Kilimokwanza.org Report 50, December 1: The Century of the Hoe and the Tractor: A Socio-Ecological History of Agricultural Development in Tanzania (c. 1924–2024)

Introduction: The Metabolic Rift and the Unfinished Agrarian Question

The agricultural history of Tanzania over the last century is not merely a chronicle of crop yields, export statistics, or shifting political regimes; it is a profound history of the “metabolic rift”—a rupture in the nutrient cycling between soil and society, continuously reworked by the persistent tension between the “hoe” and the “tractor.” The hoe represents peasant autonomy, indigenous ecological knowledge, and the complex, often illegible management of biodiversity. The tractor, conversely, symbolizes state legibility, mechanization, high modernism, and the imperatives of capital accumulation. This report offers an exhaustive socio-ecological analysis of this tension from the British mandate of the 1920s to the “Building a Better Tomorrow” initiatives of the 2020s, arguing that the trajectory of Tanzanian development has been defined by a series of failed attempts to bypass the biological limitations of the soil through political will and industrial technology.

The theoretical scaffolding for this analysis rests on the concept of the metabolic rift, derived from Marx’s critique of capitalist agriculture and elaborated by sociologists such as John Bellamy Foster and Jason W. Moore. The rift describes how capitalist urbanization and export agriculture disrupt the natural soil cycle: nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) are extracted from the rural soil in the form of food and fiber, shipped to distant urban markets or foreign nations, and eventually discarded as waste, rather than being returned to the fields to replenish the earth.¹ In the Tanzanian context, this is not just a biophysical process but a political one. As suggested by critical agrarian studies, the transformation of agriculture from a metabolic activity linking society and nature into a commodity-based driver of expansion fundamentally alters the relationship between the citizen and the state.¹

However, this history suggests that the rift is not a static event but a dynamic “metabolic shift.” As the state—whether colonial, socialist, or neoliberal—imposes new regimes of value, the peasantry is forced to shift its survival strategies, often cannibalizing the ecological base to meet external demands. Moore argues that this metabolism offers a way to ford the “Great Divide” between Nature and Society, revealing how labor mobilization and land appropriation are two sides of the same coin.² The spatial appropriation of these metabolic flows has been a key aspect of accumulation in Tanzania.³ From the Hut Tax that forced the Nyakyusa into the mines to the tobacco barns of Tabora that consume the Miombo woodlands, the history of Tanzania is written in the soil.

---

I. The Colonial Rift (1924–1961): Taxation, Conservation, and the Origins of Dislocation

The British colonial project in Tanganyika (mainland Tanzania), formalized under the League of Nations mandate, was driven by a dual and often contradictory mandate: to make the colony fiscally self-sufficient through the production of cash crops and to preserve the social order of the “native” population. This era established the foundational mechanisms of the metabolic rift by commodifying African labor and criminalizing indigenous land management practices.

1.1 The Fiscal Engine: The Hut Tax and Labor Mobilization

By the mid-1920s, the British administration had fully operationalized the “hut tax” and later the “poll tax,” fiscal instruments designed less for revenue generation per se than for forcing the transition from a subsistence to a cash economy. This policy triggered a massive spatial dislocation of metabolic flows, effectively ripping labor power out of the household economy and redirecting it toward colonial enterprises.

In the Southern Highlands, particularly among the Nyakyusa people of Rungwe and Mbeya, the enforcement of these taxes necessitated a radical restructuring of social life. Archival records indicate that the subsistence economy, already weakened by the logistical demands of World War I, could no longer support the population under the new fiscal burden.⁴ The administration’s response was to enforce tax collection with harsh methods, including arrests and harassment, which left the peasantry with little choice but to sell their labor.⁵

Consequently, a pattern of internal and external migration emerged. Men migrated to the Lupa goldfields in Chunya or further afield to the copper mines of Zambia and the gold mines of South Africa.⁴ This was not a voluntary entry into the market but a coerced response to the “artificial land scarcity” and fiscal pressure created by the state.⁶

Table 1: Socio-Ecological Drivers of Colonial Labor Migration (Nyakyusa Case Study)

Factor	Mechanism	Socio-Ecological Consequence
Fiscal Policy	Hut/Poll Tax enforcement	Forced monetization of the household; diversion of labor from food production to wage labor.
Economic Pressure	Post-WWI subsistence crisis	Inability to maintain soil fertility through traditional labor-intensive practices due to male absenteeism.
Resource Extraction	Demand from Chunya Goldfields & Zambian Copperbelt	Transfer of metabolic energy (human labor) from the farm to the mine; rural impoverishment.
Tax Avoidance	Migration to districts with lower tax rates (e.g., Mbeya)	Demographic shifts leading to localized land pressure and resource competition in receiving areas.

Source Data: ⁴

The ecological implication of this migration was profound. The “hoe” agriculture of the Nyakyusa and other groups relied on labor-intensive practices such as mulching, terracing, and careful crop rotation to maintain soil fertility. With the male labor force drained by the mines, households were forced to adopt less labor-intensive, and often more ecologically degrading, farming methods. The colonial state, observing the resulting soil erosion, did not blame its own labor extraction policies but rather the “ignorance” of the African farmer.

