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Browsing College of Humanities by Author "Ambindwile, George Katoto"

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    Commercial Rice Farming and Economic Well Being of Peasants: the case study of the Usangu Plains -1945-200
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2003) Ambindwile, George Katoto
    This study examines the impact of commercial rice farmig on the peasants economic wellbeing in the Usangu plains between 1945 and 2000. The main assumption of the study is that, the development of capitalist production in the Usangu plans had an impact on peasant wellbeing and their self-sufficiency. The study used the political economy approach in explaining this relationship. It used interviews as well documentary review as the main methods for data collection. The study reveals three main findings. First, the study finds out that the introduction and development of rice production in the Usangu plans led to the rice of social stratification based on the ownership of land and utilization of labour among peasants. This gave rise to the consolidation of private family property ownership and exchange relations. Second, the study points out that consolidation of rice production of rice also led to food shortages in the Usangu plans. Peasants put efforts in the production of rice of commercial purpose and spent less time on food production. Third, the study shows that commercial rice farming expresses the exploitative nature of capitalist relations of production and that this is revealed by various mechanisms employed by capital. Peasants are exploited as labours in production as well as at the market place. The study concludes that the poor economic wellbeing of peasant in the Usangu plans is connected to the history of commercial rice farming in the area.
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    Rice farming and environmental change in the Usangu plains, Tanzania, 1920s–2000
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2017) Ambindwile, George Katoto
    Agricultural practices in Africa have changed enormously in rcent decades with varied outcomes on human development and the environment. This thesis explored the ways and patterns in which irrigated rice farming practices caused environmental changes in Tanzania from the 1920s to 2000, using the Usangu Plains as a case study. It examined the relationship between these changes and the political and socio-economic situation, technology, livelihood and the environment over a period of eight decades. Political ecology and historical ecology formed the theorectical frameworks of this study. Drawing on a wide range of colonial and post-colonial archival records, oral reminiscences and secondary sources, the thesis argues that the changing historical circumstances which were associated with rice farming such as colonialism, the adoption of the Chinese Green Revolution and economic liberalization affected the way in which the people utilized water and land, thus causing environmental problems such as the scarcity of water, pollution, deforestation, wild rice invasion and reduction of soil fertility. It also presents various coping strategies which the peasants in the plains intelligently adopted to minimize the impact of environmental change wrought by rice farming. The strategies included rice transplanting; the adoption of a double-field system; and the decomposition of rice stalks, green grass and husks to produce manure. By exploring peasant coping strategies, this thesis makes an important contribution by going beyond the studies that have privileged the active role of the state, corporations and large-scale capital intensive schemes in the development of agriculture as well as in the management of the environment. It does so by demonstrating that the peasants in the Usangu Plains were agents who made their own history by transforming their circumstances, including the environment, through their own material production and ideas.