Biofuel development in Tanzania places at stake 4 highly strategic national resources: land, water, forests and labour, and for generations to come. This alone is sufficient reason for the Tanzanian general public and rural communities in particular, to wrestle back the initiative and seek direct engagement in determining the best way forward for the nation.
Tanzania has always been a country in the spotlight over cases of land grabbing for various uses. Over the recent past there has been a lot of information in both print and electronic media of land being taken for various investment purposes. Little is known to the public of the deals the government is entering with these foreign investment companies that are eyeing Tanzania as a destination in agricultural investment. Investment in agricultural land has been a key driving force in Tanzania as a rush now has intensified in which agricultural land is being taken for various uses.
The Land Rights Research and Resources Institute held its second National level Public Forum on land on 12-13 May 2005. The two day forum was partly one of the planned activities in the Institute’s three year Strategic plan and a special event to commemorate the Institute’s tenth Anniversary. It thus took place along with other activities such as Training of Trainers (TOT) workshop, preparation and running of a documentary on land rights advocacy, special media programmes, Special theatre performance by Dhahabu theatre arts Group and moving into a more specious office premise.
This chapter is an initial exploration and sharing of experiences and ideas based largely on a case study of a group of small farmers who have occupied and are producing on land that they believe they have an historical right to. The group, called Mahlahluvani – although they include people from other communities and claimant groups – are part of a land claim that has been lodged on the land they now occupy, but the claim is not yet settled.
The study sought to determine the state of farms that belonged to the then National Agricultural Corporation (NAFCO), ranches that belong to the National Ranching Company (NAFCO) and land belonging to absentee landlords. Since any state is dynamic, this research report, then, is a socio-historical account of what has been happening within/out more than 543,604 hectares of ranch/farmland in the wake of the fall of nationalization and rise of privatization.
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