UTILISATION OF AFRICA'S ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES AND THE CHALLENGES OF GLOBALISATION: A CASE IN EASTERN TANZANIA*
By
Professor William Rugumamu
University of Dar es Salaam
Email: wrugu@udsm.ac.tzSub-theme: Africa and the Challenges of Globalisation
*Paper Presented at the CODESRIA 10th General Assembly in Kampala Uganda, 8-12th December 2002
Abstract
The apparent relationship between environmental conservation and economic globalisation is coloured by ambivalence. There is but a subtle boundary between moderacy and reciprocal profiteering, between exaggerated claims with respect to exploitation and ecological degradation or even poverty intensification. At the centre of this article is a critical assessment of the impact of processes of economic globalisation on Africa's environmental resources.
Conceptually globalisation is broadly conceived as shrinkage of economic distances between nations and is hence more accurately seen as consisting of two separate but not necessarily mutually exclusive trends, globalization of production and trade, and globalization of finance and capital flows. It consists of a set of world-wide processes which strive to selectively integrate the world into a single global market village Greater openness of and interdependence between national economies provides bountiful opportunities for Africa's economies, but it is not without its challenges. Globalization is raising the rewards for economies choosing good economic governance, but is also raising the costs for economies with poor economic governance. This results in some actors being winners and others losers.
On the environmental front, the paper surveys the abundant and medium potential land resource base as natural capital and the smallholder farmer as social capital in eastern Tanzania on leeward side of the Uluguru Mountains. The issues examined with a political economy approach are the contemporary socioeconomic ecological relations of smallholder farmers' and their land holdings as well as their business partners. It thence studies the roles and responsibilities of these stakeholders and their components and institutions respectively, in promoting the quality of life of the indigenous population and in sustaining the productivity of their environment and natural resources. These relations are considered within a specific macro-ecological zone, the fragile semi-arid ecosystem that provides for more objective agrobiodiversity conditions for the functioning of specific farming systems within the global market forces.
Further, it holistically sheds light to mechanisms propelling the globalisation processes by transnational corporations (TNCs) that are capable of exploiting the ecosystem resources. Whereas conservation land use systems may be correlated to efficiency, stability, sustainability, the opposite could also be strongly associated with environmental stress and economic decline.
The final section concludes that empowered smallholder farmers are potentially able to take advantage of economic globalisation through grassroots based environment friendly and profitable production systems of high quality produce. It advocates democratic opportunities for enabling smallholder farmers to achieve food self-sufficiency, promote export crops production and environmental sustainability. It recommends the application of democratic participatory approaches for poverty reduction as a basis for facilitating the positive economic globalisation processes.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Background to the Problem
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is endowed with a rich diversity of environmental resources. Some of these terrestrial and aquatic resources are country specific while others transcend national boundaries of two or more countries within the region. Since World War II, Africans have embarked on massive utilisation of their environmental resources for improving their quality of life and that of their global business partners as well as meeting the needs of Mother Nature (Frobel et.al. 1988; French 2000). In spite of the abundance of these resources local communities, predominantly smallholder farmers and pastoralists, whose production systems are based on traditional environmental knowledge systems (TEKS) are now unable to meet their basic needs, sustain environmental productivity and even have an equitable share of the global wealth (ADALCO, 1990). The predominance of international trade over local needs fostered, among other things, the specialization in spatial production and exchange of goods and services at a global scale. As a consequence, it is evident that in some geographical areas, natural resources were and still are sustainably utilized while in others there have and still are evidence of environmental degradation (Stebbing,1935 Timberlake, 1985; Blaikie 1989; Juma and Ford, 1992; Rugumamu, 1993; Boyce, 2002).
Modern-day advances in agricultural technology in industrialized countries, however, have and are posing great challenges leading to failure in the agricultural industry in the Subregion given that smallholder farmers cannot afford modern-day environmental knowledge systems (MEKS). With globalization accelerated by advancement in media technology and communication, these technologies are gradually diffusing universally and are creating an environment for rapid changes in the economy in SSA (Ohiorhenuan, 1998; French 2000; Boyce 2002). Being supported by new supranational policy regimes, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), it is striving to homogenise the universe. Under the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) championed by the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (Brown and Tiffen, 1993) globalization is sought to facilitate the modern-day agricultural production systems to revamp the ailing SSA economies.
Given that in Tanzania like other SSA environmental resources form the corner-stone of socio-economic development, and that the nature and characteristics of the environment is ultimately one of the limiting factors for the well-being of the local people and the State, there is need to propose strategies and tools for environmental policy and programme reform in planning land use. One way of combatting ecological and socio-economic depression has been for the government of Tanzania (GOT) to opt for political and economic reforms under the structural adjustment programmes (SAPs). These policies are tailored around the international donors' (the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, United Nations agencies) perceptions of the causes of and solutions for Africa's underdevelopment (Blaikie, 1985; World Bank 1997; Juma and Ford 1991; Rugumamu 1993). Their goal is to create conditions conducive to the play of free market forces and free flow of goods and services between country and the outside world! (Lal, et.al. 1988). As noted by Rugumamu (2001) among others, processes of globalization and their impacts have been documented at the macro-level in a variety of ways. There are however, scanty corresponding studies at micro-level.
This paper on a theme micro-environment and globalisation nexus is a case in point. With effective participation of the leadership in Morogoro region on different occasions and at different administrative levels Melela village on the leeward side of the Uluguru mountains (Figure) was identified as an ecologically and economically problem area typified by, among others, periodic drought, crop failure, food shortage and famine, relief food supplies, urban-rural migration, land use conflicts and with a community sensitive to agricultural market signals. It is indeed this state of affairs that makes. Melela village is thus an interesting diagnostic case that calls for in-depth analysis of agrobiodiversity conditions under economic globalisation and indeed for urgent resource planning and management.
Theoretical Framework
Globalization is conceived as a set of worldwide processes which strive to selectively link the world economy into a single global market village. The increased shrinkage of economic distances between and among nations is facilitated by policy changes towards economic liberalisation. The integration processes are also strongly associated with rapid development in technology, production, trade, finance. They are thus accurately seen as consisting of two separate but not necessarily mutually exclusive trends, globalization of production and trade, and globalization of finance and capital flows. The rapid advancement in the field of information communication technology (ICT) set in motion by transnational corporations (TNCs) and other actors has facilitated linkages across national boundaries. The processes have since opened new gaps between information rich industrialized nations and information poor developing countries. Some actors in the game mostly in the North gain whilst the majority of those in the South lose (Kennes 1997; Hoffmaister et.al 1998).
