Abstract

This study explores the intergenerational challenges facing agriculture and rural livelihoods in Tanzania. A majority of the Tanzanian population is rural and depends on agriculture for their livelihoods. However, agriculture in Sub Sahara Africa currently face several challenges, and this study specifically investigate challenges related to youth and elderly in Tanzania. Related to youth is the debate on youth as the future farmers, while research from Sub Sahara Africa point on youth’s aspiration of a modern urban life and rising youth unemployment rates. Furthermore, youth’s engagement in agriculture is restrained by limited access to land and capital. Over the past decades, East Africa has seen a positive development of life expectancy rates. People live longer, however farming without access to modern technology is labour intensive and perhaps not a feasible option for the older ones. Related to elderly is the AIDS epidemic which has hollowed the middle generation and resulted in a large number of orphans usually cared for by the older generation. While intergenerational connections and interdependence have a long tradition in Sub Sahara Africa, concerns of youth employment, agricultural intensification, formal security network and access to land and credits need to be addressed to create a foundation for sustainable rural livelihood intensification which could meet the demands of a growing population. This study is a literature review within the AgriFoSe 2030 and a one month visit to Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro and The Institute of Resource Assessment at the University of Dar es Salaam was carried out in February 2018.

Keywords

livelihoods; Tanzania; agriculture

Published in

AgriFoSe2030 Report
2019, number: 15
eISBN: 978-91-576-9666-3
Publisher: SLU Global, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/103608