Irrigation-based livelihood challenges and opportunities : a gendered technology of irrigation development intervention in the Lower Moshi irrigation scheme Tanzania

This thesis is a study of a modernised irrigation scheme in Tanzania. It aims to
understand how irrigation and agricultural technologies have interacted with local
society to transform production, paying particular attention to gender relations and
changes for women farmers. The thesis seeks to contribute to a better understanding
of what kinds of livelihood and production changes (negative and positive)
eventuate under ‘modernised’ irrigation systems, and how these contrast with
conditions under the older local irrigation systems the scheme has replaced. The
central research question of the thesis is to understand how irrigation modernisation
in the 1980s shaped, and has been reshaped by, the livelihood needs and options of
water users. The thesis analyses the initiatives and interactions of agents at various
levels – i.e. international, national, community and farm levels – as they attempt to
make use of and adjust to the technical and operational demands of a modern
scheme. In methodological terms, this thesis is guided by a technographic approach,
as advocated by Richards (2002), Richards (2007) and Bolding (2005). A
technographic approach ‘focuses on the complex interactions between social groups,
collective representations, innovation processes, technical artifacts and nature’. In
this case technography is applied to a socio-technical institution, the Lower Moshi
irrigation scheme, located in semi-arid lowland terrain at the foot of Mount
Kilimanjaro.
The research work took place over three seasons. In addition to careful
examination of project documentation, and interviews with project staff, the study
also undertook a randomised sample survey of 300 farmers in the four main project
area settlements, and made detailed observational studies across the agricultural
cycle of a smaller number of farm holdings owned and operated by both men and
women farmers. Since only about 30% of farmers within the scheme actually
cultivate irrigated plots sampling was designed to ensure proper representation of
non-irrigating farmers, since the activities of this poorer (non-irrigating) group is
crucial to the understanding the socio-economic dynamics of the scheme more
generally. Finally, some attention was paid to off-scheme communities. Many of the
technical problems experienced by the scheme (notably, the failure to distribute
water in volumes originally planned) relate to concurrent socio-economic and
technical changes taking place in up-stream communities, in particular, and an
account is offered of some aspects of these off-project agro-technical changes, and of
the disputes that then arose over water rights.
The thesis first offers an historical summary of irrigation in the Kilimanjaro
region, based on secondary sources and project documentation. In this part of Africa
the mountains are wet and forested, and the surrounding plains are dry. The Chagga
people (Wa-Chagga) were densely populated on the mountain, farming the wetter
slopes intensively in the 19th century, and it was an aim of colonial government to
resettle “excess” population in the plains. Some development of irrigation took place
from the 1920s to encourage this relocation of population, and a diverse population
(mainly but not exclusively Wa-Chagga) settled in Lower Moshi district to farm,
assisted by possibilities of irrigation. After independence, the Japanese government
offered funding and technical assistance to the Tanzanian government to modernise,
re-develop and extend irrigation in Lower Moshi, and a new scheme came into
operation in the 1980s, with a strong emphasis on intensive rice production, using
high-yielding (Green Revolution) semi-dwarf varieties such as IR54.
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The central finding from this part of the analysis (covered mainly in Chapters 1
and 2) is that the planners did not sufficiently take into account that irrigation in
Lower Moshi and among Wa-Chagga and neighboring populations was no new
thing. Many of the technical and social problems the scheme subsequently faced can
be traced to the fact that farmers were already familiar with irrigation techniques and
had developed traditional institutional arrangements to handle water rights and
labour burdens. Farmers outside the scheme undercut it by being quick to adopt
some project innovations, and to adapt their own practices accordingly. They also
diverted water from flowing into the scheme, arguing that access to water from the
mountain was an established traditional right under British rule, and still respected
by the independent government of Tanzania. The scheme thus failed to develop the
area originally intended, and is chronically short of water, undermining the
confidence of farmers within the scheme in its management procedures. A further
important finding is that women were largely excluded from the associations
involved in traditional irrigation water management (apart from providing labour on
specific occasions) and gendered notions of task and property rooted in local
tradition have continued to influence land inheritance and water rights within the
modern scheme.
Actual as opposed to planned workings of the scheme are addressed in Chapters 3
and 4, and an account is offered of the introduction of new agricultural technology.
Impacts or changes in relation to crop production, hired employment and other
production strategies, and income distribution among population are discussed,
along with impact on livelihoods. The scheme has had a highly layered impact.
Those able to secure plots with reliable water do, indeed, make money out of
intensive rice production, but the percentage is rather small, since the project is not
able to irrigate reliably, or at all, many areas within the scheme. Farmers in tail end
areas with unreliable water, or able only to farm land the project has never succeeded
to irrigate, lack the capacity to influence management to change water distribution in
their favour. The scheme lacks capital to invest in technical solutions to inadequate
water distribution, but in any case the major problem lies in reduced flow, in part a
product of up-stream diversions by non-scheme farmers. The project management
has failed to assert its legal water right, since the government agrees that traditional
rights also apply. Scheme management and maintenance suffer as a result. Farmers
without water do not see why they should help maintain the scheme or pay dues.
Some solve their problems by becoming “free riders” and acquire water by illegal
means; others focus on (less profitable) dry-land crops. A range of these conflicts is
examined, including contradictions between different classes of scheme settlers, e.g.
wealthier farmers with better access to the scarce water and poorer farmers
(including women plot owners) found in tail end areas. A complex interaction of
modern property regimes and customary values in the modernisation process is
reported. Irrigation project managements in Africa need to take account of these legal
and cultural complexities.
Intra-household gender relations are a specific focus in the later chapters of the
thesis (5-6). Women play a crucial role in the agricultural labour process, both in
irrigated and non-irrigated agriculture. They are (by custom) the major providers of
household food, while husbands focus on earning cash for other household expenses.
The introduction of a cash crop (rice) complicates this division of responsibility.
Women continue to provide labour on irrigated plots, but men assume the main
decision making role. A small number of women has acquired rights to irrigated land
on the scheme (through purchase or inheritance) but a majority are in the position of
farm workers or tenants. Irrigated rice increases women's labour burdens and
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responsibilities, since this is a cash crop and they still have to work on household
food crops as well. The scheme has continued to show many of the problems of
public irrigation development in Africa since the 1970s discussed in the introduction.
However, the situation in Lower Moshi is not as reported for parts of (West) Africa,
where women have been supplanted by men in (modernised) rice farming. Here
women never enjoyed rights over irrigated crops. What has happened on the scheme
is that their burdens have intensified. In cases where women have no husbands they
tend to be among the poorest farmers residing within the scheme, with little reliable
water or farming only rain-fed crops. In short, the scheme has widened the gap
between rich and poor, and intensified existing gender inequalities, in regard to
ownership of plots, agricultural output, division of labour, and coping strategies. The
thesis also shows that there are strong gender differentials in water rights and in
participation in water management. Alienation of women from management and
repair undermines scheme renewal. Irrigation management must develop a stronger
focus on gender issues to overcome challenges of inequitable water access, if it is to
provide any wider opportunities for better livelihoods, food security and nutrition in the area.