MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, LIVESTOCK AND NATURAL RESOURCES

ZANZIBAR CASH CROPS FARMING SYSTEMS PROJECT (ZCCFSP)

WORKING PAPER No.: WP 95/22

AUGUST 1995

THE DEVELOPMENT OF ORANGES

AS A CASH CROP
IN NDIJANI, UNGUJA

BY: Abdallah Kombo

Soud Hemed
Peter Oldham
Martin Walsh (ed)

ZCCFSP
P.O.BOX 2283
Zanzibar

Telephone / fax: (054) 33121

CONTENTS

Page
Preface ii
Introduction: Purpose of the Study 1
Research Methods 3
Sweet Oranges: Origin and Introduction 4
Research during the Colonial Period 4
Sweet Orange Varieties in Ndijani 6
The Expansion of Production in Ndijani 7
Farmer Case Studies 8
The Availability of Land 12
Land Improvement 14
The Availability of Labour 16
Social and Economic Differentiation 18
Large and small Farmers 18
Squatters and Agricultural Labourers 20
Gender Differentiation 21
The Evolution of the Marketing System 22
Leasing Arrangements 23
Sale to Middlemen 23
Sale Direct to the Market 24
The Rotating Marketing System 25
Conclusion: Lesson Learned from the Study 27
References 29
PREFACE

This is one of a series of five cash crop case studies undertaken by the socio-
economics section of ZCCFSP in Zanzibar. The main aim of these studies is
to analyse the different factors which have led to local cash crop
development, with a view to forming policy recommendations and devising
practical interventions which might further facilitate and promote this kind of
development in the future. We hope that the lessons which are drawn from
these studies will be of relevance to the Ministry as a whole, and not just to
projects like ZCCFSP whose primary interest is in encouraging sustainable
cash crop production and marketing.

The present study examines the development of sweet orange production in

Ndijani, in central Unguja. It is based upon fieldwork and library research
carried out by the staff of the socio-economics section of ZCCFSP on Unguja.
Here we would like to take the opportunity to thank all of the farmers in Ndijani
who discussed the history of sweet orange production with us, as well as
colleagues in ZCCFSP Unguja who provided additional background
information on Ndijani and its environs.

Martin Walsh (ed)

Socio-economics Section
ZCCFSP Pemba

Wete, August 1995

Other titles in this series:

The Development of Turmeric as a Cash Crop in Mwambe, Pemba
(WP 95/23)
The Development of Sweet Potatoes as a Cash Crop in Makangale,
Pemba (WP 95/24)
The Development of Pineapples as a Cash Crop in Machui, Unguja
(WP 95/25)
The Development of Mangoes as a Cahs Crop in Muyuni, Unguja
(WD 95/26)
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ORANGES AS A CASH CROP
IN NDIJANI, UNGUJA

