Gender, education and money: shaping different livelihood pathways in Shinyanga

Taking cotton to market 2015

My work in Lubaga in Shinyanga Region has involved several intermittent studies, but when it began I could not have guessed that 25 years later I would again live in the village. It all started in 1988 when, with Anna Mulela, I conducted a study on the position of women in agricultural production. I remember my confusion when we first arrived in the center of the village: I did not see a center, only a small warehouse of corrugate iron sheets and a local house. I was excited and a bit tense: we were here to live for a year, to explore women’s time allocation, activities, responsibilities and relation to productive resources throughout the agricultural seasons. We were a Tanzanian Dutch team to study women in agriculture, requested by a Dutch financed project to work on strengthening the agricultural extension system. Anna and I worked with a Dutch colleague, Nettie Aarnink, and Idda Ikombe a Tanzanian agricultural extension worker. Thus we had an all female team working across two different villages. At the end of our time we were to produce guidelines for the agricultural extension service as to increase its impact on women’s position. In that period (the late 1980s) rural women and their role in agriculture in Africa had begun to become more visible, thus women were seen as economic actors and not merely as wives and mothers. Our study also had to explore how women would benefit from an increase in agricultural production.

1988 Traditional house in the centre of the village

We were allocated a house near the primary school were we could live for a year. As the main part of our work we selected 9 women for a close follow up, female heads of households, married women with co-wives or being the only wife. We also undertook a household survey 85 households were included in the survey, by random sampling, covering all the parts of the village (estimated to contain 226 households).

At that time the people in the village were farmers growing food crops like maize, sorghum, sweet potatoes and cotton as cash crop; livestock, especially cattle, served as a bank. Cash earned from farming was converted into cattle which reproduce and grow larger and then be sold when large sums of money were needed. Within the village the farms were scattered over the village area without any particular concentration of houses since farmers started moving back to their fields more than a decade after the villagization campaign.

Farming in1988.

Because the houses were scattered over a large area, we would spend hours walking to visit the women included in our study. Paths were too small for cars; bicycles were hardly an option because of the many thorned bushes. Walking allowed us to observe, talk to other villagers and we would discuss among ourselves what we heard and saw. On a regular basis we visited the women, discussed and asked our questions. We spend time with the women leaders of the only formal (women’s) group in the village. We gradually became more accepted as a part of village life, people would come for advice on agriculture (Anna was a village extension worker), to borrow money or just for a chat and a cup of coffee. At night we would write down our notes, went through questionnaires to check and wrote down stories we heard because people wanted to share them with us. In the first week we organized a village meeting to explain the purpose of our stay and how we would work. People thought a white person must be a medical doctor. Or otherwise maybe we came to start a project. We were welcomed in the village to do our work. We never met any hostility but the contrary: many people wanted us to visit them at home.

Accessing water from a sandy river bed.

Nettie Aarnink (member of the Kahama team) and I wrote up that research, turning it into a book The Shamba is like a Child. I did not expect to return but an opportunity 10 years later meant that Anna and I could go back to Lubaga for a re-study. Tanzania’s economy was gradually turning into a market-driven economy with a decline in state intervention. I was interested in understanding how the people from Lubaga would notice these changes, how they would respond and what societal consequences were impacting the relations between men and women.

Women harvesting groundnuts 1998

We returned to see the same nine women of the intensive survey (all but 1 were still alive) and tried to re-visited the households that were included in the 1988 survey. Quite a number of households had moved in search for greener pastures for their livestock. Others households had moved when a young woman became a widow. We noticed traders from outside coming in to buy food crops, and that there had been a collapse of the cotton marketing in the village. We saw the village preparing for elections. Tanzania also had become a multiparty democracy. Also the first cases of AIDS deaths had occurred.

In some aspects daily conditions of women’s lives had improved. There was a private operational grinding mill in the village, and there were more bicycles so men would take ill children more often to the clinic. Women sometimes could use bicycles to fetch water. But there was little indication that women had more say over productive resources, or had more say over their own live. Money had become more important, and ways for women to earn money had not increased.

Collecting water in 2015 is easier by bicycle.

In the summer of 2014 and 2015 I went again with Anna to settle for a few months in the village for a further re-study. It was only at this stage, that, according to some of the women (6 out of the original 9 were still alive) we had now ‘grown up’, had become adults (!). We were still part of the village, people were proud that we had come back. We would have talks about the past with some villagers. Women would comment on their becoming old, and that they could now leave some domestic tasks to their daughters-in-law.

The changes in the village society and economy are more marked as since the nearby town has become the capital of a new district and the weekly market has gotten a regional function, programs and projects have increased considerably in the village. But the impacts of these changes on people’s lives vary notably as we can see by two case studies.

2014 - livestock remain an important part of livelihood strategies.

