Dar es Salaam-bound

For those of you who have noted that you missed my travel updates over the past year I have made a New Years resolution to get better at it… so please hold me to it. For those of you who are new to reading my travel updates – welcome!

Returning to Tanzania has been on my mind ever since I arrived in Denmark on August 5th, 2010. This has a lot to do with my love of the Swahili language, the quizzical contradictions of Tanzanian culture and the appeal of the vast and varying landscape, but it also has do to with a personal mission of social responsibility.

During my position with the Canadian NGO Sustainable Cities International during 2010 I laid the foundations for an urban agriculture project. The project, more specifically, was designed to address the non-existent land rights of those producing food the city. During my consultations with a variety of stakeholders who occupied a panorama of societal and professional positions, as well as relationships to urban agriculture, it was obvious that the pervasive activity that contributes to an estimated 40% of the formal and informal economy of the city was highly marginalised. Also the combination of urban plus agriculture did not register to many decision makers as a modern concept, yet it is in many cases that I have personally seen, heard and smelled the benefits of urban animal rearing and vegetable cultivation being reaped in the backyards by the very ones who have created the restrictive laws. The overall conundrum was, and still is, that urban food production is both physically, as well as mentally subject to marginalisation.

However, to much of the same degree, our attempt was replicated in the 1990s by the United Nations Development Program’s Sustainable Cities Programme. Despite much(!) higher funding than our ambitious four-person office in Dar es Salaam the UNDP’s objective to secure land rights for urban farmers was never realised over the course of the ten year programme.

Throughout the development of the project I continuously asked myself, as well as others, if what we were attempting to do was “right.” That being said, within the world of development “right” is a very relative term. We bring in our own assumptions, values and cultures to the places we work, with or without realisation. Would established land rights for urban farmers and land zoning for urban cultivation transform into a double-edge sword capable of doing as much damage as good?

On one hand zoning land for urban agriculture conserves increasingly urbanising land from becoming developed. It also contributes to urban green spaces and the protection of these green spaces from the infringement of unplanned settlements, which are already occupied by 70% of the city’s occupants. Additionally, it enhances food security within the city by allowing farmers to apply for national agricultural grants that can improve their production levels. On the other hand, zoning land for agricultural use in Dar es Salaam could potentially result in further marginalisation, as each of the three municipalities and city council would be responsible for the administration of the permits to access the land. Additionally, the majority of farmers whose livelihoods are solely based on growing and selling their produce may not be capable of paying the fee to access the zoned land. Existing sites may be lost and farmers would be forced to move elsewhere, most likely to the peri-urban areas.

So what is “right” in this case? It is hard to see when only one of the outcomes has ever been realised. Therefore, as you can see this is as much a personal mission, as it is about my fulfilling the requirements for my master’s thesis.However, combining, as well as trying to keep separate the two proves difficult. In recognising this my programme director told me, in true Danish Jantelov fashion: “Afton, just remember you are not going to save the world with your thesis.”

Of course my 60 page document, as well as subsequent journal articles, policy papers and conference presentations, will not save the world, but hopefully improve our understanding of the past, present and future implications of establishing land zoning and land rights for urban agriculture on urban sustainability.