Tanga Region, Tanzania, is an area of persistent rural poverty with a long history of drought, floods, food shortages, famine, and social and economic disruption. Though farmers have been cultivating the land therenbsp;for hundreds of years, they have consistently been unable to supply adequate food for the region's inhabitants. In Challenging Nature, Philip Porter examines eighteen farming communities to understand what the farmers there know about their environment and which historical and economic factors play into the lack of food security.nbsp; Porter first began work on this project in 1972, asking 250 farmers in the region about life history, environmental and agricultural changes, types of crops grown and methods of planting, environmental assessments, agricultural practices, food and water supplies, training and education, and attitudes toward nature. Twenty years later, he returned and reinterviewed as many farmers as could be found from the first survey. The result contextualizes the environmental history of the region while informing current and future agricultural development.
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| Acknowledgments | |
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| Research Questions and Conceptual Contexts | |
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| Introduction to the Area and the Research Questions | |
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| Conceptual Contexts | |
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| Livelihood and Poverty in Tanga Region | |
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| Peasant Farming in Lowland Tanga | |
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| Poverty | |
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| Illness and Lost Workdays | |
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| Material Culture | |
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| Summary and Analysis | |
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| Biophysical Environment and Local Knowledge | |
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| Topography and Geology | |
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| Climate | |
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| Soils | |
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| Vegetation | |
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| Some Examples of Local Knowledge | |
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| Tanga's Regional History | |
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| Historical Events | |
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| Cultural and Demographic Character | |
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| Summary and Analysis | |
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| Introducing the Eighteen Villages | |
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| Research Procedure | |
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Student Researcher Assessments of the
18. Villages | |
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| Kwadundwa | |
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| Mgera | |
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| Kwediamba | |
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| Minazini | |
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| Kwamsisi | |
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| Mzundu | |
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| Kwamgwe | |
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| Mandera | |
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| Mlembule | |
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| Mkomazi | |
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| Vugiri | |
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| Magoma | |
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| Kisiwani | |
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| Kiwanda | |
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| Daluni | |
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| Mwakijembe | |
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| Maranzara (Pongwe) | |
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| Moa | |
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| Summary and Analysis | |
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| Assessing Different Farm Management Practices | |
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| Introducing the Energy-Water Balance Model | |
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| Choice of Site and Soil | |
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| Choice of Crop | |
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| Growing Enough Food | |
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| Delay in Planting | |
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| Spacing of Crop | |
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| Intercropping | |
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| Provision of Supplemental Water | |
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| Summary and Analysis | |
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| Drought, Food Shortages, and Ways of Coping | |
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| When Things Go Wrong | |
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| The 1953 Handeni Famine | |
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| Institutionalized Coping with Food Shortages | |
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| Strategies Adopted by Farmers to Cope with Drought and Food Shortages | |
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| Farmer Attitudes toward Nature | |
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| Changes in Crops Grown | |
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| Summary and Analysis | |
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| Local Knowledge, Sustainability Science | |
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| Institutional Agricultural Research | |
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| Sustainable Transitions Elsewhere | |
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| A Sustainable Transition for Tanga Region? | |
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| The Task Ahead | |
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| Agrometeorological Modeling | |
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| Agroclimatological Survey of Tanga Region | |
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| Analysis of the Crop Calendars: Timing of Planting and Season Length for Maize | |
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| Chronology for Tanga Region | |
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| Notes | |
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| Bibliography | |
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| Index | |
Philip W. Porter, PhD, is Professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota. His research, concentrated mainly in east Africa, has combined themes in cultural ecology, physical geography, political economy, and social theory. Eric S. Sheppard, PhD, is Professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota. His research interests include economic and social theory, the geographical underpinnings of political and economic processes, and development dynamics from the urban to the global scale.
