Improving urban poors’ access to land for urban agriculture in Kinondoni Municipality, Tanzania
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Date
2004-07
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Municipal Development Programme for Eastern and Southern Africa (MDP-ESA)
Abstract
This study was carried out in Kinondoni Municipal Council’s six wards of which three were urban: Kawe, Mwnanyamala and Tandale, and other three were peri-urban: Bunju, Goba, and Kibamba.
Objectives of the study and methodology The general objective of this study was to contribute to a better understanding of how the periurban resource-poor accessed land for (peri)-urban agriculture. It also sought to identify and recommend public policy interventions needed to improve access to land for (peri) urban agriculture by the urban resource poor. The specific objectives were: 1. To document and analyze formal and informal practices, strategies and means used by socially differentiated women and men accessed land for PUA; 2. To identify and analyze issues of public policy and legislation that constrained or enhanced the practice of (peri)-urban agriculture, particularly by the urban resource-poor; 3. To document and analyze strategies and procedures used to prevent, manage, and resolve conflicts and foster collaboration over access to land for PUA by the urban resource-poor; 4. To integrate/link the research on objectives 1, 2, 3, with: a. Specific public policy interventions to improve access by the urban poor to land for PUA in Kinondoni municipality; b. Other factors that may affect access to land for PUA by the resource-poor; 5. To contribute to filling gaps on gender aspects of and to the state of art and knowledge on access to land for PUA; 6. To self-monitor and document in-progress and final technical reports of those aspects or impacts (positive or negative, planned or not) which can be attributed, partially or in whole to this project in Kinondoni municipality.
The research protocol involved ten steps: a methodological workshop, a scooping workshop, designing and refining research instruments, pilot testing of instruments, main field data collection, focus group discussions, feedback workshop, draft report and revised report writing. The main filed data collection involved a sample of 801 respondents who were interviewed, and three types of questionnaires were used for this study. The first set of questionnaire was designed for the urban resource-poor who practiced urban agriculture (hereafter referred to as UA). The second set of questionnaire was used for the urban poor who did not practice urban agriculture (hereafter referred to as non-UA). The third set of questionnaire was used to elicit information from the peri-urban poor who practiced agriculture in the peri-urban areas (hereafter referred to as RA). In all cases, both quantitative and qualitative information was gathered from the respondents in their households.
Key findings On the issue of methods of acquiring land in KMC, a total of 417 respondents provided responses. Of these, 315 were from peri-urban areas and their responses indicated that methods of acquiring land in peri-urban areas included: purchasing (26.3%), inheriting (21.9%), bush clearing (18.4%), being granted land by the village government (13.0%), being given land by a relative (10.8), by a friend (10.5%) and being allocated land by the Ministry of Lands and Human Settlement Development (MLHSD) or Kinondoni Municipal Council (KMC) (0.6%) and others. In essence, the methods that the resource-poor farmers used to access land for agriculture can be group into three. First, was the informal, which included inheriting, bush clearing, given by relatives, given by friends and these accounted for 61.6 percent of the respondents. Second, was purchasing or buying, which accounted for 26.3 percent of respondents, while the third the formal, which included allocation of land by the village governments, and MLHSD or KMC,
which accounted for only 0.6 percent. Over two thirds of the respondents, therefore, used informal methods of accessing land for agriculture highlighting the importance of social capital.
This study found that respondents’ income levels influenced the various methods that they used to access land for agriculture. Out of the 801 respondents, 311 (38.6%) gave their responses, of which 247 (79.4%), 27 (8.7%), 21 (6.8%), and 16 (5.1%) indicated that their monthly income from the informal sector was less that Tshs. 30,000 (US$ 28.8), more than Tshs. 50,000 (US$ 48), between Tshs. 30,000 to 40,000 (US$ 28.8 to 38.5), and between Tshs. 40,001 to 50,000 (US$ 38.5 to 48.1), respectively.
Furthermore, of the 480 RA resource-poor farmers, 284 (59.2%) indicated that they would charge an acre of land to fellow villagers at a mean price of Tshs. 1,012,000, a maximum of Tshs. 20,000,000 (US$ 19,231), a minimum of 50,000 (US$ 48) with a standard deviation of Tshs. 1,652,000 (US$ 1,589). None of the resource-poor farmer would afford this kind of a price for an acre of land given their low monthly income.