The TNCs and other actors are a lead agency in the allocation and re-location of national economic activity processes within a global system. Through this mechanism TNCs are more able to control and hence link national level companies and markets to international ones (Boyce 2002). Conventionally, these linkages have accelerated the integration of two spatio-economic systems, namely a globalized space in the developing countries and a globalizing space at the center of the global economic system in developed countries into a whole (Milton Santos, pers. com; Amin 1976.). The polarization of technology by the center through massive investment in the telecommunication and computer systems for networking and on-line data distribution by satellites is a process that makes areas and distances shrink through time making the center the custodian of technology and power and hence the engine for a global unilateral change.
On the policy side, one instrument for global trade integration is the creation of the WTO. The establishment of this institution has ushered in a new era of multilateral trading arrangement. Within this framework, however, SSA economic performance between mid 1980s and 1990s have been disappointing (UNCTAD 1993). It is reported that SSA economies experienced falling shares mainly relative to other developing countries during 1987-91 in spite of preferential market access accorded to them. This demonstrates how Africa has failed to economically compete on the global scene. These results may be attributed in part to the inability of Africa to assert her self in the fields of trade, technology, finance and production in a global village.
Centers in the globalized space, the periphery, will serve as facilitators and consolidators of technology and power from the western centers and not vice-versa. The impacts of the total processes on a globalized space might be reflected by the degree of environmental degradation and economic decline. Further the dynamic relationships in the global system will serve as an indicator of the behavior of the key role players with respect to the environmental resources. It is within this framework that a better understanding of the mechanisms necessary for regulating resources' sustainable productivity under economic globalization for present and future generations in the subregion is sought at a micro-scale.
The environmental resource component posed for this study is land. Geographically the concept land refers to a specific area of the earth's surface; its characteristics embrace all reasonably stable or predictably cyclic, attributes of the biosphere vertically above and below this area including those of the atmosphere, the soil and the underlying geology, the hydrology and the plant and animal populations and results of past and present human activity, to the extent that these attributes exert a significant influence on present and future uses of the land by humans (adapted from Smyth 1972; FAO 1976). Included also are the adverse results of human activity processes. The principle objective in land resource utilisation that this paper seeks to achieve is the attainment of sustainable economic development and social equity through wise utilization of the resource base for the present and future generations (WCED 1987).
Sustainability and development as concepts have had a variety of interpretations since they gained prominence in development literature in 1980s. The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED 1987), for instance, refers to "development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs" as sustainable. Unfortunately focus on sustainable development has diverted attention from gross inequities that exist between and among the people of the South and North. Further it has glossed over the disproportionate of power and resources use within and between the North and South. Sustainability in agriculture and natural resources should thus allow for progression towards ever-improving quality in all of life - for nations as well as individuals and the environment (The Independent Commission on Population and Quality of Life 1996). It is against this background that the article conceives sustainability as a strategy that consolidates environmental and developmental concerns in pursuance of economic prosperity and social equity while preserving the integrity of Mother Nature for future generations.
To this end, sustainable productivity of the land user and the environmental resource base in the SSA is conceptualized at a production unit level within a specific macro-ecological zone. When the agricultural production goals are dictated by needs of the community and the resilience of the resource base are maintained indefinitely then the pattern is sustainable. As the production process is linked to the needs of the North and indeed at the expense of the survival economy, an over-utilisation of natural resources exacerbating degradation is inevitable. For this very reason it is timely to explicate the impacts of the land users' economic activity processes and their technology on the environmental resources' productivity within the global market forces.
Technology, as an engine of development, may be broadly conceptualized as systematic knowledge, skills, practices and machines, usually of industrial processes but applicable to any recurrent activity process. Being closely related to science and engineering, technology deals with the tools, skills and techniques for carrying out the plans (Muller 1980) through liquidation or consolidation in industrial technology. As reported by Chungu and Mandara (1994) technological development is important as a major determinant of the level and pattern of national economic development and also as a major determinant of international competitiveness. In view of the above account, economic development and technological advancement are positively correlated.
It is in this light that the sustainability of agricultural production and the physical environment should be seen (Cooke, 1991). This is central in development in that it is conceptualized on the outset that we are concerned at all levels - household, local, subnational, national and international (Carpenter, 1980; Blaikie 1989; Boyce 2002). As globalization strives to selectively integrate the world into a single global market village, the prospects for sustainable development of ecologically and economically marginal areas have to be clearly understood. It is within this framework that this article contributes to a critical assessment of the impact of processes of economic globalisation on the utilisation of Africa's environmental resources.
Objectives
The specific objectives are two-fold; first, to assess the impacts of economic globalisation on the environment with specific reference to an ecologically and economically fragile ecosystem typified by Melela village in eastern Tanzania; and second, to propose a viable approach for achieving socioeconomic prosperity and equity and ecological stability through community-based resource use systems in Africa
Methodology
To achieve these objectives the paper adopts a methodology based on a political economy approach in understanding the application of ecological principles in agricultural production processes under economic globalisation. The issues examined are the contemporary socioeconomic ecological relations of smallholder farmers and their land holdings as well as with their business partners. The approach thus seeks to integrate local human needs and ecosystem production capacity within an international economic setting as a basis for identifying adverse consequences and a search for sustainable development. The paper draws evidence from the leeward side of the Uluguru Mountains in Eastern Tanzania (Figure). This approach therefore, pays equal attention to the local communities' livelihood needs and those of the ecosystem plus a surplus for the international market by providing a holistic framework for sustenance in the realm of environment, economy and policy development.
The remaining part of the paper falls into two main sections. The proceeding part outlines
Contemporary land use types and environmental management technologies both traditional and modern ones as basis for a better understanding of relationships between economic globalization and the utilisation of environmental resources. The third section reviews the key impacts of economic globalization processes on environmentally and socioeconomically marginal ecosystem in SSA as reflected in Melela village in eastern Tanzania.
ASSESSMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND ECONOMY IN EASTERN TANZANIA UNDER GLOBALISATION
The thrust of this section is on the understanding of the current environment and development relationships in fragile areas Tanzania. It is conceived that farmers' land holdings are a component of a specific macro-ecological zone, the semi-arid zone that provides for more objective agrobiodiversity conditions for the functioning of a given farming system. It explores contemporary land use types and environmental management technologies both traditional and modern ones as basis for a better understanding of relationships between economic globalization and the utilisation of environmental resources.
Evolution of the Utilisation of Tanzania's Environmental Resources
Experience in the SSA countries experience reveals a long tradition of well adopted TEKS for sustained environmental productivity right before the coming of colonialism in the eve of the twentieth century (Ruthenberg, 1971; Van de Welle 1972; Kjekshus, 1977; Rodney, 1980; Neriove, 1988). Allan (1965) notes, for instance, that pastoralists were capable of assessing the feed value of different rangelands and their stock carrying capacity at different seasons of the year. The Barabaig in northern Tanzania have a strong stake in maintaining fodder trees and have customary rules regarding utilisation. Amongst the agropastoralists, there were some communities who developed a sustainable agricultural production system based on mixing crop production with animal husbandry up to the advent of Rinderpest (Kjekshus, 1977).
