The Sukuma live mainly in northwestern Tanzania and engage in both farming and livestock rearing. In the 1970s, some of them began to migrate southwards in search of grazing land. This paper examines characteristics of the economic activity of the Sukuma, who have settled on the shore of Lake Rukwa, in southwestern Tanzania. Their economic activity has features in common with other East African peasant economies, in that it aims to achieve stable self-sustenance, relying primarily on family labor, and in that people started to commercialize their farming and also venture into non-agricultural activities. However, the Sukuma’s activity was also unique in several respects. First, they migrated into a vast, swampy land, which had not before been utilized, and they engage in large-scale farming there. Their livestock enabled them to both migrate and farm, as they needed. Second, the basic unit of their large-scale production efforts was the household, a feature that has been formed by characteristics of the pastoral society. The larger these households were, the more labor they were able to employ, and therefore the higher their production. Consequently, it was possible for a household to invest a relatively large amount into non-agricultural activities. They also faced difficulties maintaining traditional cattle rearing practices, which translated into economic problems.
View full abstract