There has been an outcry that the trend to acquire large parcels of land in Africa for commercial investment purposes, especially in agriculture, is leading to unwanted results which include loss of various property rights by indigenous populations, land conflicts, environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, and reduced food self-sufficiency. This particularly negatively affects vulnerable groups including pastoralists, hunters and gatherers, and women and children. On their part however, governments, including that of Tanzania, believe that there is a lot of unutilized or underutilized land to attract large-scale investors; the envisaged benefits including technological transfer, employment creation, rural infrastructure development, self sufficiency in food, export promotion, and so on. In order to support investment, Tanzania established the Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) in 1997 and among its duties is: to identify investment sites, estates or land, for the purposes of investors and investment in general. To smoothen investment in land, the government has been making efforts to create a land bank for investors, but with little success, except in limited cases of creating Economic Processing Zones; since the earmarked land either belongs to villages, is reserved land, or is land being used as a common resource. Numerous, and sometimes deadly, conflicts over land in Tanzania, involving communities, communities and public authorities and communities against investors, point to a scarcity of land, vis á vis the growing population and available land becoming less and less in both quantity and quality. An innovative approach to use the land for equity in agricultural enterprises has also not made headway and the investor who tried that approach has recently wound up business. Contract farming, especially in the sugarcane and orchard industry has also come under criticism; although the approach by way of value chain addition has realized some positive results in the Southern Agricultural Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) areas.
A study, supported by Sida, was carried out recently in the Missenyi District, North-western Tanzania, the objective of which was to evaluate the
There has been an outcry that the trend to acquire large parcels of land in Africa for commercial investment purposes, especially in agriculture, is leading to unwanted results which include loss of various property rights by indigenous populations, land conflicts, environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, and reduced food self-sufficiency. This particularly negatively affects vulnerable groups including pastoralists, hunters and gatherers, and women and children. On their part however, governments, including that of Tanzania, believe that there is a lot of unutilized or underutilized land to attract large-scale investors; the envisaged benefits including technological transfer, employment creation, rural infrastructure development, self sufficiency in food, export promotion, and so on. In order to support investment, Tanzania established the Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) in 1997 and among its duties is: to identify investment sites, estates or land, for the purposes of investors and investment in general. To smoothen investment in land, the government has been making efforts to create a land bank for investors, but with little success, except in limited cases of creating Economic Processing Zones; since the earmarked land either belongs to villages, is reserved land, or is land being used as a common resource. Numerous, and sometimes deadly, conflicts over land in Tanzania, involving communities, communities and public authorities and communities against investors, point to a scarcity of land, vis á vis the growing population and available land becoming less and less in both quantity and quality. An innovative approach to use the land for equity in agricultural enterprises has also not made headway and the investor who tried that approach has recently wound up business. Contract farming, especially in the sugarcane and orchard industry has also come under criticism; although the approach by way of value chain addition has realized some positive results in the Southern Agricultural Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) areas.
A study, supported by Sida, was carried out recently in the Missenyi District, North-western Tanzania, the objective of which was to evaluate the
challenges of making large swathes of land available for investors especially in agriculture. The District was thought to have around 100,000 hectares suitable for large-scale investment, investment which, moreover, could be supported by the perennial river, Kagera, in terms of irrigation. A crucial conceptual question was whether the nuances of customary tenure such asrweya (common resources land for grazing, seasonal cultivation and harvesting of natural products) and bishanga (wetlands associated with water bodies), are taken into consideration when thinking of land as being undeveloped or marginal, and therefore available for investors.
The study was based on an extensive study of official and non-official documents at national, regional and district levels; interviews with officials, politicians and actual and potential investors; focused group discussions with villagers and local officials, fieldwork using a questionnaire administered to villagers, and participant observation in 3 villages with a potential for land availability. Aerial photographs were also relied upon to estimate existing land uses. A stakeholders’ workshop was held todeliberate a number of issues including the definition of an investor and the availability of land for investment.
The District, which borders the neighbouring countries of Uganda and Rwanda, has an area of 270,000 hectares, and a population (almost evenly divided between men and women) of 202,632 in 35,699 households. Administratively the District has 255 hamlets, 77 villages, 20 wards and 2 Divisions.