With respect to skills and innovativeness and creativity of the land users, Boserup (1965) cites Ukerewe Island, in Lake Victoria, where population pressure has triggered agricultural intensification through technological inventions thus averting food shortage and maintaining soil productivity. Further, the ability of the farmers to adopt new crops such as rice and maize in the nineteenth century and to incorporate them successfully in their farming systems (Illife, 1972) is a positive indicator of the farmers' ingenuity in sound land husbandry. It is further reported that during the pre-colonial period, the Sukuma people, south of Lake Victoria, had already developed mechanical soil conservation technology (Rounce and Thornton 1939). The farmers construct tie-ridges to address the problem of soil-water loss, fertility depletion and decreased yields.
In spite of the few cited technological and institutional potential, land degradation processes are as severe as ever before (UNSO 1986; Hudson, 1987). In some areas, the problem has since been associated with drought hazards, when in actual fact, drought is one of the precursors (Rugumamu, 1993). Recent studies have revealed that land degradation in Tanzania knows no ecological boundaries (Rapp et. al 1973; Amin, 1986; GEO-SAREC 1990).
It has been noted that in the semi-arid areas of Tanzania only poorly vegetated areas are susceptible to surface run-off as down pours set in (Van Rensburg, 1955); Christiansson, 1988). Such a monolithic view of the problem has lead some distinguished scholars to refer to soil erosion as a technical issue (Morgan, 1986; Stallings, 1987). They propagate terracing, gully stabilization, tree planting etc as control measures when in essence the problem is a socio-economic, political, ecological and technological in origin. This is a holistic view of environmental degradation propagated among others by Carpenter, (1980); Blaikie, (1985); Fierman, (1990); Shiva, (1991); Juma and Ford, (1992); Rugumamu, (1996); Boyce 2002).
Failure of colonial policies and measures to combat ecological degradation and strengthen over-exploitation in Tanzania is a clear testimony of lack of a holistic approach to mitigate the hazard. For instance, most efforts directed to export crops production improvement have had no bearing on either food crops, livestock keeping, forestry nor water sources management reflecting a high level of sectoral fragmentation. According to Berry and Townshend (1973), the colonial administrators failed to take into account the land users' attitudes to conservation when prescribing conservation measures. It is advanced here that the land users were not involved in planning land management. It is the local skills and practices employed by smallholder farmers that are the major foundation for sustaining agriculture and the environment (Biowman, 1974; Hudson, 1987; Fierman, 1990; Choucri, 1998). Hence the colonial command-type approach to environmental management created resentment among smallholder farmers and pastoralists which in turn endangered resources sustainability.
In response to the declining land productivity, the Government of Tanzania has proclamated many programmes and policies since independence in order to check the situation but has met with limited success (Berry and Townshend, 1973; McAuslan 1980, DANIDA 1989; Rugumamu, 1996). It is imperative, therefore, to assess the impact of globalization, a new approach to annex Tanzania, on the environment and development.
The Case of Melela Village, Uluguru Mountains in Eastern Tanzania
This subsection outlines the environmental resource base on where economic globalisation articulates. The tract of land of the Uluguru Mountains referred to is the leeward side represented by Melela village settlement as the centre stage of the thesis (Rugumamu 2000). The village is located about 35 Km. in the neighbourhood of Morogoro municipality and along the Tanzania-Zambia Highway (TANZAM). The size of the village is yet to be accurately determined but official estimate put it at 80 square kilometres (8000 hectares). Administratively, the village is a subset of Mlali ward, Morogoro Rural district in Morogoro region, Eastern Tanzania (Figure 1). The region is one of the 20 administrative regions in Tanzania occupying about 8.2% of the total mainland area.
As for local level governance, Melela is governed by the village council and headed by a democratically elected chairman. There is also a village executive officer who is a local government employee. The secretary and different village committees namely finance and planning, social services and defense and security issues are the council's assisting and executing arms as postulated in the 1982 Decentralization Act. Administratively the village is subdivided into nine sub-villages (vitongoji) each lead by a ten-cell leader (balozi).
Geologically the country rock in Tanzania is composed of the Pre-Cambrian basement complex that has been subjected to tectonic and metamorphic processes and cycles of erosion resulting in a mosaic of rock types and landforms (Berry 1971). Geomorphologically the Uluguru mountains, of which the Melela is but a part, have been subjected to block faulting in several orogenic periods during the late Tertiary, Pleistocene and as recently as the Holocene. The occurrence of small inselbergs in this unit spells a multiplicity of land facets namely the hillcrests, upperslopes, midslopes and footslopes. V-shaped valleys and tributary channels with steep sloped sides dissect this pediment and ephemeral streams characterise the study village during the short and long rainy seasons as uncontrolled surface runoff. Permanent rivers namely Melera and Kikundi and some of their tributeries.
These Mountains do intercept the South East Trade Winds (SETW), thereby creating a rainshadow over village. It is this environmental condition that is typified by a fragile semi-arid type of climate given that climate is the most important single factor in agricultural production in SSA. The average amount of rainfall at Melela site on the rain shadow is 719 mm (Jackson 1971). Further, the amount of rainfall tends to increase significantly with increasing altitude reflecting marked precipitation variation within short distances around the mountainous landsurface (about 02 Km.). On the temporal scale, rainfall distribution on the leeward side starts in late February and continues into early May. Lt. peaks up in March and April occasionally accompanied by violent thunderstorms. Generally, short rains are atypical yet in good years they are reported by farmers to start in late October and end early December. The dry season lasting for up to nine months starts in early June and ends in mid-February.
Using a 51 mm month as a criterion for assessing the length of a rainy season (Jackson 1971) the village experiences a soil-water deficit almost all the year round, punctuated by a short growing period of about 90 days. Further the village experiences periodic drought (occurring every four to ten years). The PRA team reconstructed 1974, 1978, 1984, 1988, 1998) as a series of dry years with disastrous effect on their crops, livestock, water sources. This condition renders the village vulnerable to the serious effects of drought, a precursor of desertification. A dependable rainfall occurs in one out of five years. Most dependable water sources for human development in the study area include traditional boreholes, popular shallow wells (mdundiko), and piped gravity water from the slopes of the Uluguru Mountains.
