Abstract
Despite the truth that the agricultural land use planning exercises have so far covered small and fragmented part of the African continent, the involvement of farmers who are among the direct beneficiaries of the outputs have been limited. This work demonstrates the contributions of farmers on the land use planning process for rice production in Kilombero Valley, Tanzania. Analytic hierarchic process (AHP) was used to assign scores of comparative importance of attributes for a suitable land for rice production. Scoring was done by three groups: farmers, extension staff, and joint group comprising both farmers and extension staff. Joint group scores were considered more refined as they were generated by discussions and consensus between the two groups. Results showed that the three groups sequentially ranked the attributes the same. However, the attributes actual scores were different. The farmers’ scores were consistently close to the joint group’s scores compared to the extension staff group. The closeness suggests superiority and consistence of farmers’ perceptions of importance of the identified attributes used for this land use planning exercise. Thus, this study recommends more involvement of farmers in agricultural land use planning process for better and sustainable land use planning outputs. Key words: Kilombero Valley, rice, land use planning, Tanzania, Analytic Hierarchic Process.
Highlights
Involving beneficiaries in the planning process is a way of increasing productivity and sustainability of resource utilization (Birendra et al, 2014; Pendred et al, 2016)
This work demonstrates the contributions of farmers on the land use planning process for rice production in Kilombero Valley, Tanzania
According to the verbal scale definitions (Table 1), the group has sufficient evidence that availability of water and soil fertility status are more important than distance to market for rice production at the highest possible order of affirmation
Summary
Involving beneficiaries in the planning process is a way of increasing productivity and sustainability of resource utilization (Birendra et al, 2014; Pendred et al, 2016). Open and adequate involvement of beneficiaries minimize conflicts, provide in-built controls and incentives for decisions implementations, and provide policy alternatives that are more acceptable to the community (Wright, 1997; Herath, 2004). African small holder farmers have been at a receiving end of many decisions regarding land management practices.
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