AFRICAN MODELS
EXAMINING HOUSEHOLD FOOD SECURITY IN TANZANIA Focus on the ONJAMA Household Food Security Paradigm
© 2013 JAKA MGWABI MWAMBI, MKUMBUKWA MADUNDO A. MTAMBO, L. L. FITUNI
The main preoccupation of rural poor communities in Tanzania is the availability of year-round household food security to all family members. Shortages of food have become a recurring phenomenon especially in areas receiving poor rainfall. Food allocations are frequently provided to help starving families. Sporadic droughts and disregard for husbandry of drought-resistant crops are major causes of hunger. A down-to-earth household food security program, known as ONJAMA1 was introduced and carried out in Masasi district of southern Tanzania, which in practical terms was the locus of a successful locally-organized and self-reliant household food security program that received fame in the country and abroad.
Keywords: ONJAMA, Household Food Security, Masasi District, Drought, Hunger, Famine, Cassava, Legumes, Kilimo Kwanza.
This study examines the major causes, challenges and possible solutions of the sporadic situations of famine and hunger in the erstwhile Masasi district, an administrative area that comprised seven divisions, thirty wards and 196 registered villages, before being subdivided in 2006 into two autonomous districts of Masasi and Nanyumbu. According to the Regional Economic Profile (1997), Masasi formed 53 percent of Mtwara region's total area or 55 percent of the smallest district of Mtwara Mikindani. The other districts were Newala (including Tandahimba) and Mtwara Rural.
Ravaged by a dreadful drought period between 1986 and 1988 consecutively, communities in the Masasi district depended on food relief provided by government and other multilateral and charitable organizations. UNICEF's Annual Report of the Executive Board (1990) conceded that the local authorities in the district initiated an intensive and extensive programme popularly known as ONJAMA, for eradicating hunger that helped the study area turn into a new green belt with limited external support. Community food production was mobilized and ten thousands of acres of land were put under production of cassava, sorghum and legumes. "Many children and adults2 had enough food to eat for the first time in three years". This success was largely conditioned by a synergy of general positive acceptance of the rural poor to implement the objectives and goals of the programme through a vigorous upsurge of the process of social mobilization.
Considering its geographical location and engulfed mostly in a leeward position the study area received irregular poor rains. The occurrences of drought were frequent phenomena that caused instances of hunger and famines. The period between 1986 and 1988
1 ONJAMA stands for "Ondoa Njaa Masasior simply "Eradication of Hunger in Masasi district;" a household food security program that transformed primitive agricultural practice in the area qualitatively. Surpluses of cassava and legumes increased the country's exports and redressed the problem of domestic food deficit.
2 Emphasis in italics is of the author.
was extremely critical. Rains failed miserably. Yet not scared by the severity of drought, peasant farmers maintained the status quo of growing cereal crops like maize and paddy that did not withstand aridity. During that period, about 66,815.4 acres of land were put under cereal production. But 44,770.78 acres were completely ravaged by drought. Following this harrowing situation of acute food shortage, the whole district was plunged into an extensive quagmire of a prolonged famine.
The District Technical Report further elaborates that in 120 registered villages the food situation was alarmingly serious. About 146,401 people were on the brink of starvation. The government took immediate rescue measures by providing food relief rations to almost the whole district population under the arrangement of food for work. Children, octogenarians, disabled, and other vulnerable groups were provided with free food rations. In total, about 5,448 tons of maize, 611 tons of beans and 610 tons of dried cassava were distributed by the government and organizations like the USAID, World Food Programme and the Catholic Church.
The drought pattern in the study area was cyclical as traced from the colonial period in 1945 when frequent food shortages occurred especially in the dry leeward areas of Mchauru, Chiungutwa, Nanyumbu and Nakopi divisions. The colonial administration enforced a punitive decree for forceful husbandry of drought tolerant crops, cassava in particular. Offenders were inhumanly mistreated. Some of them were flogged in public mercilessly. This colonial order was generally unpopular and thus bitterly resented.