1.2 The Conservationist Gaze: The Uluguru Land Usage Scheme

Nowhere was the clash between colonial science and indigenous practice more violent than in the Uluguru Mountains. The British administration, alarmed by soil erosion in the watershed that supplied the growing capital of Dar es Salaam, implemented the Uluguru Land Usage Scheme (ULUS) in the 1950s. This scheme was a classic example of “top-down” environmental management, driven by a conservationist gaze that viewed the African peasant as an ecological vandal.

The ULUS enforced compulsory terracing and, crucially, prohibited the burning of crop residues and scrub—a practice the Luguru people used for pest control and short-term nutrient release.⁷ The administration dismissed local knowledge systems, which were deeply intertwined with matrilineal land tenure and clan-based authority.⁸ For the Luguru, the land was a collective asset managed through complex social negotiations, not a geometric surface to be terraced by decree.

The result was the “Uluguru Disturbances” of 1955. Farmers rioted not merely against the physical labor of terracing, which was grueling, but against the epistemic violence of the scheme. The rioters demanded the right to nvitingane (come together), rejecting the colonial “councils” that provided no genuine avenue for dissent.⁹ Anthropologist Hans Cory noted that the resistance was framed in indigenous political discourse, reasserting the legitimacy of traditional assembly over colonial bureaucracy. The collapse of ULUS demonstrated the limits of the “tractor” mindset (technocratic intervention) when applied without sociological consent. However, the narrative of the “destructive peasant” persisted, influencing post-colonial policy for decades.

1.3 The Groundnut Scheme: A Monument to High Modernism

In 1947, the British government launched the East African Groundnut Scheme, aiming to clear 3 million acres of bush in Tanganyika to grow peanuts for Britain’s edible oil market. It stands as the archetype of James C. Scott’s concept of “High Modernism”—an ideology that values scientific planning, geometric order, and legibility over local knowledge, complexity, and adaptability.¹⁰

The scheme was driven by a desperate need for fats in post-war Britain and a desire to develop the colony. A White Paper from 1947 insisted on the benefits of an “ocular demonstration” of modern agricultural methods, revealing a deep-seated belief that the visual order of mechanized farming would inherently lead to productivity.¹⁰ The planners viewed the scrubland as empty, “primitive” space waiting to be tamed.

The failure was catastrophic and total. Planners ignored local rainfall patterns, soil composition, and the abrasive nature of the soil, which destroyed the imported heavy machinery. The “tractors”—often surplus military tanks converted for clearing—were wrecked by the unforgiving terrain.¹⁰ By 1949, the scheme collapsed, leaving behind a landscape scarred by clearance and a legacy of debt.

Critically, the failure was rooted in the colonial refusal to acknowledge that the “primitive” scrubland was actually a complex ecosystem ill-suited for industrial monoculture. The scheme’s failure did not deter future governments; rather, it set a precedent for state-led agricultural gigantism. As Scott argues, the “high modernist” city or farm is designed for the gaze of the administrator, not the needs of the inhabitant.¹¹ The Groundnut Scheme was the first great collision between the tractor and the Tanzanian reality, but it would not be the last.

---

II. Ujamaa and the Socialist Rift (1961–1985): Villagization as Capture

Following independence in 1961, Julius Nyerere attempted to synthesize traditional African communalism with modern socialism through the philosophy of Ujamaa (“familyhood”). While ideologically distinct from colonialism, the Ujamaa era ironically replicated the “High Modernist” errors of the British, intensifying the metabolic rift through forced villagization. The goal was to modernize the countryside, but the method—concentrating dispersed populations—led to severe ecological disruption.

2.1 The Ruvuma Development Association (RDA): The Path Not Taken

Before the state-enforced villagization of the 1970s, there was a brief, successful experiment in voluntary collectivization: the Ruvuma Development Association (RDA). Centered in the village of Litowa, the RDA was a grassroots movement where peasants self-organized, developed their own mechanical workshops, and managed communal farms without heavy state direction.¹²

Crucially, the RDA maintained local control over the “metabolism” of the village—deciding what to plant, how to reinvest surplus, and how to educate their children. It represented a synthesis of the hoe’s autonomy and the tractor’s efficiency, aiming for “conflict-free” development rooted in African tradition.¹⁴ However, this very autonomy proved to be its undoing. The regional commissioners and party elites viewed the RDA as a “State within a State,” a direct threat to their power and privileges.

In 1969, despite Nyerere’s initial support, the Tanzanian government banned the RDA and seized its assets.¹² This suppression signaled a critical turning point: Ujamaa would be a state project of control, not a peasant project of liberation. The destruction of the RDA foreclosed the possibility of a decentralized socialist ecology, paving the way for the bureaucratic violence of the 1970s.

2.2 Villagization (1973–1976): The Halo Effect and Ecological Disruption

The “Operation Vijiji” (Villagization) campaign, which became compulsory in 1973, forcibly relocated millions of Tanzanians into nucleated settlements. This spatial reorganization had profound socio-ecological consequences, creating what researchers have termed the “Halo Effect.”