The mean annual temperature and evaporation are 23.40 C and 1760 mm respectively. It is noted that the annual temperature range (5.40 C) is generally less than half the monthly range. Season temperature variations are small and diurnal range is more significant given pronounced temperature inversions in the deep mountain valleys at night. The leeward village location influences day length, wavelength and intensity of light. All these aspects are important especially to plants, as they do not vary independently. It should be noted that as the mean angle of incidence becomes more oblique, it affects the intensity of different wavelengths to different degrees to the extent of the convex slopes being left in the shade. It should be noted that both temperature and sunlight have marked effects on growth and development of plants and indeed crops - the processes decreasing as the two variables decrease.
After rainfall probably the highest single determining influence on agricultural production is soil. Soil is thus a major resource for human development especially in developing countries. Melela soilscapes may be grouped into three types namely the skeletal soils (Lithosols); the moderately deep and excessively drained soils and the well to imperfectly drained deep soils. The latter two types may be tentatively classified as Ferralsols varying from Rhodic to Ochric. The skeletal soils are shallow, (less than 25 cm deep) derived from acid gneisses. These soilscapes are dark reddish brown sandy loams typical of hillcrests and upperslopes. The moderately deep and excessively drained soils (25-100 cm deep) are derived from in-situ weathered and colluvial materials occupy steepslopes. They are yellowish brown sandy clay loams to well drained yellowish red clay loams and stony silt loams. These soilscapes cover most of the upper piedmont land unit, typified by upperslopes and midslopes. The well to imperfectly drained deep soils is derived from colluvial-alluvial materials found on the lower pediment on gently sloping to relatively flat footslopes. These soils are predominantly dark grayish brown silt loams to yellowish red sandy clays and clay loams. Mineralogical analysis reveal high kaolinitic clay content (30%) found in the lower pediment land unit soils which makes them suitable for brick making (both sun-baked and kiln burned bricks).
The selected community is typified as practising low-external-input systems - TEKS. A horticultural centre locally known as Melela Bustani, a private farm enterprise within the village ecosystem was identified as a model for natural resources management for sustainable development based on MEKS. This foreign managed farm is a highly mechanised enterprise that could serve as the vision for Melela community and the entire lee-ward Uluguru mountains ecosystem on the biospheric part of production conditions but of course, not on the economic front. The two production systems have been reported to have good relation in the context of exchange of some aspects technology and market.
This sample area is floristically poor and dominated by shorter degraded woodland, the eastern miombo type. The upper pediment is typified by much shorter Brachystegia boehmii, B. speciformis, B bussei and Julbernardia globiflora to degraded Combretum bushland in the dry areas. These trees are mixed with grasses like Hyparrhenia rufa and Panicum maximum as understory. The lower pediment's native vegetation was dominated by the Acacia-Comiphora deciduous woodland/bushland and Hyperrhenia spp in the wetter areas. While some hillcrests are denuded others are covered by medium Heterogon-Combretum wooded grassland. Vegetation has been severely degraded by human activity processes, and the current threats include housing construction, cultivation, grazing, fuelwood, bush firing, accelerated soil erosion, urban-rural migration, weak by-laws. The productivity of the land resources in this ecosystem is, therefore, facing an over-exploitation risk.
In terms of land use, agriculture is the most important socioeconomic activity in this rural setting. In 1999 it was estimated that about 38% of the arable land was under cultivation with the rest of the village land lying fallow and or serving as pasture. Based on ecological conditions and recently on dietary preferences coupled with developments in agritechnology, the staple food crops grown include maize, sorghum, millet. Minor crops are legumes, vegetables, fruits. National campaigns on food security have facilitated the adoption of drought tolerant crops like serena and lulu for sorghum; staha, kilima, katumani for maize. Agricultural production is predominantly subsistence farming and livestock keeping. Farming practices employed by majority of smallholder farmers are characterised by short fallow, rudimentary tools including fire for bush clearing and generation of a cheap soil ameliorant such as crop residues, ash. Village authorities consider both wildlife, vermin and livestock to be natural enemies of the agricultural industry.
As for the livestock keeping indigenous breeds of cattle, goats and sheep define the industry in the study area and in Tanzania in general. Other domestic stock includes pigs, donkeys, chicks. The livestock population, save for pigs and chicks is raised on transhumance system. It is normally the lactating and the sick stock that depend on the village pastureland. The Masai and Kwavi are the main livestock keeping community. They are either agropastoralist or pastoralists keeping large stock and tilling land. The pastoralists advance that seasonal migration and burning of rangeland during the dry season are strategies for pasture resource management.
Afforestation activities are on going in the area as can be witnessed around some homesteads, dispensary, primary school, village office (formerly godown). The most renowned development partners in this field include HOCEDSO - a Finnish NGO; World Vision and Catholic Integrated Community -Germany-supported NGO and locally known as Melela Bustani. These institutions have set up tree nurseries, promoted tree-planting education through competitions and the school. The current tree planting campaign championed by NGOs, among other initiatives, however appears to be a positive move towards greening the environment.
Waluguru mainly inhabits the village with a minority of Wakaguru, Wakwavi, Wamasai, Wachaga. The village leaders estimated the village population by November 1999 (just before the 2000 general elections) as 3364. The able-bodied men and women resident in the village were about 1960 of whom about 51.3% were women. The household size was five persons. As regards origins of households about 53% of the interviewees (52 heads of households) were born in the village, 11% within Mlali ward, 14% within Morogoro rural district and 21% migrated into the village from outside the district. The survey shows that the village population growth is greatly influenced by immigration among other determinants. The Melela community also confirmed that the most contributing factor to population change was in-migration especially urban-rural movement. According to the sample the population quality was such that slightly less than half of the women interviewed had no formal education compared to only about one fifth of the male population. It clearly demonstrates that men have greater education opportunities than women even in the rural areas. The study however showed a high illiteracy rate. Traditionally however many parents do not prefer sending their daughters to school on the premise that they should help mothers with domestic and farming activities (Headteacher, pers. com). Education as one of the most important factors in development and the one on which advances in health, wealth-creation and political culture and technology depend is central to ecological sustainability. There was a deliberate search for involving a young group for it possesses the potential for sociocultural change. About 41% of the sample (42 respondents) constituted the aged with 55% men while the rest were youths with 65% women and 35% men. The proceeding subsection explicates key contemporary environmental utilisation types in Melela village.
Characterization and Assessment of Major Land Use Types
Based on the adaptation of the FAO (1983) approach, five land use types were identified as a basis for characterising and evaluating Melela village land and the use to which it may be put. The analysis of the two variables was based on the site and socioeconomic conditions within which the industry operates. It is worth emphasizing here that more than one land use may be practised in one enterprise though not in spatial continuum. The major land use types are:
A1 Smallholder rainfed arable farming and improved traditional technology based on crop mixture of millet / sorghum / maize/ cassava combined with legumes (beans, pigeon peas) with or without livestock.
