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Mr. A. Ezekiel, affected farmer and livestock keeper
Mr. Ezekiel is a 52 years old farmers and livestock keeper living in
buchanchari village, Serengheti DC (Mara region). He has 18 child
and three wives, who all depend on his farmland and animal production
as main sources of livelihood. Mr. Ezekiel is usually a “better off”
farmer since he owned about 12 acres of land, 13 cows, 6 calves,
7 goats, and many chickens, which allow him to produce a good amount
of food and income to support his household. However, the heavy rain
of last year, occurred around the end of November 2015, have heavily
affected Mr. Ezekiel agricultural land and all 12 acres planted with
maize were entirely destroyed.
In fact, the water has taken long time to recede and the maize, still at
the beginning of the vegetative stage, could not survive into the flooded
soil. According to him, the maize could have produced over 200 bags
if reaching maturity, resulting in approximately 2 tons of production.
Sadly, this agricultural season, due the flood, Mr. Ezekiel will not be
able to produce a single bag of maize and his main source of food and
livelihood is entirely lost.
“This is a very unfortunate event, I have cropped this land for the
past 20 years and I have never experienced such lost. Now, I am in real
trouble. I have to sell at least 5 to 6 adult cows to buy the necessary
food and despite this, I will not have enough cash to pay for the school
fees of my children”.
Picture 3: Drowned pigs
FGDs’ results revealed that among the households rearing livestock only a small percentage
vaccine them. This is due to the high prices, poor knowledge on the importance of animal
vaccination and low accessibility to vaccines. Nonetheless, the livestock owners who are
using vaccines, are directly purchasing them or accessing them through the government at
subsidized price.
Fishery activities were reported only by 5 percent of households as a third source of income
in Mwanza and Mara regions. In addition, only in one district of Mara region were reported
some losses and damages on fishing gears, nets and hooks, as well as damages to boats /
canoes, landing sites and fish shades to a negligible extent.
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3.2.4.
Markets and prices
Markets infrastructures such as stand and storage facilities were overall not affected by the
floods. Despite that, some remote areas across all six regions were isolated due to the
interruption and damages of feeder and secondary roads which reduced accessibility to
market and inhibited the transport of goods. While in most affected areas the road
communication has already been restored, transportation costs have increased in all the
assessed areas.
This situation, coupled with the reduced crop production and the higher demand of food
commodities led to a significant increase of market prices for almost all agricultural
commodities, especially sorghum, cassava, maize and millet, which are considered key staple
food commodities as indicated in
Figure 8
. The analysis conducted compared current prices
with both the prices before the floods (September / October 2015) and those of last year
during the same period (February 2015). Exceptions were found for green gram and
vegetables commodities as most of them were already harvested when the floods occurred
resulting in reduced losses and higher availability in the market.
Figure 8: Variation of market prices (crop commodities)
On the other hand, two different scenarios of market prices for live animal were observed. In
some districts / municipalities of Mara, Morogoro, Arusha, Mwanza and Shinyanga namely,
Bunda, Kilosa, Meru, Mvomero, Sengerema, Shinyanga, most of the prices increased as no
destocking activities were taking place, especially for pigs and cattle, see
Figure 9
.
Figure 9: Variation of live animal prices in areas without destocking
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In other affected districts of Dodoma and Mwanza namely Chamwino and Kwimba, the
prices for live animals have decreased as emergency destocking was taking place in those
areas, see
Figure 10
. FGDs’ respondents, reported that animal destocking is necessary in order
to generate immediate cash to access food and / or cover additional expenses (school fees,
health related costs, etc.), due to the failure of their crop production, which generally
generates most of their income. Destocking is a clear sign of an ongoing depletion of assets
that in long run might have repercussion on the livelihoods of those households engaging in
this type of copying mechanism.
Figure 10: Variation of live animal prices in areas of destocking
3.2.5.
Main source of income
Crop production, livestock keeping and agriculture daily labour are considered the first,
second and third most important sources of income respectively. Whereas, non-agriculture
daily labour was reported only in Arusha and Morogoro and fishing in Mwanza and Mara
regions which border Lake Victoria, see
Figure 11
.
Figure 11: Main income sources