By concentrating dispersed populations into dense villages, the scheme created zones of intense resource extraction immediately surrounding the settlements.

• Deforestation Halos: As residents harvested wood for fuel and construction, concentric circles of deforestation expanded outward from the village centers. Studies by Kikula in the 1980s and 90s quantified this impact, showing that land degradation was significantly higher in the immediate vicinity of Ujamaa villages compared to traditional dispersed settlements.¹⁵
• Disruption of Fallow Cycles: The concentration of people disrupted the traditional shifting cultivation systems, which relied on long fallow periods to regenerate soil fertility. Confined to a fixed radius around the new village, farmers were forced to cultivate the same plots continuously without adequate inputs, leading to rapid nutrient depletion.¹⁷
• Loss of Site-Specific Knowledge: Farmers were moved from lands they had cultivated for generations to new, often ecologically distinct areas. The intimate knowledge of soil types, micro-climates, and pest cycles—critical for the “hoe” agriculture—was rendered obsolete. This “de-skilling” of the peasantry contributed to the agricultural stagnation of the late 1970s.¹⁷

The Ujamaa era demonstrated that the “tractor” need not be a physical machine; it can be a bureaucratic apparatus that bulldozes social structures. The state prioritization of social services—schools and clinics—succeeded in improving literacy and health, but the agricultural policy failed to acknowledge the ecological necessity of dispersion in a low-input system. The resulting metabolic rift forced the country into dependency on food aid, a dependency that would eventually open the door to neoliberal restructuring.¹⁸

---

III. The Neoliberal Shift and the Chemical Fix (1985–2005)

The economic collapse of the early 1980s ushered in the era of liberalization. Under immense pressure from the IMF and World Bank, Tanzania began to dismantle the state marketing boards and remove subsidies, ostensibly to let the “market” repair the agricultural sector. This period is characterized by the commodification of inputs (fertilizers), the retreat of the state from extension services, and the intensification of export crops like tobacco, which demanded a severe ecological price.

3.1 The Fertilizer Subsidy Rollercoaster in Ruvuma

The removal of fertilizer subsidies in the early 1990s provides a stark case study in Ruvuma, the region historically known as the “national grain basket.” The withdrawal of state support did not lead to a vibrant private sector efficient allocation; rather, it led to “market failure” in remote regions and a reversion to extensive, land-consuming agriculture.

Table 2: Impact of Fertilizer Subsidy Removal in Ruvuma (1990s)

Metric	Pre-Removal (Subsidy Era)	Post-Removal (Liberalization Era)	Ecological/Social Outcome
Nitrogen Use	~75 kg/ha (1992)	~60 kg/ha (1996)	Immediate decline in soil nutrient replenishment capabilities.
Maize Yields	High/Stable	Stagnant/Declining	Yield gap widened; production maintained only by expanding acreage.
Land Use Strategy	Intensive (input-led)	Extensive (land-led)	Farmers cleared more forest to compensate for lower yields per acre.
Production Logic	State-supported modernization	Survival strategy (“poverty treadmill”)	Retreat to subsistence; selling household assets to buy food in bad years.

Source Data: ¹⁹

Research indicates that without subsidies, the transaction costs of delivering fertilizer to the Southern Highlands were prohibitive. Consequently, farmers were forced onto a “poverty treadmill”.²² To maintain total production volumes necessary for survival, households had to expand the area under cultivation, pushing the agricultural frontier into the miombo woodlands. This represents a classic “metabolic shift”: facing a rupture in the flow of industrial nutrients (synthetic nitrogen), the system cannibalized the remaining natural capital (forest soil fertility) to bridge the gap.²⁴ The subsidy was eventually restored in 2003, acknowledging the failure of the pure market model, but the ecological damage of the interregnum was significant.²⁵

3.2 Tobacco and the Deforestation of Tabora: The Anti-Food Crop

While food crops struggled under liberalization, export crops like tobacco flourished under contract farming arrangements, driven by global demand and multinational capital. However, tobacco cultivation in regions like Tabora and Urambo unleashed a devastating ecological and social toll, arguably constituting the most aggressive form of metabolic rift in the country.

Tobacco curing in Tanzania relies heavily on flue-curing barns fueled by wood. The specific inefficiency of “traditional barns” versus improved “rocket barns” is a critical factor in this deforestation.

