Challenging Nature – Local Knowledge, Agroscience, and Food Security in Tanga region, Tanzania: 246 (University of Chicago Geography Research Papers) - Hardcover

Porter, Philip W

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226675807 ISBN 13: 9780226675800

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2006

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Philip W. Porter is emeritus professor of geography at the University of Minnesota.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226675807
• ISBN 13: 9780226675800
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288