A2 Smallholder rainfed arable farming and improved traditional technology based on rice and sugarcane.
A3 Smallholder rainfed arable farming and intermediate technology based on maize, (cotton & sunflower - dropped), vegetables with or without livestock.
L1 Smallholder livestock keeping and improved traditional breed namely cattle, goats, sheep, donkeys, poultry, all based on range (agropastoralism)
L2 Smallholder livestock production based on improved traditional pig farming.
Setting and Produce
The land users' ingenuity and diligence with which they have managed their natural resources through time may be seen across the current resource use patterns over time and space. Generally, the land users have been able to locate and reallocate specific land use types in particular sites on the landscape, a catenary sequence (Conacher and Darlymple, 1977) for particular time periods with very limited agricultural extension support. The stakeholders subdivide their village land into three main units. These are Kilimani (Upslope), Mteremko (Midslope) and Bondeni (Footslope). This feature is as evident in the distribution of crops in the study area as it is in the siting of particular land use types on specific land units or otherwise over time.
Land use A1 characterized by millet and/or sorghum and/or cassava and/or maize combined with legumes is the most common land use type on almost all land units in the study area except where physical land resource limitations such as severe erosion sites, steep slopes, very shallow soil depths, waterlogging occur. Land use A2 typifies monoculture crops and although rice is grown as both a lowland and upland crop, sugarcane is mainly lowland one. The PRA team was aware of the concept of severity of a limitation to a land use type to command location as a social construct and hence decision to or not to utilise a soil resource was subject to debate.
Land use A3 constituting maize nonfood commercial crops formally cotton and sunflower were typical of the well drained level to gently sloping land facets on the lower pediment's footslope. Due to poor marketing systems, a combination of the Tanzania Cotton Authority (TCA), National Milling Corporation (NMC) and the private sector, explain the smallholder farmers, the production of cotton and sunflower has been abandoned in favour of maize. This land utilisation type reflect the smallholder farmers' sensitivity to market forces and the Regional and District Authorities' concern to reintroduce the production systems and regain foreign exchange earnings. This state of affairs reflects effects of globalisation whereby Authorities are working hard for its reintroduction and hence a reorganisation of space by forces external to the land tiller and also to itself.
In the recent past (1960s), land use L1, including A1, A2, A3 practising livestock keeping, were commonplace almost on all leeward side members of the catena on seasonal basis. Basically cattle, goats and sheep rely on natural pasture under free range. Every respondent who owned livestock was of the opinion that grazing land was not enough. The dry season however, is characterized by an acute shortage of pasture and water. Distance to grazing land varies between the wet and the dry seasons. During the latter season animals wander longer distances looking for grass. As a general pattern, dry season grazing is carried out in the surrounding swampy plain and beyond. During the short wet season, livestock grazing is conducted around village land, especially on the short fallow land, on the stubble, on forestland. This free-range management type, opens almost all of the landscape units to L1, albeit on a rotational basis with crops and other uses of the land over time. The issue of mobility of this land use type L1 has a critical bearing on resource stewardship and conservation and the quality of life of the land users for on a national scale, these agropastoralists/pastoralists have been trekking the country, save for the sedentary peasants, who tend to act as frontal social barriers and by same token intensify resource use under traditional management systems. Incidentally, some herdsmen tend to deliberately graze farmers crops, a situation that triggers conflicts. The issue of conflict disaster, currently a hot debate in Tanzania, befits being taken up as a full study.
Land use L2, typified by pigs production under improved management is carried out within the compound of progressive farmers under zero grazing. The produce in this land use type is both pork and live animals. All pig farmers interviewed (14%) construct pens made out timber and mostly feed their stock with maize hasks. Distance from the farmers' residence is greatly influenced by the level of the security of the stock (an average of between 8 and 10 metres from the residential house). This land use type is, therefore, site specific.
Farm Holdings
Farm holdings are composed of disaggregated small plots each. These small plots without specific geometrical shape appear to be located harpharzadly on a particular member of the landsurface. The survey revealed that an average household farm size is an aggregation of small plots, about 1.4 - 3.8 ha. Depending on the available family labour and/or financial resources which are size major limitations. The largest farm sample was 15 hectares. Given an average household size of 5 members, this is indeed higher than the estimated national cropland available per capital of 0.3ha in 1990, which was expected to drop to 0.005 ha by 2025 (UNDP 1999).
By way of summary, for Land use A1, A2 and A3 it was found out that out of 98 sample intervewees about 19% cultivated less than one hectare, the majority (48%) hoed one to two hectares, about 20% ploughed between 2.1 and 5.0 hectares whereas 10% cultivate between 5.1 and 8.0 and the remaining 3% cultivate more than eight hectares per year. With respect to the tenurial issue, it has been noted that its general nature has been changing in Tanzania since independence in 1961 as reviewed in the National Land Policy (Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development 1995). The most conspicuous feature were freehold titles were converted into leaseholds under the "Freehold Titles (Conversion) and Government Lease Act (Cap. 523) of 1963 and were later changed into Rights of Occupancy under the Government Leaseholds. These changes lead to a decline in customary rights and the abolition of landlord-tenant relationship (Shivji 1998). These and other developments notes Shivji (1998) have simply culminated into all land ownership and control in Tanzania to be under the State and in Melela village land is held by the village government. Individual farmers have usufruct rights.
Land use L1 was being practised by eight percent of the sample. Livestock ownership ranged from one to fifty for two respondents, fifty one to two hundred for two respondents, two hundred and fifty one to five hundred for three and more than five hundred heads of livestock for only one keeper. As for grazing land at the village level, land use L1, pasturelands are communally owned but further out Melela village, the land belongs to the State and there is no formal control of grazing. With a change in economic policy land which apparently had no market value is now a scarce resource. This new economic environment calls for an attendant policy shift toward a marketization system that cares for conventional livelihoods of the majority rural poor and simultaneously promotes private sector development. The current state is perpetuated by the parallel nature of traditional and modern laws casting a shadow on access to and control over resources, a prerequisite for tenure security and sustainable resource utilisation cum conservancy (Rugumamu 2000b).
Weather changes both seasonal and aperiodic affect the availability of and hence distance to both pasture and drinking water points. The main sources of drinking water for animals and people are springs, rivers, ponds (mabwawa). It was found out that estimated distance to water points for land use L1 varied from less than ten kilometers, within the village boundary during the rainy season to more than ten kilometers, away from the village, ward, district, region, and even across the international borders to the southern neighbouring states.