Introduction: Purpose of the Study

1. One of the principal objectives of ZCCFSP is to foster the development

of cash crop production and marketing in Zanzibar and to enhance the
capacity of farmers, traders, and government to participate effectively
in this development. The history of government-directed efforts to
promote cash crop diversification in Zanzibar has not always been a
happy one. Agricultural research and extension have more often than
not followed the top-down model, where researchers and policy-
makers decide what is good for farmers and extensionists impose it
upon them with a minimum of consultation and consideration for what
farmers themselves might think. As long as clove production
dominated the economy of Zanzibar the recurrement failure of this
approach seemed to make relatively little difference. The recent and
drastic decline in clove prices, however, has given agricultural
diversification a new urgency. The adoption and dissemination of a
participatory approach to research and extension has been a key
feature of ZCCFSP’s response to this situation, and the present study
(one of a series) was conceived in this light, and not as an academic
exercise.
2. If participatory research and extension are to be effective it is essential
for researchers and extensionists to understand how farmers and
traders think and act and why they do so. The traditional approach to
this question, however, is to ignore it until it starts to have a negative
impact upon project or programme objectives (when farmers’ and
traders’ actions do not match expectations) and it is often too late to do
anything about it (especially if a lot of time and resources have already
been expended in reaching this point). Zanzibar provides a good
example of this: before ZCCFSP began work (in November 1991)
almost nothing had been written about farming and marketing practices
 on the islands aside from the little that could be gleaned from the
results of questionnaire-based surveys. Agricultural projects and
programmes were therefore devised and implemented in a virtual void,
filled only by the assumptions of planners and the incomplete or
informal knowledge of implementers about the indigenous practices
relevant to these.
3. As ZCCFSP’s own experience has shown, developing and
institutionalising an alternative approach is not something that can be
done overnight. The orthodox model of cash crop diversification and
development is, as might be expected, crop-oriented and often focuses
upon the introduction of new germplasm (new at least to a particular
group of farmers and/or a particular location). The basic method is
simple: it is the researchers’ task to find a crop or variety which has a
promising market, and then to work on ways to introduce it, expand
production and ensure that it reaches the market. It is also an old
method, and one which was employed extensively during the colonial
period. In some cases it succeeds, and a number of the crops being
sold in Zanzibar’s markets are improved varieties which were
introduced through the agricultural research station at Kizimbani.
However, many of them were not developed in this way, and the
records of MALNR are replete with time-consuming and expensive
failures, of introduced crops and varieties which have all but sunk into
oblivion.
4. ZCCFSP has continued to work with this model, albeit with a number of
important refinements. These include an emphasis upon on-farm trials,
careful assessments of export markets, and of the potential for
expanding production in terms of what is known about the land
available and the likelihood that farmers’ will grow the crop or switch to
the new variety in the first place. To the extent that this work is
conducted participatively with farmers and traders, it might be thought
of as a compromise between old and new approaches. It is not,
however, entirely free from the problems which afflict the inherited
mode. On-farm trials in a range of crops and varieties on both Unguja
and Pemba have been abandoned following their failure for one reason
 or another, and while important lessons have been learned in this
process, it is quite likely that similar failures will occur in the future, in
other MALNR projects which operate with this model as well as
ZCCFSP.
5. The present study of the development of oranges as a cash crop in
Ndijani, in central Unguja, is one of a series designed to address this
problem. These approach the issue of cash crop development from a
quite different angle, by looking in detail at selected crops which have
already become important commodities without any direct input at all
from government researchers and extensionists, and in some cases in
spite of their efforts.
6. The philosophy behind this approach to the problem is quite
straightforward. Rural Zanzibar comprises more than 100,000 farm
households, most of them with two or more members involved (in
varying degrees) in farming and (to a lesser extent) in the sale of farm
produce. Every year they make innumerable decisions about the
cultivation and harvesting of a wide variety of farm plots, including
major decisions about what to plant, what to sell, and how. In so far as
they are striving to solve agricultural problems (as a means to meet the
requirements of domestic survival and subsistence), they are
conducting agricultural research. From this point of view the number of
formal experiments which government researchers can undertake
pales into insignificance. And while the proportion of farmers’
experiments which have an uninteresting design or result might seem
inordinately high to a formal researcher, the cumulative effects of
farmers’ research can be very impressive, and have consequences
which many government researchers and extensionists can only dream
of. In short, a lot can be learned from looking at what farmers (and
traders) are already doing.
7. By looking at past and present examples of successful cash crop
development it is possible to examine and assess the contribution of a
wide range of factors in each case. This is rather more difficult to do
when retrospectively analysing the failure of on-farm trials, especially
when they have failed at an early stage. Although it may be possible to
 isolate the cause or causes of failure, there is no guarantee that this
will suggest ways in which these and other constraints may be
overcome, including constraints which emerge at a later stage of
development. For example, if a trial fails before a crop is harvested,
then there is obviously nothing which can be learned from this about
marketing. The study of ‘real-life’ cases, however, offers a lot more
information and should make it possible to provide much clearer
guidelines to researchers who are experimenting with crops, varieties,
and techniques which have not been known to farmers before. It also
makes it easier to assess the viability of crops, especially tree crops,
which cannot be developed in a short period of time (for example within
the life-cycle of a project) and provides some perspective on the length
of time which the development of any cash crop might reasonably be
expected to take.
8. By comparing a series of similar studies common patterns should
emerge, and this has already begun to happen in the case of the
ZCCFSP studies. The most important application of this is in the
design of more appropriate strategies for fostering the development of
cash crop production and marketing, as well as in predicting what
some of its impacts might be upon different sectors of the farming and
trading community. Readers of this report are asked to consider
carefully what they think the implications of it might be, and what kinds
of intervention might be effective in replicating the kind of development
which has taken place in Ndijani, or how it might be improved upon. In
the final section below we discuss some of the lessons which we think
emerge from this study. This should not, however, be taken as the
final word on the matter, and in a future report we will present an
expanded comparison of all of the case studies and their implications,
which would no doubt benefit from any constructive comment and
criticism which is supplied to us in the interim.
Research Methods
9. This study is based primarily upon fieldwork undertaken in Ndijani by
the socio-economics sections section of ZCCFSP Unguja in December
1994 and January 1995. Ndijani is located in central Unguja on and to
the south of the Zanzibar-Chwaka road, to the east and south-east of
Dunga. It comprises a collection of hamlets straddling two distinct
types of land. The original settlement of Ndijani is sited on old
plantation land, while many of its newer satellites are on the
neighbouring uwanda or semi-coral rag land. Administratively Ndijani
forms a single shehia (formerly CCM branch) within Chwaka
constituency (jimbo) in Unguja’s Central district. In this report the
name Ndijani is applied rather more loosely to include the neighbouring
shehia of Binguni, which is also a source of ‘Ndijani’ oranges. Ndijani
was selected as the location of this study because of the fame of its
sweet oranges in Zanzibar town market and the fact that it is the
primary orange-producing area on Unguja.
10. A checklist of research questions was drawn up prior to conducting
informal interviews with farmers in the field. After a preliminary round
of group interviews the checklist was expanded and refined and then
used as the basis for interviewing sixteen individual orange growers in
the Ndijani area. The results of this work were written up in the form of
interview notes (retained on file in the ZCCFSP Unguja office) and
subjected to initial analysis by the socio-economics section in early
1995. Further information on orange production and marketing was
collected in the course of a study of Ndijani (Mseweni) Farmers’
Research Group (FRG) conducted by a multidisciplinary team of
researchers (from ZCCFSP and other MALNR departments) in May
1995. This study provided a much more detailed overview of the
farming system as a whole and its development over time, and the
relevant results (which have been written up in a separate report) have
been incorporated into the present study.
11. A brief literature review has provided additional background data on
sweet oranges and their production in Unguja. No attempt has been
made, however, to make a thorough search of the archives or interview
 other key informants either within or outside of MALNR. The full history
of orange production and marketing on Unguja therefore remains to be
written, as indeed it does for most other crops on the island.
12. In writing the report we have tried to highlight the main stages in the
development of oranges as a cash crop in Ndijani, singling out the
principal factors which have contributed towards it. The logic behind
this form of presentation has already been outlined in the introduction
above. Again, we invite anyone with additional information an/or
alternative interpretations to share them with us, and so add to the
potential value of our research.