The first case demonstrates marginality and vulnerability. In 1988 the first household was headed by an elder couple, Maduro (about 70 years) and his wife. Four adult daughters (of whom three were divorced), their children and other grandchildren (in total 10 of whom 8 under the age of 15 years) complete the household. Their son became a priest in a nearby town. The couple claimed about 30 acres of land. They grew only food crops, and only enough to feed themselves, the acreage under cultivation is decided by labor availability. As was typical, the daughters had a small income from activities like pottery or running a small breakfast café. This they used to pay for school fees, items of their children and clothing. Livestock on their farm were borrowed from a relative, so they could plough and have milk. Within the following decade the household size decreased from 18 to 8, because household members left or passed away. The divorced daughters moved when they found new husbands or jobs in nearby towns. A fourth divorced daughter, Juliana, moved in and received land to use from her father. Some of the granddaughters got married, bringing in cattle from their bride price. Grandsons moved to other relatives when their grandfather Maduro fell ill and moved to his son in town. After a year he passed away. Elisabeth, his wife stayed in the village for another year before she passed away. The farm was then run by Juliana, who lived there with her children and cousins. When her son was old enough he received his own field, growing cash crops. However, whatever he and his mother tried to grow they do not get a good harvest. They blamed the small harvests on decreasing soil fertility, manifested in striga (weed) on their fields and pests like groundnut rosette. Many cattle from bride price payments were used on Maduro and Elisabeth on medical expenses and their funerals. Other cattle were bartered for food during meager years. By 2015 all cattle had gone, only chickens were left. They family had even sold their ox-plough to buy food. An attempt to raise goats failed when a goat epidemic struck the village and most of their goats had died. When the son wanted to marry he used money from cash crops, sold crop residues to cattle owners and took a loan with 100% interest to pay for bride price for his wife. In 2015, Juliana is 65: she lives with her son, his wife, their children and some young children from relatives. The son has two occupations, farming and construction work. For the latter he spends much time outside the village, and sends money home. After a 4th drought in 5 years Juliana decides with her brother and siblings to sell the land and move away.

The second family is more prosperous. In 1988 Zangi lived with his wife Holo and 7 children, a nephew and a daughter-in-law on a piece of land of around 90 acres. Zangi bought 30 acres in the early 80s because by then they had already four sons; the other 60 acres are inherited from the husband’s parents. The soil was fertile and they had a lot of labor available for agriculture. Besides food crops, the sons grew cotton. They had 26 cows, 4 oxen, and over 40 goats. They harvested enough to sell and the sons earn good money with cotton farming. During the following years the eldest son divorced his wife and married again. Other sons marry. Paying bride prices was not problematic for them; although gradually the number of cows decreased to 10 in 1998. Besides paying bride prices the household sometimes needed to barter a cow for food and also cows died. When the markets are liberalized the sons grew a variety of cash crops: besides cotton they cultivated maize and green gram. Some years later, two other sons left with their wives to different villages in another district to farm. The youngest son became a priest and lived in the nearby town. In 2015 the household is still headed by Zangi and Holo; he had become a traditional healer, he is hardly involved in agriculture anymore and she has a daughter in law and many granddaughters in law to take over her role. The youngest son Mahona lives with his parents and is running the farm, in consultation with his father. Kija, his sister, came back to her parents’ house because Mahona felt that Kija’s husband did not take care of his wife when she was ill. It is over two years that Kija lives at her parents’ home. She contributes to her parents’ household by starting a small trade with dagaa (small dried fish). His brother Mahona is involved in two projects that are implemented in the village: a club raising goats (he is member of this club and the goats reside at his home) and the sisal project. Mahona has grown a field of sisal and is about to get a sisal-fibre processor on a loan. While crop production on the family fields is sufficient for food, all the grown up grandsons are growing cash crops on their fields and investing the money in crop production, buying mobile phones and bicycles. The number of cattle is decreased; more cattle for bride prices are paid than they have received. And not all the bride prices of female relatives have been fully paid yet. They are not thinking about moving to somewhere else, and they continue with crop production as a mere source for their livelihoods.

A complex set of historical, economic, natural and social factors explain these different pathways. I will focus on location of the farm in the village and gender. Zangi’s farm is located in the outskirts of the village, with access to more fertile soils; Maduro’s farm is near the center, and consists of more sandy soils. However, villagization policy of the 70s made farmers to move near the center of the village, also onto some of Maduro’s land. Zengi’s land was not impacted by the villagization policy. Gender comes in at different levels: the bride price tradition dictates that cows are given to the family of the bride. Having daughters means, eventually, getting cattle. Having cattle implies a buffer against times of need, it makes households more resilient. When daughters get divorced they might go temporarily back to their parents, waiting to get married again. Their interest is not directly in the farm of their parents. They hardly inherit land and are rarely involved in decision making regarding farming of their parents. Maduro’s household consisted of divorced daughters, on their way to other households. A gendered division of labour means that girls and boys are differently involved in agriculture, boys are introduced to growing cash crops often, girls less frequently. When adult women have to grow cash crops, they have lesser experiences than men, with a higher risk of lower yields than men. The Maduro household had prepared for the future by encouraging their children and grandchildren to get education. Juliana’s son has diversified his livelihood strategy by looking for jobs outside agriculture as some of his aunts which was facilitated by their education; Mahona is getting involved in agriculture based value chains.

We returned again in 2017 to present the main conclusions of the study and to discuss wealth and poverty trends during the last 25 years in groups of men and women separately. One issue that came out clearly from the discussion with the elder women was the issue of debt. Money has become increasingly important in daily life as the price of goods rose and there were more items to buy. Constructing houses costs increasingly large amounts of money nowadays as do weddings. One source of liquidity are the private money lenders who charge flat rates of 100% interest. Married women are not consulted before their husband takes a loan, they hear afterwards. Yet the burden of repayment also falls on wives, giving them a lot of worries. Women in one discussion group estimated that around 2 to 5% of households were having substantial debts with private money lenders. In the 80s it was quite common that wealthier household would give some of their cattle in lease-lend to less wealthier household to support the latter in their way to make a living. This practice has been increasingly replaced by borrowing money.

Money redefines relations between people. When one has access to substantial amounts of money, the practice of money-lending makes money very productive, facilitating accumulation. Yet it changes internal household dynamics. For example, within households sons can nowadays earn money since pulses have become a lucrative cash crop, some go for cattle trading, they become more independent from their fathers and find it difficult to obey them. Fathers feel they lose control. And therefore not all of the husbands like to see their wives earning money. During the 2017 meeting the men agreed that women had become more dependent on men in the last 25 years.