It was established that although there is a feeling nationally and regionally that this district has a lot of undeveloped land, facts point to a different direction. Of the 270,000 ha of the District, 90,000 ha is densely occupied by villages, 32,000 ha is a nature reserve, 20,000 ha is a large sugar plantation, which is surreptitiously expanding by an estimated 1500 ha pa; and 60,000 ha is a national ranch established in the 1960s. Due to land pressure, the latter has been, in part, allocated to villagers; and a larger part has been divided into ranching blocks and given to potential investors who have, instead of investing in livestock, turned to renting out the blocks to local and foreign migrant livestock keepers. Numerous conflicts, resulting into loss of life, have been recorded in recent years over ownership and use of this land.
The rest of the land is used as a common resource (rweya) or as wetlands(bishanga). District data however, does not refer to these nuances of customary tenure, and already there is serious encroachment on rweyaland, leading to constrained space for livestock, and, therefore to conflicts between farmers and herders. The encroachment on wetlands, to mainly grow rice which has been introduced in the district by an influx of people from rice growing regions in the country, is a sure harbinger of future serious water shortage.
The District has recently experienced huge population immigration from other parts of the country and from neighbouring countries, lured by the apparently abundance of undeveloped land, which latter has been put to sugarcane growing in outgrower arrangements, rice growing and the growing of trees as an investment. Some of these incoming populations have been welcomed by village authorities. This has led to encroachment on wetlands, and the privitizing of common lands (rweya) resulting into conflicts which have witnessed loss of property and limb and life.
Land prices are relatively low, ranging from USD 100 to USD 200 an acre, and buyers have included individuals, corporate bodies, religious organizations and NGOs. There is displacement of the rural population, especially the youth. Those who sell their land migrate to urban areas, and turn to trade and commerce, including operating motorcycle public transport.
The shrinking of rweya land is also contributed to by growing urbanization which has seen small trade centers turning into townships, and townships turning into towns, eating into agricultural and communal land.
The District is under pressure to set aside land for investors in both agriculture and industries. Seven separate areas of land parcels, with a total of 2228 acres (2013 ha), ranging from 20 to 1988 acres have been identified. None of these however, is earmarked for agriculture. The lots were identified for use as follows: 1 for an International Agricultural Produce market; 2 for Export Processing Zones (EPZ); and 4 for industrial establishments. This land, though, is neither surveyed, not acquired by way of paying compensation. In other words, it is not in public hands.
The conclusion from the study is that there is no land for large-scale investors in the District, though small-scale ones (utilizing 100 ha or less)
can be accommodated; and these could be locals-turned-investors, who can negotiate with village authorities for arrangements to put land to efficient production. It was possible to get thousands of acres of land for large-scale investors in the past, as the population of both people and livestock was low. This is no longer possible without seriously reducing communal land, wetlands or conservation land, and this is possibly the case throughout the country. It is therefore futile to think in terms of creating a land bank, a quest which has remained elusive for the past 20 years at national level, with at least three authorities: the Ministry for Lands, the Tanzania Investment Centre and the Ministry for Local Government, tossing the ball between themselves, as to who is responsible for having a land bank for investors in place. A new approach needs to be embraced.
Given pressure on land, there are demands that land that was allocated to large investors in the past, such as Kagera Sugar be reduced, though the investor has a title to land and is utilizing it well. There are also demands that investors who were allocated ranch land, and are not performing, should have their allocation revoked and land given to serious investors, or villagers; although there are major hurdles to implement this feat.
A major recommendation is that, rather than think in terms of a land bank, and of investors from afar, there is need to strengthen individual and communal tenure rights in the villages, and to encourage the working of land markets, including land rentals. Renting of land for short periods is taking place in some villages although at a relatively small scale. This calls for comprehensive village land use planning and titling, since only 4 out of 77 villages have village land use plans and only 600 Certificates for a Customary right of Occupancy have been given out.
Enabling land markets could see existing land lots being utilized more efficiently, with small and medium sized investors adopting modern farming methods, including utilizing disease and bad-weather resistant seeds, leading to higher productivity and to less pressure for lateral expansion into common and environmentally sensitive land.