• The Energy Cost: Research estimates that to cure one kilogram of tobacco, approximately 14 kg of wood is required using traditional methods.²⁶ More recent studies suggest that for every hectare of tobacco, between 23 and 61 cubic meters of wood are consumed, depending on the barn efficiency.²⁷
• Deforestation Rates: In Urambo District alone, the annual loss of tree cover was estimated at over 6,000 hectares—approximately 2% of the district’s forest cover annually—due specifically to tobacco curing and land clearance for new fields.²⁸ The “shifting cultivation” cycle was compressed to just 4 years, insufficient for woodland regeneration.²⁷
• The Labor Trap: Tobacco farming is labor-intensive, often utilizing child labor and preventing investments in education. The “cash” from the crop is frequently offset by the cost of inputs (fertilizers, pesticides) deducted by the contracting companies. This creates a cycle of debt where the farmer provides the land, the wood, and the labor (often at the expense of food crops), while the multinational captures the value.³⁰

This system exemplifies the global metabolic rift: Tanzanian forests are incinerated to cure a carcinogenic leaf exported to the Global North and Asia, leaving behind a deforested, chemically saturated landscape and an impoverished peasantry facing “Green Tobacco Sickness” from handling wet leaves.³²

---

IV. The Great Land Rush and the Return of the Tractor (2005–2020)

The global food and energy crises of 2007-2008 triggered a “land rush” across the Global South. Tanzania, with its perceived abundance of “idle” land (a colonial trope resurfacing), became a prime target for biofuel investors. This era marked a shift from governing the peasant to displacing the peasant, as the state facilitated the transfer of vast tracts of land to foreign entities.

4.1 The Bioshape Debacle in Kilwa: A Timeline of Dispossession

The case of Bioshape in Kilwa District is emblematic of the speculative, fragile nature of this era. In 2006, the Dutch company Bioshape acquired 34,000 hectares of coastal forest and village land to grow Jatropha for biodiesel, intending to supply the European market.³³

The Mechanism of Dispossession and Return:

1. Acquisition (2006-2007): Bioshape entered Kilwa with promises of employment and development. Through a controversial process, land belonging to the villages of Migeregere, Mavuji, Nainokwe, and Liwiti was transferred from “Village Land” (customary tenure) to “General Land” (state title) to facilitate the lease. This legal alchemy effectively stripped the villagers of their rights before a single seed was planted.³⁵
2. Destruction and Collapse (2008-2009): Bioshape cleared ecologically sensitive coastal forests and harvested timber for export—a process that some critics alleged was the primary economic motivation, rather than the Jatropha itself. However, by 2009, the company went bankrupt as the biofuel hype waned and investors withdrew.³⁴
3. The Legal Limbo (2010-2019): The investors fled, but the land did not automatically revert to the villages. It remained “General Land,” encumbered by the failed lease and controlled by the central government. The villagers were left with neither their forest nor the promised jobs. A decade-long struggle ensued, supported by civil society organizations like TNRF and IIED, to reclaim the land.³³
4. Restitution (2020): In late 2020, the Commissioner for Lands finally revoked the title, acknowledging that the initial transfer had violated legal requirements. Control was returned to the village councils.³³

The Bioshape episode reveals the fragility of the “hoe” in the face of international capital. The “tractor” here was not just agricultural machinery, but the legal machinery of land transfer that rendered the existing inhabitants invisible. The return of the land marks a rare victory for agrarian citizenship, yet the ecological scars on the coastal forest remain.

---

V. Building a Better Tomorrow? (2021–2024): High Modernism 2.0

Under President Samia Suluhu Hassan, the Tanzanian government has launched a renewed push for agricultural modernization, epitomized by the “Building a Better Tomorrow: Youth Initiative for Agribusiness” (BBT-YIA). This program represents a re-packaging of modernization theory, specifically targeting the demographic “youth bulge” and aiming to professionalize the sector through “Block Farms.”

5.1 The Block Farm Model: Legibility over Tenure

The BBT strategy relies on “Block Farms”—large, contiguous tracts of land cleared by the government and allocated to youth in small plots (1-10 acres) under a centralized management structure.³⁸ This model bears a striking resemblance to previous settlement schemes, prioritizing the geometric order of the tractor over the social resilience of the community.

• Tenure Insecurity and Debt: Unlike the RDA of the 1960s, where farmers owned the process, BBT farmers are essentially contract laborers on state-managed land. They receive 33-to-66-year titles, but strict conditions apply: they cannot change the crop or the production model, which is often tied to specific off-takers (companies).³⁸ Critics argue that by loading youth with debt for inputs and machinery they do not own, the program risks creating a class of indentured laborers rather than independent agri-entrepreneurs.³⁹
• The Militarization of Agriculture: In a move that underscores the state’s desire for discipline, it was announced in 2023 that youth who had applied to join the army would be drafted into the BBT program.³⁸ This conflation of military discipline with agricultural production echoes the colonial “labor armies” and suggests a view of farming as a matter of logistical command rather than ecological stewardship.
• Audit Findings (2024): A performance audit by the National Audit Office revealed significant gaps between the rhetoric and reality. As of October 2024, only 514 youth had been successfully engaged against a target of thousands. Critical infrastructure, such as boreholes for irrigation, remained underdeveloped, and the coordination between ministries was found to be lacking.⁴⁰ The target of creating 12,000 profitable village enterprises appears increasingly distant.⁴¹

5.2 The Hanang Wheat Revival

Simultaneously, the government has pledged to revive the Hanang wheat farms—another relic of 1970s state planning (originally a Canadian aid project). President Samia has set an ambitious target of producing 1 million tonnes of wheat by 2030.⁴² This pledge utilizes the same “idle land” rhetoric as the Bioshape era. However, in the decades since the collapse of the state farms, these lands have often been re-occupied by pastoralists and smallholders. The revival of the wheat complex threatens to displace these “informal” occupants, prioritizing the monoculture of the tractor over the mixed-use ecology of the local inhabitants.⁴²

---

VI. Conservation, Epistemicide, and the Pastoralist Question

While the “tractor” advances in the agricultural districts, a different form of exclusion is occurring in the conservation estates. The treatment of the Maasai in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) and the management of the Great Ruaha River basin represent the most acute current manifestations of the socio-ecological rift.

