After Ujamaa: Farmer Needs, Nurseries and Project Sustainability in Mwanza, Tanzania

Abstract

"The Sukuma of Mwanza live near the south-east corner of Lake Victoria, occupying an area of low hills surmounted by granite outcrops, and separated by wide grassy valleys. In times gone by the rocky hilltops were covered in trees, homesteads and fields were to be found scattered down the hill slope, the seasonally wet valleys were used to grow rice and sweet potatoes, and cattle were grazed on valley edges in the dry season and on hill fallows and hill tops in the rains. The ideal holding was a wedge of land running from hilltop to valley centre. Because there was ample land, the most valued store of wealth for the Sukuma was cattle, which were and for some still are the substance and the currency of many social and economic transactions."