Another way of explaining how the three types of the respondents (UA, non-UA, RA) accessed land for agriculture was to examine data based on the nine respondents’ characteristics across the three methods they used to access land for agriculture. Cross-tabulated data showed that the three types of respondents used informal methods for accessing land for agriculture in varying proportions. The highest were the UA and RA respondents who on average, over two thirds (69%) and (61%) indicated that they used informal methods for accessing land for agriculture, respectively, compared to 47 percent for the non-UA. Of the 137 UA who gave their responses on gender, 78 (57%) gave their opinions about the methods they used to access land for agriculture. And of these, 24 (31%) and 13 (17%) females and males indicated that they accessed land for agriculture through inheritance, respectively. All the informal methods of accessing land accounted for about 72 percent, indicating that they were superior over the formal methods. One thing to note was that most of the women accessed land for agriculture through inheritance than did males. This is probably due to matrilineal systems of passing over property practiced by the ethnic groups in the eastern zone.
Based on non-UA respondents’ gender, the informal methods that both females and males commonly used to access land for agriculture accounted for about 66 percent, indicating that they were superior over the formal methods. Unlike the UA and non-UA respondents, 48 (15%) and 53 (11%) of males and females of the RA respondents indicated that they accessed land for agriculture by buying, respectively.
The study also found that in peri-urban areas, females and males equally indicated that they accessed land for agriculture through inheritance 35 (11%) for females and 34 (10.8%) for males. This data showed that there was gender equity in terms how land for agriculture was given to siblings in peri-urban areas of KMC. Based on RA respondents’ gender, the informal methods for accessing land for agriculture, which included inheritance, bush clearing, given by friends, given by relatives accounted for about 53 percent than the formal methods.
Out of a total of 801 respondents, 790 (98.6%) gave their opinions about their awareness to land legislation for regulating access to land for agriculture in KMC. An analysis of the results showed that an overwhelming 774 (97.6%) of the respondents were not aware of any land legislation issued by the government or KMC for regulating access to land for agriculture in KMC.
The study also found that land conflicts in KMC peri-urban study wards were heightened partly by five main reasons: land scarcity setting in, proximity to the city of Dar es Salaam, the homogeneity of the ethnic tribes, the young Zaramo claims to the land, the socio-economic status of the resource-poor farmers. In the six study wards, it was found that there were five levels of conflicts and the lowest level of a land conflict was when a resource-poor farmer’s family member had a conflict with another family member on a land issue.
In peri-urban wards the study found that there were two methods of settling land conflicts. These included the formal or official, and the informal or traditional methods. In KMC peri-urban areas, the formal method of settling land conflicts consisted of five levels: the ten-cell leader, village government leaders, ward executive officer, the primary court, and district court, and the commonly used ones were the first three.
There are six policy recommendations emanating from this study. 1.. KMC in collaboration with other government departments, NGOs and community based organizations should initiate educational programmes to the resource-poor farmers on land legislations and policy issues, land conflicts and how to resolve them, surveying, titling and registration of their lands, how to get loans using title deed as collaterals, and refraining from selling land and initiating sustainable income sources. 2. In (peri)-urban areas, KMC in collaboration with other institutions (i.e. Banks, NGOs, government departments) should initiate programmes that could give loans to the resource-poor farmers. 3. In urban areas, KMC in collaboration with MLHSD should survey and temporarily allocate the open spaces, vedges, and valleys to the resource-poor farmers so that they can use the land for agriculture. 4. In peri-urban areas, KMC/MLHSD in collaboration with the village governments should enact bylaws limiting the size of land that a resource-poor farmer could sell out to people coming from outside the village. 5. In urban areas, using the existing leadership ladder, KMC in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security should initiate ‘urban agriculture farmers producer groups’. 6. In (peri)-urban areas, KMC in collaboration with MLHSD, and the village governments, should enact bylaws that would compel village governments to allocate half of their agricultural land to women and ensure that such land is properly surveyed, titled and registered in the names of women.
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Keywords
Land access, Urban agriculture, Kinondoni Municipality, Tanzania, Periurban resource-poor