Peasants and the food question: with examples of maize production in two villages in Mbulu district

The bulk of food and export crops in Tanzania is produced by peasant individual farms, yet, the peasants constitute most exploited, neglected and most misunder-stood social group.Peasants are always blamed for poor agricultural performance, and their resistance to various forms of state intervention in their social settings is oftenly interpreted as irrational. Peasants are not conservative as such. They have their own social, economic and ideological relations which determine their behaviour. They resist not all forms of state intervention, but those which contradict their social life. The ultimate result of state - peasant contradictions is that, rural productivity, i.e. the production of both export and food crops has steadly declined. This study deals with the socio-historical origins and nature of the chronic food problem obtaining in Tanzania. It attempts to investigate the problem within the frame work of existing social relations of production and the state forms within which peasant production is constituted, in the assumption that, food scarcity is a manifestation of various forms of peasant resistance. With examples of Maize production in two villages in Mbulu District, Arusha Region, the study concentrates on peasant forms of social and agricultural organisation, peasant means of survival during food crises and their behaviour whenever they encounter state intervention. The study is presented in four chapters. Chapter one provides the general introduction of the problem area and the arguments in this study. Chapter two deals with the historical evolution and nature of the food problern in Tanzania. It examines how the food problem is linked t to the dominant social relations of production in different historical epochs. In this chapter it is argued that the current food problem significantly linked to various forms of monopolistic state intervention in the peasantry. Chapter .three, presents, discusses and analyses the research findings from Moringa and Gwandumchi villages. The chapter examines how onerous state intervention in the peasant forms of agricultural organisation has played the role of jeopadizing rather than motivating peasant production. It is argued in chapter four that, the current state of food insecurity in Tanzania is a clear manifestation of the anarchy inherent in capitalist production. The chapter appeals for radical transformation of existing relations of production as an important step towards increased productivity.