Resource Reliance - Local Scale Food Security: Goat Aid, Past National Scale Food Security: The Tanzania Wheat Programme, Present National Scale Food Security: SAGCOT (Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania)

Definition of Food Security

A measure of how many people have regular access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food supplies to maintain healthy, active lives[cite: 251].

Goat Aid Location and Strategy Type

A bottom-up, small-scale local development project run by the UK NGO Farm Africa in the Babati District of northern Tanzania between 1999 and 2006[cite: 250, 252].

Goat Aid Primary Nutritional Benefit

The provided goats yield up to 3 litres of milk daily, directly upgrading household nutrition and providing excess dairy to be sold locally[cite: 253].

Goat Aid Economic Success

Increased farmer income, allowing them to reinvest in their farms and pay for children's education, triggering a positive multiplier effect[cite: 254, 255].

Goat Aid Environmental Criticisms

Goats require significant amounts of water (a scarce resource) and their grazing/hooves can accelerate desertification, harming long-term agriculture[cite: 271, 272].

Goat Aid Scale Limitation

While highly effective at a village level, the small-scale project is not ambitious enough since Tanzania remains rated as "serious" on the Global Hunger Index[cite: 274, 276].

Tanzania Wheat Programme Scale and Type

A past, large-scale national attempt to improve food security that utilized bi-lateral, top-down aid from Canada between 1968 and 1993[cite: 315].

Canada's Investment in Wheat Programme

Provided $95 million worth of aid in the form of specialized seeds, technical expertise, chemical fertilizers, and heavy machinery[cite: 316].

Tanzania Wheat Programme Successes

Produced 60% of all national wheat across 26,400 hectares, created 400 jobs, and upgraded local road, rail, and electricity infrastructure[cite: 318].

Tanzania Wheat Programme Social Failure

Displaced the indigenous Barabaig people from their ancestral land, threatening the livelihoods and food security of 40,000 people[cite: 329, 330].

Tanzania Wheat Programme Environmental Damage

Monoculture farming reduced biodiversity and lowered soil fertility, causing topsoil to wash away during rains and increasing desertification[cite: 331, 333].

Tanzania Wheat Programme Economic Evaluation

Most Tanzanians eat maize rather than wheat, making the crop unaffordable for the majority; investing the $95 million into low-tech maize would have had a bigger national impact.

SAGCOT Meaning and Approach

The Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania—a modern, present-day national growth corridor approach to achieve food security[cite: 277, 381].

SAGCOT Funding and Investment Type

Multilateral aid involving massive millions of dollars in investment from the Tanzanian government, foreign nations, and global TNCs[cite: 287].

SAGCOT Infrastructure and Irrigation Aims

Aims to build modern irrigation systems to reduce drought-induced crop failure and improve transport infrastructure to get food to market before it spoils[cite: 288, 289].

SAGCOT Production Success Example

The Kilombero plantation successfully doubled its rice yield, while some connected smallholder farms generated eight times more rice[cite: 291].

SAGCOT Economic and TNC Criticism

Much of the invested money has primarily benefited large commercial farms and TNCs, which send profits overseas instead of reinvesting them inside Tanzania[cite: 293, 294].

SAGCOT Social Disadvantage

Large commercial land zoning has blocked many nomadic tribes from reaching vital water sources for their animals, lowering their localized food security[cite: 295].