Land use L2 employs zero grazing techniques in the production of pigs. The main fodder is maize husks. All farmers in this category store the fodder to last six to nine months, the life cycle of the stock. It was noted that at village level this feed supply faces stiff competltion with local brew demand creating shortage especially during the crop planting season when the cereals are in short supply.
With respect to land use A1, A2 and A3, the sample respondents reveal the tenure systems to include inheritance (70%), village government allocation (11%), self acquisition (5%), renting (12%). In some circumstance land may also be bought (2%). Land use types A1, A2, A3 are characterized by individual (private) ownership of plots under the head of a household. Amongst the Waluguru, the women inherit land and as they marry their husbands live on the inherited land. A decision on how each parcel is to be used is made by the husband, the head of the household. Usually women have access to household land if part of it has been left uncultivated. They (women) may put this land to minor crops such as legumes. For rich female farmers some plots may be loaned out to the needy and even sold to other farmers.
At village level transport is predominantly by non-motorised - human muscle. A few farmers own bicycles (14%) and others (8%) use tractors to transport crop (maize) from the fields to the homestead. In all land use types, crop and livestock products processing, transport is by traditional technology thus making the requirement very low.
In an effort to understand the relationship between farm size, access to land and basic needs, it was found out that 98% of the respondents felt land was enough and 20% that they could not meet their aspirations by depending on the land resource base. Given that each farmer normally cultivates more than one plot and these plots are randomly distributed along the village soilscapes it is not surprising that in view of means of control of land resources more women plots than male ones are to be found on poorly productive sites. Being less productive, women plots are also susceptible to degradation over time as they are put to use.
Household gender division of labor
The present gender division of labour at household level is predominantly a reflection of the colonial capitalist mode of production (Rodney, 1980). Generally men, women and children work on the farm and take care of the livestock with some degree of specialization (Little, 1991; Rugumamu, 1999). Over and above these activities, women with the assistance of children are responsible for all the domestic chores. At the end of the day women are more involved in food and cash crop as well as livestock production processes than men.
Market orientation
Agriculture in the semi-arid areas is characteristically subsistence oriented (Rugumamu 1996). Regarding land use type A1, food crops are sold and bought within the village markets. The most favourite staple food, maize is also a cash crop which may be sold soon after harvest and re-bought just before the next sowing season as household food reserves tend to diminish. Before economic liberalisation, that is pre-SAPs maize was sold to the State organ, the NMC. There after the crop has enjoyed an assured market in spite of the institution's malfunctions as agents for competition. The findings reveal that, first, state marketing institutions (eg NMC, TCA) failed to buy their crops in good time and worse have underpaid them. Now under market-driven globalisation the farmers have completely lost avenues for their traditional cash crops. The present free market system has introduced the village market to unreliable crop buyers including consumer's co-operative societies, saving and credit societies, enterprenuers. The field findings show that the government has almost always left the peasants in the hands of lucrative businessmen under the umbrella of economic liberalization. Following from this the farmers have dropped the production of traditional export crops like cotton and sunflower and intensified the production of the ecologically delicate commodity, maize which commands both local, national and international free market.
Land use type L1 produces dairy products and meat for domestic use and live animals, as well as hides and skins, for local and international markets. These animals are also a source of farm manure for the few progressive farmers. As for land use L2 farmers sell live animals and on very rare occasion do they sell pork. The latter is due to lack of local market as pork is more expensive and indeed a wild variety can be freely obtained in the jungle! There is a growing pig market in Morogoro Municipality as well as in Dar es Salaam.
In terms of socio-economics, livestock, given their mobility, serves as security against drought that destroys crops and also against famine (animals can be exchanged for cereals). To the Masai and Kwavi agropastoralists livestock keeping is a cultural practice tied to their livelihood other than the modern market system. A formal market for livestock products was also not evident. This applies to the lack of the livestock industry's infrastructure such as cattle routes, market posts, and security. At community level livestock are also needed in order to perform traditional ceremonies. It is against this background that the agropastoralists prefer to keep "large" herds and are reluctant to reduce their stocks when pasture demand exceeds supply in a particular area. This state of affairs exacerbates transhumance and its negative environmental consequences. Some cultural attitudes and values, therefore, tend to propagate negative effects on commercialization processes and on the environment. It is hence unquestionable that realistic price mechanisms coupled with environmental education and communication will encourage the agropastoralists to invest part of the profits in their land in order to raise its productivity.
Following from the above observation it may be stated that the need for stabilising market development in the local economy cannot be overemphasized. It is therefore, in this light that lack of pro-poor investment in the natural resource base should also be seen.
KEY IMPACTS OF GLOBALIZATION ON ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY
Introduction
This subsection attempts to review some key impacts of economic globalization processes on ecologically and socioeconomically marginal ecosystem in SSA as reflected in Melela village in eastern Tanzania. Carson (1962) first artistically articulated ecological degradation due to human mismanagement of the environment, among others. The current economic liberalization championed by various modes of state and corporate control transcending national boundaries to invest in agriculture are no exception (Amin 1976; Seidman and Anang 1992; Brown and Tiffen, 1993). For analysis, the paper draws heavily from available evidence in the semi-arid Tanzania and indeed elsewhere where most smallholders use low level technology in their production, storage and environmental resources conservation activity processes as a survival strategy. Experience however reveals that the world over farmers carry out "experiments" on their farms, adapt, innovate and observe the results of their efforts in manipulating these artificial ecosystems. Creating knowledge in this way is hence an integral part of sustaining ecological and agricultural productivity in the SSA (Rugumamu, 1993). It may be advanced on the outset that intensive human use of fragile ecosystems is a risk investment both economically and ecologically.
To this end, it is anticipated that economic globalization processes and their ecological-economic impacts may be understood through examining (i) financial investment by transnationals; (ii) growth of manufacturing of high technology machineries, seeds, fertilizers and insecticides (iii) marketing of technology and produce.
Financial investment by transnationals
Private companies and financial institutions at the centres of developed countries are the agents of financial investments in developing countries under the banner of liberalization of the global economy. Some urban entrepreneurs supported by foreign investors such as TNCs form major corporations investing in the high-value commodities in the agricultural sector (Barraclough and Finger-Stich 1996). WTO, for instance, is championing such a course. Agricultural land use types being contemplated in this area include smallholder intermediate level technology based on cotton, sunflower, tobacco.
Being very influential TNCs are likely and do obtain preferential access to public or private lands, water, credits, markets, tax holidays, subsidies, foreign exchange and technology. Further application of low environmental standards resulting, among other factors, from faulty environmental impact statements would exacerbate environmental degradation problems. The high returns in convertible foreign currency from the high-value crops namely tropical vegetables and fruits make it an industry which has been greatly favoured by governments in developing countries as well as by transnational banks.