During post-independence period peasant farmers resumed the extensive production of cereal crops notwithstanding drought ravages that occurred frequently. Outmoded crop husbandry systems exacerbated the problem of hunger due to poor yields obtained annually. Despite the incidences of drought calamities and repeated food shortages, the district population continued to uphold the idiosyncratic, traditional rituals of jando and unyago3 that accentuated the lavish use meager food reserves.
Therefore, formulation of the ONJAMA household food security programme largely helped the rural poor redress the exigencies of successive food shortages and hunger. The study made an attempt to examine correlative relationships between ONJAMA and other household food security experiences conducted in other countries: developed, emerging and developing; such as the USA, Russia, China, India, Brazil, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Zanzibar. A correlation was equally highlighted for uncovering a synergy between ONJAMA and the contemporary nationwide programmes of Kilimo Kwanza and SACGOT4.
REVIEW OF THE ONJAMA HOUSEHOLD FOOD SECURITY PROGRAMME
A situation of frequent food shortages that culminated in severe famines in the district was traced through historical records and proved to be a chronic factor. The research unveiled various methods of empirical data collection to determine the root causes of frequent food shortages, hunger and famine in the study area. Research assistants administered data collected by the respondents through oral interviews, observations, structured and non-structured interviews schedules, questionnaires, and documentary reviews. Basically a number of factors were observed to be root causes of the endemic problem of food shortages in Masasi district that led to the development of the ONJAMA food security programme. These factors include unreliability of climatic conditions with great variations of rainfall patterns; use of outmoded farm implements particularly the application of the primitive dwarf hoe locally
3 Jando and Unyago are traditional initiation rituals of diverse tribal affiliations. Informal education skills are imparted on female and male circumcised folks in separate special camps. According to some tribal customs, circumcision of females or female genital mutilation is impermissible.
4 SACGOT means Southern Agricultural Corridor Growth of Tanzania. It is a pilot area that will first cover Morogoro, Iringa, Mbeya, Rukwa and Ruvuma regions.
known as ching'ondola that inflicts maximum physical exhaustion and time waste. The other causes were late and poorly prepared farm plots, rudimentary planting method of mixing many crops in a single small farm plot, untimely weeding, minimal fertilizer application and the psychological illusion of disregarding drought resistant crops particularly cassava. Weak village leadership to enforce properly the fulfillment of the program's targets contributed much to this dichotomy between poor agricultural husbandry and intermittent food shortages.
DEFINING FOOD SECURITY
Food security means a situation of food availability and accessibility. Households are food-secure when all family members have year-round stocks of food that enable them to avoid conditions of hunger and starvation. Defining the concept of household food security, both FAO and WFP assert that "households are food secure when they have year-round access to amount and variety of safe food their members need to lead active and healthy lives". This definition connotes the 1966 Rome Declaration which contextualizes food security as a phenomenon that "must exist at the individual, family, national and global levels," with an ardent desire to ensure that "all people at all times have physical and economic access to enough and nutritious food in order to cover their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life" [FAO, 1996]. In our opinion, this definition misses an important aspect. Food security must also conform to social, cultural and psychological dynamics that are intrinsic prerequisites for human existence.
Food insecurity is not confined to poverty-stricken countries only. The study made a comprehensive analytical interplay of the ONJAMA household food security experience with other similar programs that were conducted in the developed, emerging and poor countries. The study examined the imperatives of food insecurity in USA, where 11.9 percent of total households were food insecure and depended upon food handouts in 2003. The Russian doctrine of food security was also explored. The country lags far behind in the production of meat, poultry, dairy products, with high dependency on imports of food products. As a result, annual per capita consumption of some food products is lower than the world's recommended dietary requirements.
The Tachai Rural Development Model in China was primarily a program for arresting the problem of hunger and poverty. This model was based on internal verities of self-reliance and intra-communal solidarity. The Tachai model was typically consonant with the ONJAMA household food security programme.
The food security strategy in India
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