6.1 Ngorongoro and Msomera: The Epistemicide of the Savannah

Since 2022, the Tanzanian government has aggressively pursued the relocation of Maasai pastoralists from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area to Msomera in Handeni District, citing population growth and the need to protect the UNESCO World Heritage site.⁴³

This policy can be understood as “epistemicide”—the systematic destruction of a knowledge system. Maasai pastoralism is not merely an economic activity but a sophisticated ecological management system that has co-evolved with the wildlife of the Serengeti-Ngorongoro ecosystem for centuries. By moving livestock and using controlled burning, the Maasai historically prevented bush encroachment and maintained the open savannah that tourists pay to see.⁴⁴

• Gendered Impacts: The coloniality of nature affects women disproportionately. Historically, Maasai women held significant roles as spiritual leaders, food producers, and knowledge keepers. The shift to a sedentary, government-controlled life in Msomera undermines these traditional roles, marginalizing women further.⁴⁵
• Violence and Resistance: The demarcation of land in the “Pololeti” area in 2022 involved violent evictions, with reports of security forces burning bomas (homesteads) and seizing livestock. Despite legal challenges at the East African Court of Justice (EACJ), the state has continued to restrict grazing access, effectively starving the pastoral economy out of the conservation area.⁴⁶
• The Msomera Trap: The relocation site, Msomera, is reported to lack adequate social services and sufficient grazing land for the relocated herds. This forces pastoralists into a sedentary lifestyle that degrades their cattle assets—their “informal insurance scheme”—and severs their metabolic link to the ancestral grasslands.⁴³

6.2 The Drying of the Great Ruaha: Hydraulic Bureaucratic Violence

In the Usangu plains, the expansion of rice irrigation (another “modernization” priority) has led to the drying of the Great Ruaha River, a critical artery for the Ruaha National Park and the Mtera Dam.

Table 3: Great Ruaha River Zero Flow Days

Year	Zero Flow Days (Dry Season)	Driver
1994	Minimal / Intermittent	Early expansion of rice schemes.
1998	86 days	Opening of Madibira Rice Scheme.
2018	131 days	Intensified upstream abstraction & climate variability.
2021	120 days	Persistent dry season abstraction for rice.

Source Data: ⁴⁹

The drying of the river is a direct consequence of large-scale irrigation schemes like Madibira and Kapunga. These schemes, designed to boost national rice production, abstract vast quantities of water before it can reach the wetlands and the national park.⁵⁰ This illustrates the zero-sum game of water metabolism in a modernization framework: the success of the “rice tractor” (industrial irrigation) entails the death of the river downstream. The ecological feedback loop is immediate—wildlife suffers, and hydroelectric generation (dependent on the Mtera dam downstream) is compromised—yet the policy of expanding irrigation continues.

---

VII. Resilience and Resistance: Indigenous and Urban Ecologies

Amidst the failures of high modernism and the violence of the metabolic rift, alternative socio-ecological configurations have persisted or emerged. These examples demonstrate the resilience of the “hoe” and the potential for a healed metabolism that integrates productivity with ecological care.

7.1 The Matengo Pit System (Ngolo): Indigenous Engineering

In the Mbinga district, the Matengo people have practiced the Ngolo system of pit cultivation on steep slopes for over a century. Unlike the failed terraces of Uluguru, Ngolo is an indigenous innovation that turns the problem of steep terrain into an asset.

• Mechanism: Farmers bury grass residues in a grid of pits, covering them with soil to form ridges on which crops are planted. This structure traps water and prevents erosion, while the decomposing grass slowly releases nutrients.⁵²
• Climate Resilience: Recent studies confirm that Ngolo fields retain significantly more moisture and sustain yields during droughts compared to conventional flat cultivation. In an era of climate change, this “primitive” technology has proven superior to modern monoculture.⁵³
• Sustainability: The system cycles nutrients locally (grass to soil to crop) without heavy dependence on external chemical inputs, representing a functional “metabolic repair” that has sustained high population densities for generations.⁵²

7.2 Urban Agriculture in Dar es Salaam: Contested Metabolisms

In the interstices of the metropolis, the “hoe” has adapted to the city. Urban agriculture in Dar es Salaam serves as a critical food source but is split between two distinct modes:

1. River Valley Agriculture (The Msimbazi): Farmers use polluted river water to grow vegetables. While highly productive, this sector faces stigma and eviction threats due to health risks and flooding. It represents a “metabolic rift” where urban waste (sewage) returns to the food chain in a toxic form, yet it provides essential livelihoods for the poor.⁵⁶
2. Apartment/Open Space Agriculture: Utilizing piped water and intensive management, this sector produces leafy vegetables for the urban market. It is increasingly framed by a discourse of “modernity” and health, gaining more acceptance than the river valley farmers. The divergence between these two shows how the state validates only those forms of agriculture that fit its aesthetic of order and hygiene.⁵⁶

7.3 Agroecology and SAT: Scientizing the Hoe

Organizations like Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT) are attempting to bridge the gap between traditional knowledge and modern science. Through participatory research at Sokoine University, they have demonstrated that agroecological methods can rival conventional yields while restoring soil health.