Sweet Oranges: Origin and Introduction

13. The sweet orange, Citrus sinesis, originated in southern China or
thereabouts, apparently as a hybrid between the mandarin (Citrus
reticulata) and the pummelo or shaddock (Citrus grandis, syn.
C.maxima). A number of Citrus species, including the sweet orange,
are believed to have reached the Arabian peninsula more than two
thousand years ago, and its first appearance in East Africa could
conceivably date from the same period. The likely etymology of the
Swahili name of the tree (mchungwa) and its fruit (chungwa) suggests
that a bitter-tasting Citrus species was introduced first. Whatever the
case, the sweet orange has been cultivated on the Swahili-speaking
coast for at least the past 500 years. Ibn Battuta found oranges, of
unspecified sweetness, growing in Mombasa in 1331, while the first
Portugese visitors in 1498 marvelled at the “fine oranges, better than
those of Portugal” which were the main cargo of a small boat they met
in the Pemba Channel. These were presumably botanical sweet
oranges, which had only recently become known in their home country
following their reintroduction to Europe circa 1425 (sweet oranges had
been grown by the Romans but were apparently lost after the fall of the
Roman Empire).
14. The subsequent history of sweet orange production in Zanzibar, prior
to the establishment of the British Protectorate, is obscure. It appears
to have been a relatively minor crop which nonetheless always found a
 ready local market, especially in the towns and on visiting ships. Older
people in Ndijani can only say that oranges were introduced there more
than a hundred years ago, and that they were being sold in Chwaka,
Uroa, Bambi and even Zanzibar town for as long as they can
remember (since at least the 1930s when our oldest informants were in
school).

