Challenging Nature
Local Knowledge, Agroscience, and Food Security in Tanga Region, Tanzania
288 pages
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28 halftones, 51 line drawings, 58 tables
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6 x 9
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© 2006
Tanga Region, Tanzania, is an area of persistent rural poverty with a long history of drought, floods, food shortages, famine, and social and economic disruption. Though farmers have been cultivating the land there for hundreds of years, they have consistently been unable to supply adequate food for the region's inhabitants. In Challenging Nature, Philip Porter examines eighteen farming communities to understand what the farmers there know about their environment and which historical and economic factors play into the lack of food security.
Porter first began work on this project in 1972, asking 250 farmers in the region about life history, environmental and agricultural changes, types of crops grown and methods of planting, environmental assessments, agricultural practices, food and water supplies, training and education, and attitudes toward nature. Twenty years later, he returned and reinterviewed as many farmers as could be found from the first survey. The result contextualizes the environmental history of the region while informing current and future agricultural development.
Porter first began work on this project in 1972, asking 250 farmers in the region about life history, environmental and agricultural changes, types of crops grown and methods of planting, environmental assessments, agricultural practices, food and water supplies, training and education, and attitudes toward nature. Twenty years later, he returned and reinterviewed as many farmers as could be found from the first survey. The result contextualizes the environmental history of the region while informing current and future agricultural development.
N. Hatibu | Experimental Agriculture
"This book reports research that is both rare and interesting with respect to 'lessons learnt for development.' It assesses the effects of culture, governance, politico-economy, ecology, climate, and infrastructure development on reduction (or lack of it) of poverty and hunger. . . . I strongly recommend the book to those working in various ways for the eradication of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa."
Michael J. Sheridan | African Studies Review
"This book's major contribution to the literature on the African farming systems is that it shows how to quantify familiar qualitative evaluations of agricultural practices and agrarian change.
Matthew Schnurr | Environment and Planning
"A senior North American academic reflecting on thirty years of research in a particular place in Africa. At times he is introspective, expressing concern over social problems that have deteriorated over the past three decades. He successfully incorporates unconventional methodologies to enhance his description. . . . Porter set himself the task of describing the agricultural possibilities confronting farmers in the Tanga Region, and by this criterion he succeeds."
B.I. Logan | Human Ecology
"An important contribution to African scholarship. In particular, it has succeeded to merging the 'political' and'ecological' in political ecology, in ways that few studies have done. . . . It will certainly be a valuable addition to the reading list of any graduate seminar on sustainable development in Africa."
Mara J. Goldman | Annals of the Association of American Geographers
"This book should be read by anyone interested in indigenous knowledge, food security, and farming in Africa."
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