• Yield Data: A study comparing methods showed that farmers using manure (an agroecological practice) achieved maize yields of 4.1 bags/acre compared to lower yields in conventional plots in certain years. Interestingly, mulching showed mixed results depending on rainfall, highlighting the nuance required in application.⁵⁸
• Farmer-Centered Research: By involving farmers in the research process, SAT avoids the “top-down” errors of the past. Their approach validates the farmers’ role as innovators, not just recipients of technology.⁵⁹ This represents a “counter-modernization” that seeks to close the metabolic rift through knowledge-intensive rather than capital-intensive farming.

---

Conclusion: The Persistence of the Rift

The socio-ecological history of Tanzania from 1924 to 2024 reveals a persistent pattern: the state’s attempt to replace the “hoe” with the “tractor” has repeatedly caused metabolic ruptures. From the colonial hut tax to the Groundnut Scheme, from forced Ujamaa villagization to the Bioshape land grab, and finally to the current BBT block farms, the drive for legibility, taxation, and accumulation has often undermined the very ecological base it seeks to exploit.

The metabolic rift remains the defining feature of Tanzanian agriculture. Soil nutrients are continuously extracted for export (tobacco, coffee, cashews) or channeled into urban centers, while the rural landscape suffers from deforestation, fertility loss, and hydrological collapse. The “chemical fix” of fertilizers has been volatile and often inaccessible, while the “institutional fix” of land titling often serves to dispossess rather than empower.

However, the resilience of the Matengo pits, the adaptability of urban farmers, and the emerging agroecology movement suggest that the “hoe”—understood here as a metaphor for locally adapted, ecologically integrated farming—is not merely a relic of the past. It represents a lineage of ecological adaptation that may offer the only viable path to closing the metabolic rift. If the next century is to avoid the failures of the last, it must stop seeing the peasant as an obstacle to be removed and start seeing them as the primary architect of a sustainable future. The tractor has its place, but it must serve the ecology of the hoe, not destroy it.

Citations 

Alliance for Enhancing Agroecological Practices among Organic Farmers in Tanzania: Perceptions, Opportunities, and Challenges of the SAT-SUA Farmer Centred Research Programme., accessed November 17, 2025, https://rsisinternational.org/journals/ijriss/articles/alliance-for-enhancing-agroecological-practices-among-organic-farmers-in-tanzania-perceptions-opportunities-and-challenges-of-the-sat-sua-farmer-centred-research-programme/

(PDF) Reworking the Metabolic Rift: La Vía Campesina, Agrarian Citizenship, and Food Sovereignty – ResearchGate, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248943641_Reworking_the_Metabolic_Rift_La_Via_Campesina_Agrarian_Citizenship_and_Food_Sovereignty

Metabolic Rift or Metabolic Shift? – World-Ecology Research Network, accessed November 17, 2025, https://worldecologynetwork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/moore-metabolic_rift_or_metabolic_shift-final-2016.pdf

globalisation, development and the metabolic rift – South Asian Studies, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.southasia.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/southasia/documents/media/general-south_asia_wp21_soas_globalisation_lecture.pdf

Colonial Labour Migrations Among the Nyakyusa: Causes and Impacts (1920 – 1960), accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/article/10.11648/j.history.20251302.11

Colonial Labour Migrations Among the Nyakyusa: Causes and Impacts (1920 – 1960), accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394721928_Colonial_Labour_Migrations_Among_the_Nyakyusa_Causes_and_Impacts_1920_-_1960

311305 Sascha Klocke – Lund University Research Portal, accessed November 17, 2025, https://portal.research.lu.se/files/166723637/Sascha_Klocke.pdf

A Tanganyika Tribe in the Twentieth Century Land and Politics among the Luguru of Tanganyika. By Roland Young and Henry A. Fosb – Cambridge University Press, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/A07A4BA0231FBD3213E4BD3E008D473B/S0021853700001985a.pdf/tanganyika_tribe_in_the_twentieth_century_land_and_politics_among_the_luguru_of_tanganyika_by_roland_young_and_henry_a_fosbrooke_london_routledge_and_kegan_paul_1960_pp_212_illus_and_maps_35s.pdf

A pathway to inclusive sustainable intensification in agriculture? Assessing evidence on the application of agroecology in Tanzania, accessed November 17, 2025, https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/132770/3/Agroecology%20and%20livelihoods-clean.pdf

