Institutional Challenges to Robustness of Flood Plain Agricultural Systems

Abstract

"The farming of natural flood plains was in many parts of the world the cradle of civilization. The transformation of risky flood plain systems to socially controlled environments were the result of an intricate interplay between demography, religion, social organisation and technology of the time. In our days there are few natural flood plains left to study in the warm regions of the world. One such flood plain is the Rufiji Flood Plain in Tanzania. Here an artificial irrigation culture has not evolved, but a robust risk minimising flood plain agricultural system based on rice, maize, cotton and peas. Through the Arab, German and British colonization, attempts were made to 'modernise' this agricultural system, resulting in new crops and varieties incorporating into the system in a way that made it even more robust. This study also analyses challenges to this agricultural system during the last 30 years: the removal of the flood plain population to 'safe ujamaa villages', infrastructure development plans and institutional challenges like individualized tenure, 'land grabbing' and urban food marked expansion."