge on preservation methods. Thismeant that most households had to sell their crops even if the seasonal price was low.In terms of draft animals, only one person in Nyali was recorded using buffaloes.However, in Lunenzi some used donkeys to transport their produce to the nearestmarket. Although we did not record the number we were told that only those few withenough income could afford to rent a donkey ($2-3 per trip, 70kg of maize/beans).40 We were told during the focus groups discussions that very few used fertilizers in the area.180