EDITORSHIP OF AFRICA CREOLISATION IN SECRET THE BIRTH OF NATIONALISM IN LATE COLONIAL ULUGURU, TANZANIA – ResearchGate, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter-Pels/publication/28641318_Creolisation_in_Secret_The_Birth_of_Nationalism_in_Late_Colonial_Uluguru_Tanzania/links/562a304108aef25a243fd82d/Creolisation-in-Secret-The-Birth-of-Nationalism-in-Late-Colonial-Uluguru-Tanzania.pdf

The Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme: A Site of Change and Conservatism – Swarthmore College, accessed November 17, 2025, https://works.swarthmore.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1084&context=suhj

SEEING, accessed November 17, 2025, https://we.riseup.net/assets/378491/Seeing+Like+a+State+James+C.+Scott.pdf

Ruvuma Development Association (early 1960s-1969) | ArchivesSpace Public Interface, accessed November 17, 2025, https://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/agents/corporate_entities/2685

Ujamaa Vijijini in the 1960s – Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.juliusnyerere.org/uploads/nyerere_lifetime_legacy_ralph_ibbott.pdf

More details of the ujamaa collective village system in Tanzania (from first-hand experience) – – Lowimpact.org, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.lowimpact.org/posts/more-details-of-the-ujamaa-collective-village-system-in-tanzania-from-first-hand-experience/

Village land politics and the legacy of ujamaa – ScienceOpen, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.1080/03056244.2016.1219179

LAND USE PLANNING AND RESOURCE ASSESSMENT IN TANZANIA: A CASE STUDY – International Institute for Environment and Development, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.iied.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/migrate/7751IIED.pdf

The Villagization Program and the Disruption of the Ecological Balance in Tanzania, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261647900_The_Villagization_Program_and_the_Disruption_of_the_Ecological_Balance_in_Tanzania

Environment, Memory, and the Groundnut Scheme: Britain’s Largest Colonial Agricultural Development Project and Its Global Legacy, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/files/key_docs/ge11_esselborn.pdf

Tanzania: Agricultural Transformation and Policy, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/1270548/Tanzania-Agricultural-Transformation-and-Policy/

Tanzania: – International Institute for Sustainable Development, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.iisd.org/sites/default/files/uploads/tanzania-agricultural-transformation-timeline.pdf

(PDF) Agricultural performance in Tanzania under structural adjustment programs: Is it really so positive? – ResearchGate, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226003348_Agricultural_performance_in_Tanzania_under_structural_adjustment_programs_Is_it_really_so_positive

IWF und Weltbank zwischen Neoklassik und der Krise auf den afrikanischen Agrarmärkten – Tradefocus, accessed November 17, 2025, https://tradefocus.de/U.HermannsAfrikaAgrar2005.pdf

Impact of Agricultural Input Subsidies on Poverty in Tanzania by Tamahi Kato – REPOA, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.repoa.or.tz/documents_storage/GD3.pdf

supply chain analysis for agricultural inputs in – SUAIRE, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.suaire.sua.ac.tz/bitstreams/deb2263f-15cc-4731-a3e5-8054644b0440/download

EFFECTIVENESS OF SUBSIDIZED FERTILIZER DELIVERY SYSTEM IN REACHING MAIZE SMALLHOLDER FARMERS IN NJOMBE REGION, TANZANIA MARTHA C – SUAIRE, accessed November 17, 2025, https://suaire.sua.ac.tz/bitstreams/762e58f8-4d13-4a3f-a9fd-9cfd30786cfd/download

Estimation of the impact of tobacco curing on wood resources in Zimbabwe – International Society for Development and Sustainability, accessed November 17, 2025, https://isdsnet.com/ijds-v3n7-3.pdf

Shifting Cultivation, Wood Use and Deforestation Attributes of Tobacco Farming in Urambo District, Tanzania – ResearchGate, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236005574_Shifting_Cultivation_Wood_Use_and_Deforestation_Attributes_of_Tobacco_Farming_in_Urambo_District_Tanzania

Tobacco and Deforestation Revisited. How to Move towards a Global Land-Use Transition?, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/9242

Illegal Deforestation for Forest Risk Commodities Dashboard: Tanzania [Country Name]0, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.forest-trends.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Tanzania-FRC-Dashboard-2.pdf

Tanzania: Tobacco takes its toll on the miombo woodlands – unfairtobacco, accessed November 17, 2025, https://unfairtobacco.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Mangora_Unfairtobacco_Tanzania_deforestation.pdf

Economic and environmental effects of reduction in smoking prevalence in Tanzania, accessed November 17, 2025, https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/29/1/24

Tobacco Control and Tobacco Farming in African Countries – PMC – NIH, accessed November 17, 2025, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4412848/

What happens when the landgrabbers leave? An account from …, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.iied.org/what-happens-when-landgrabbers-leave-account-kilwa-tanzania

Bioshape Kilwa Jatropha Project, Tanzania – Ej Atlas, accessed November 17, 2025, https://ejatlas.org/print/bioshape-kilwa-jatropha-project-tanzania