Given the above circumstances, the state is compelled to transform multiple use/multiple user resources historically used by local communities to single use private property owned by national and/or transnational business corporations. Such circumstances might result in inefficient and unplanned use of environmental resources. As the tracts of land are appropriated by transnationals the local communities become environmental refugees. But who benefits and who pays the cost of those foreign exchange earnings?
The interplay of foreign capital on local natural resources may be rated as the initial process in the internationally organised vertical integration of the modern-day farming industry within the framework of the globalization and liberalization processes. National bureaucracies exerting state power (< biblio >) too often perpetuate the investment process aggravating spatial inequality. This process goes hand in gloves with industrialization in developed countries thereby deepening and widening the economic gap between the North and the South.
This trend has been observed in the study area where a large tract of land has been set aside for ranching and game farming for an investor. The result has been the concentration of livestock keepers in relatively smaller loci, which in turn has lead to pastoralists competing with smallholder farmers and investors for the shrinking land for various uses. The outcome is intensification of land use and subsequent soil erosion, sedimentation, soil mining. Further, competition for land is resulting in sporadic conflicts and civil strife in the area.
Growth of manufacturing of high technology equipment, seeds and fertilizers and insecticides
As already noted in the early 1980s high technology machinery, seeds, fertilizers and insecticides manufacturing industries in industrialised countries of Europe, North America and Asia are likely to become increasingly important due to the rapid demand for agricultural produce from the Subregion with the onset of massive investment. Further, growth in development research at the centre is eminent. An influx of a variety of manufactured inputs including heavy and light farm machinery, genetic engineering (seed), fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and veterinary drugs as well as of technical tools for farm management is imminent. The list also may consist of off-farm post-harvest production links such as industries for further transforming the produce.
The input manufacturers, being price determinants of their goods and services have over time increased their own profits given the role they play in intensifying agriculture in developing countries. This is facilitated by the liberalization policy adopted by most developing countries today. It should be noted however that a few TNCs increasingly have oligopolistic control over the technology production sector. It follows, therefore, that massive investment will witness an economic boom in the North through industrial growth triggered by the input demand in the South.
There is in the South however organic farming processes carried out by smallholder farmers that are environment friendly being promoted by NGOs. The pressure of foreign demands coupled by the basic family survival needs is suffocating these initiatives. It is in this context that government policies on agriculture are export oriented directed towards earning foreign exchange that favour wealthy farmers at the expense of poor peasants who have no access to credit, new technologies and indeed markets. Ultimately these policies are threatening agricultural sustainability and environmental stability.
In the study area the high prices for inputs namely fertilisers and insecticides have forced the smallholder farmers to stop production. These economically sensitive land users under the SAP have failed to realise benefits as prices of inputs in the absence of subsidies coupled by devaluation raises prices of imported goods. Because there is practically no land use type that cannot be sustainably carried out without the renewal of soil nutrients, the current uses of land are leading to ecological degradation and intensification of poverty. On the other hand, agricultural development based on subsides input may lead to overutilisation of non-renewable energy that might result in "dust bowls" - desertification. In this regard environmental degradation is a function of agricultural land use the level of technology notwithstanding.
The above operations link natural resources utilisation in developing countries with industries in developed countries demonstrating yet another globalization process referred to here as marketing.
Marketing of technology and produce
The operations involved in the marketing process include the export of farm products and the import of crop and livestock production technologies. Overseas marketing agents that are also increasingly becoming powerful actors in the production chain conduct the process. In several developing countries, it is reported that these providers of inputs such as freezing facilities managed to push direct producers to expand and intensify their production.
It is worth noting at this juncture that these foreign actors in this production chain - marketing agents, tend to have more stable incomes because they often have important shares of the whole market which covers almost all countries. Based on the above exposition, it may be stated that there is a general tendency towards vertical integration of the production chain with TNCs as providers of technology, inputs and credits increasingly controlling all stages from production to marketing in both North and South alike. In the study area the marketing system was liberalised in response to SAPs with insufficient preparedness planning. This state of affairs lead to poor competition amongst State owned and private marketing institutions such as NMC and TCA that have failed to buy the export crops in good time and worse have underpaid the land users.
In general the new millennium should signal a paradigm shift "from always-renewable Nature to revolt against over-exploitation of its resources" (Report of Independent Commission on Population and Quality of Life, 1996). That Mother Nature is finite should not be questioned by modern day biotechnology. Agricultural investment projects, for instance, virtually appear economically viable and environmentally sustainable in the light of MEKs advancement. This view is more challenging now than ever before when the SSA is grappling with the debt crisis that has paralysed to a high degree the social sector (education, health, transport and communication infrastructure) (Adams, 1991). The motive driving the investor, however, is a high profitability of the industry and not its sustainability. It should be emphasized that the SSA is duty bound to guard against bankrupting the environmental resources of the future generations who are privileged to benefit most from the work we do today.
Transnationals advance, for instance, that investment projects in developing countries create employment opportunities - a poverty alleviation strategy. Given that opportunities for unskilled labour exist real jobs are not sustainable. It may be noted among other reasons that first, there are no training facility components identifiable for local people in such projects hence the job security is very low! Second the projects are short-lived - between five and ten years. These problems should be compared with the indigenous environmental resource use systems which when improved upon have the potential for sustainability, productivity and equity. It is against this background that rapid changes in food needs and loss of indigenous knowledge and social cohesion, smallholder farmers and their communities have often lost their self-confidence to adapt, innovate and create. These factors have among other things currently contributed to changing food consumption habits locally and at national level resulting in food shortage, malnutrition and famine. However like in Melela village, TEKS is now often insufficient to guarantee sustained development on both socioecomic and environmental fronts and local people's traditional ways of living have been threatened.
As for sustainability, the agrotechnological transfers in the SSA should effectively involve the local people as improved smallholder farmers and not as farm labourers and headmen. It should be noted that the viability of the sector to create employment opportunities under globalisation, programmes for empowering local communities should go hand-in-gloves with agricultural investment. Through history fertilizers and insecticides have played an essential role in transforming agriculture. As Altieri (1993) notes massive yield increases have been achieved in both developed and developing countries through chemical applications as the leading tool. The Green Revolution in the South has made at least some countries self-sufficient in food. As liberalization gains ground imported machinery, seed, pesticides, fertilizers become unregulated resulting in dumping of the commodities in developing countries. Evidence from the developing South reveals that pesticide use has generally not been appropriate for subsistence farmers on marginal lands on economic and ecologic basis (French 2000; German Advisory Council on Global Change 1994). In spite of prohibitively high prices for fertilizers and insecticides, the relatively few smallholders who can afford are reported to have been tempted to use more and more chemicals, wasting precious capital while simultaneously creating environmental pollution. Inability to cope with these technologies is resulting in food insecurity as observed in the Melela village.