Biofuels investment and community land tenure in Tanzania | CLAN, accessed November 17, 2025, https://clan.scot/research-library/biofuels-investment-and-community-land-tenure-in-tanzania

(PDF) Contemporary processes of largescale land acquisition by investors: Case studies from sub-Saharan Africa – ResearchGate, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351478651_Contemporary_processes_of_largescale_land_acquisition_by_investors_Case_studies_from_sub-Saharan_Africa

the world bank, accessed November 17, 2025, https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/107691504869102521/pdf/119625-WP-P095390-PUBLIC-7-9-2017-10-34-30-TanzaniaFinalReport.pdf

A NEW WAVE OF LAND GRABS STRIKES TANZANIA – La Via Campesina, accessed November 17, 2025, https://viacampesina.org/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/02/Tanzania-landgrabs-EN-05.pdf

Building A Better Tomorrow: Youth Initiative For Agribusiness (BBT-YIA) – Tetra Tech, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.tetratech.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Building_a_Better_Tomorrow_STYAMSD_Project.pdf

i Controller and Auditor General – National Audit office of Tanzania (NAOT), accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.nao.go.tz/uploads/Performance_Audit_Report_on_Implementation_of_Building_a_Better_Tomorrow_Program.pdf

BUILDING A BETTER TOMORROW: YOUTH AGRIBUSINESS INITIATIVE (BBT-YAI) | ASPIRES Tanzania, accessed November 17, 2025, https://aspires.or.tz/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Building-A-Better-Tomorrow-Youth-Agribusiness-Initiative-BBT-YAI.pdf

Samia sets 2030 target for Hanang’s wheat to hit one million tonnes – The Citizen Tanzania, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/samia-sets-2030-target-for-hanang-s-wheat-to-hit-one-million-tonnes-5216146

Tanzania’s conservation concerns do not excuse violations of Maasai rights – Al Jazeera, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/8/9/tanzanias-conservation-concerns-do-not-excuse-violations-of-maasai-rights

Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledge and the Sciences, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.pas.va/content/dam/casinapioiv/pas/pdf-volumi/scripta-varia/sv157pas.pdf

“Many have Spoken for us, Now we Speak for Ourselves:” Decolonizing Natures Through Ecotestimonies in Olosho – InsightShare, accessed November 17, 2025, https://insightshare.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/isaa148.pdf

A/HRC/55/NGO/33 General Assembly – the United Nations, accessed November 17, 2025, https://documents.un.org/access.nsf/get?Open&DS=A/HRC/55/NGO/33&Lang=E

‘It’s becoming a war zone’: Tanzania’s Maasai speak out on ‘forced’ removals | Global development | The Guardian, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jan/16/tanzania-maasai-speak-out-on-forced-removals

“It’s Like Killing Culture”: Human Rights Impacts of Relocating Tanzania’s Maasai | HRW, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.hrw.org/report/2024/07/31/its-killing-culture/human-rights-impacts-relocating-tanzanias-maasai

History of Zero Flow – Ruaha River Flow Monitor, accessed November 17, 2025, https://usangu.majiyetu.org/archive/

Overview of Great Ruaha River Flow, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.theruahanotes.com/great-ruaha-river

Use of a Hydrological Model for Environmental Management of the Usangu Wetlands, Tanzania – GOV.UK, accessed November 17, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/57a08c4d40f0b652dd001240/R8064_RR104-japhet-et-al.pdf

The ngolo farming technology – Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.cde.unibe.ch/e65013/e542846/e521803/e521814/e521821/e521822/HL01_The_ngolo_farming_technology_eng.pdf

Modelling the Determinants of Using Matengo Pits in Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change and Variability: The Case of Mbinga District, Tanzania | Request PDF – ResearchGate, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364895861_Modelling_the_Determinants_of_Using_Matengo_Pits_in_Adapting_to_the_Impacts_of_Climate_Change_and_Variability_The_Case_of_Mbinga_District_Tanzania

Evaluation of an Indigenous Farming Systems in the Matengo Highlands, Tanzania, and Its Sustainability – SciSpace, accessed November 17, 2025, https://scispace.com/pdf/evaluation-of-an-indigenous-farming-systems-in-the-matengo-3v2focw5s3.pdf

Intensive Cultivation and Environment Use among the Matengo in Tanzania – Kyoto University Research Information Repository, accessed November 17, 2025, https://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/bitstream/2433/68204/1/ASM_22_73.pdf

Full article: Agriculture and the ideals of urban modernity: the case of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02508060.2024.2323895

Fields of Friction. Practices and politics of irrigated urban agriculture in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – ResearchGate, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/389764164_Fields_of_Friction_Practices_and_politics_of_irrigated_urban_agriculture_in_Dar_es_Salaam_Tanzania

Climate vulnerability of agroecological and conventional smallholders in Mvomero district, Tanzania: using mixed-methods to uncover local experiences and motivations of farming for the future – Frontiers, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-food-systems/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2024.1423861/full

Full article: Synthesis of a 5-year agroecology research project in Tanzania, accessed November 17, 2025, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21683565.2025.2544849?src=