Disastrous consequences of the use of these inputs in poor countries of the South include human deaths and sufferings, ever rising costs, increasing farmer dependence on expensive imports, water pollution and damage to biodiversity. To add salt to injury, because too often smallholder farmers are unable to read instructions on chemical containers, chemicals (eg DDT) abandoned in the North for health reasons are still available in the South.
Genetic engineering of seed is an an agrotechnology in industrialized countries which is smallholder farmers and ecologists unfriendly. For instance, the cultural practice of locally adapted seed varieties and storage systems contributing to reduction in input costs is nullified. And hence the use of cultural control techniques including botanical pesticides and locally adapted seed varieties currently in use by smallholders cannot be overemphasized (Anderson, et. al. 1996; Rugumamu and Mtumbuka 1998). The potential instability of the artificial agricultural ecosystems in which species diversity has been reduced is thus a subject of concern to biodiversity experts.
Unlike in smallholder production where most soil nutrients feed crops and livestock products are consumed within the farming community, globalization propels export-oriented production. The marketing of the produce overseas contributes to soil nutrient exhaustion in the soil system as crops and livestock products are exported. High levels of nutrients involved in this loss include the macronutrients (namely N, P, K) (German Advisory Council on Global Change 1994). The situation worsens off as production is intensified, yields and nutrient content of the products are increased, characteristic of western resource exploitation systems. To genuine environmentalists such soil mining practices are unethical (Lal, Miller and Logan 1988). The need for an environmental impact assessment (EIA) cannot be overemphasized.
Further the monitoring activities in the EIA should give concise alternative solutions to issues like socio-economic shocks on the international market. It should be noted that many consumers in the North are increasingly concerned about ways their food is produced and are prepared to pay more for products, which result from methods that are perceived to be better for environment, for people, and for farming. Such forces are most likely to affect the industry negatively leading to untimely abandonment of the farm.
Because the nature of nature at the end of the investment regime is not spelled out in the investment codes, chances are that the productivity of the land at the end of the production season may be lower than at the start. Such a situation is contrary to the principles of sustainable agricultural development and is thus disastrous to the ecology and economy. The above risks would also be coupled with the emergence of environmental refugees who are marginalized by the new industry together with consequent psychosocial, economic and ecological effects besetting them. The EIA statement should, therefore, reveal these disasters holistically as cumulative and interactive compounding over time and space.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
In the light of the above findings, it is concluded that economic globalisation processes destabilises, smallholder farmers, benefits TNCs, and accelerates the degradation of the environment in SAA. The way out is that empowered smallholder farmers are potentially able to take advantage of economic globalisation through planning and management of grassroots based and environment-friendly and profitable production systems of high quality produce. In the light of the above evidence it is clear that economic globalisation processes should be tuned to respond to the material conditions prevailing in the SSA as dictated by the needs of the local people and the carrying capacity of the land. It is axiomatic to conclude that environmental degradation is a function of agricultural land use the level of technology notwithstanding but one should quickly add that the problem is deeply rooted in the policy sphere. To this end development scholars and policy makers are duty bound to take lead in reforming this situation. It is proposed that democratic opportunities for enhancing smallholder farmers' and agropastoralists' food self-sufficiency and environmental sustainability using participatory planning and management approaches as a basis for facilitating opportunities globalization brings. Hence empowered farmers are thus more able to take advantage of globalization through practising environment-friendly agricultural production systems which meet the needs of the farm family, the environment and at the same time production of high value produce for others, the anonymous market (Agarwal and Narain, 1990). In this regard it may safely be stated that economic globalization is raising the rewards for economies choosing good economic governance, but is also raising the costs for economies with poor economic governance. This results in some actors being winners and others losers. We reiterate that a viable approach for achieving economic prosperity and social equity should be pegged around stakeholders' democratic participation in the design, implementation and monitoring and evaluation of land use plans and policies in the SSA (Peatti, 1968; Carpenter, 1980; PRA 1991; FAO 1993; Boyce 2002).
In principle, to alleviate poverty and conserve the ecosystem calls for effective participation of local people in planning and management of their natural resources (Bandyopadhyay, and Shiva, 1989). Capital investments in resources over-exploitation negating locals and creating environmental refugees and land and water deterioration will only accelerate rural poverty tides making many more people poor and the already poor ones poorer than ever before. As initial capital and high yielding technologies are always missing ingredients at local level, well-tailored joint venture type investments - locals and foreigners, may be a viable solution towards poverty alleviation and resources sustainability.
In order to achieve equity and benefit from globalization processes there is, therefore, need to reexamine gender division of labour and smallholder productivity enhancement requirements within the context of household, subnational, national and international ecological and socioeconomic conditions. The proposed measures are as follows: (i) regulating liberalization to meet ecological and smallholder farmers' needs on sustainable basis. (ii) Access to appropriate productivity enhancing resources namely farm machinery, fertilizers, seed, insecticides, and efficient cooking stoves. (iii) Access to education especially on gender division of labour and on environmental resources management. Issues on appropriate seed; fertilizer; pesticides use; veterinary services; water and sanitation; and emphasis on Integrated Management, (IM) should be pivotal.
Through participatory learning approaches, researchers should support the local development process through setting up research with the farmers to investigate problems and opportunities identified by farmers (Rugumamu, 1999). Researchers should take part in studies to assess, for example, local institutions and provide advice in setting up a land use planning and management (LUPM) programme. Together with farmers and other stakeholders, researchers should further monitor and evaluate LUPM projects' initiatives in terms of the set programmes and policies. In view of the high cost of research the private sector, the central government and the international organisations as well as the donor community are called upon to support this reform initiative into the new millennium.
To this end great attention should be directed to improving upon TEKS in order to increase environmental resources productivity, improve food security and alleviate rural poverty. It is of paramount importance however that agricultural research in the changing socio-economic systems, should be an on-going process because specific objectives/goals change. As a technology is developed and used, the production system changes where a new constraint becomes limiting and hence a new technology is to be derived. Achievement of sustainable development and resources productivity should thence be based on methods that democratically integrate men and women as important players in participatory planning of available and potential natural resources management.
There is, therefore, an urgent need now for designing improved yet appropriate environmental resources utilisation technologies to enhance the productivity of the smallholder farmers and their ecosystems given that the major global thrust is to invest in developing countries (French 2000). This goal can only be achieved through a major a policy reform at national and international levels to create the conditions for sustainable development at farm level. In this regard democratic global governance based on vibrant civil organisations should be a driving force to bring about new economic globalisation opportunities in SAA in the Third Millennium.
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