Research during the colonial Period

15. Rather more information is available on sweet orange production
during the period of British rule, and especially on the research
undertaken by the Agricultural Department. The Annual Report of the
Agricultural Department for 1902 records that a (?) European plantation
owner at Mtoni had imported and planted oranges from Spain and
Portugal, though it is not stated whether these were ‘Valencia’ and/or
other cultivars. Presumably this landowner was not alone in
experimenting with imported varieties. However, there is little evidence
to suggest that plantation owners’ experiments had any long-lasting
impact upon the production and marketing of sweet oranges, especially
that already being undertaken by smallholders. The only exception to
this is the local cultivar called ‘Binti Juma’, which is said to have
originated on an Arab estate at Kwambani (Binti Juma being the owner
of the estate and mother of Seyyid Hafidh bin Muhammed el Busaidi).
The fruits of ‘Binti Juma’ bear a close resemblance to those of the
commercial cultivar ‘Washington Navel’ (which probably originated
from a bud mutation in Brazil in the early nineteenth century),
suggesting that it was originally an importation rather than a local
mutation.
16. The Agricultural Department itself did not begin serious work on sweet
oranges and other Cirtus species until more than a quarter of a century
after this early report. In November 1928 a number of young Citrus
trees were imported from Sough Africa and planted on research plots
at Kinooni and Dunga. These included eight varieties of sweet orange:
‘Du Roi’, ‘Jaffa’, ‘Joppa’, ‘Lue Gim Gong’, ‘Mediterranean Sweet’,
‘Pineapple’, ‘Valencia’, and ‘Washington Navel’. Rough lemon (Citrus
 jambhiri) rootstocks were found to be superior to sour orange (Citrus
aurantium) stocks for budding. In 1933 it was reported that ‘Pineapple’
and ‘Valencia’ had yielded well at Dunga, but that the fruits were not as
sweet as those of local orange varieties. Research on sweet orange
varieties continued at the new Kizimbani Experimental Station after
work at Kinooni and Dunga was discontinued. In 1934 at least four
varieties were being grown in the orchard: ‘Binti Juma’, ‘Joppa’,
Mediterranean Sweet’ and ‘Washington Navel’.
17. By 1936 it had become evident that the local varieties of oranges were
superior to the imports. Research was therefore begun at Kizimbani
into the indigenous cultivars, and selected local scions were budded on
rough lemon rootstocks in a trial plot. In 1945 the fruits from these, as
well as from budded trees at Selem Government Plantation, were
subjected to detailed examination. Testing of quality for flavour, size
and shape of fruit, number of seeds per fruit, thickness and colour of
skin, and juiciness continued in the following year, but seasonal
variation produced conflicting results. Although budding appears to
have continued, systematic research into fruit quality seems to have
been abandoned without being brought to any definite conclusion.
18. In addition to the search for better varieties, the Agricultural
Department conducted research into other aspects of orange
production and processing during this period. This included work on
pests and diseases, the use of fertilisers, and the artificial colouring of
fruits to give them a more attractive appearance. By 1939 it had
become stated government policy to establish the international export
of oranges. Needless to say, none of the research undertaken by the
Agricultural Department brought this objective any nearer to realisation
than it already was. The production and marketing of local seedling
varieties remained largely unaffected by this research. In 1949 the
Director of Agriculture noted that these oranges had a long-standing
reputation for quality in the nearby mainland markets, and were already
a cash crop of some importance.
19. Nonetheless, this early research had had some influence upon more
recent developments. Budded trees were already being sold at
 subsidised prices to farmers by the late 1940s. This supply has
continued through to the present, and one variety in particular forms an
important component in the orange-growing industry of Ndijani, though
it is still less important than the indigenous seedling.

Sweet Orange Varieties in Ndijani

20. Three main types of sweet orange are cultivated in Ndijani. These are
(a) ‘Original Ndijani’, Ndijani asili, a true cultivar which is grown from
seed; (b) ‘Budded Ndijani’, which is budded in the Forestry
Department nursery in Ndijani using an ‘Original Ndijani’ scion and
rough lemon rootstock; and (c) ‘Budded Binti Juma’, also called
Mpemba, which is said to derive (or to have originally been derived)
from Kizimbani and to be propagated using a ‘Binti Juma’ scion and
rough lemon rootstock. There is, however, some uncertainty among
informants on the propagative origin of the two budded types and it
may well be that their history is often more mixed than this account
implies. The characteristics of ‘Original Ndijani’ and the early fame of
sweet oranges on the East African coast strongly suggest that it has
developed directly out of the old local varieties.
21. The typical characteristics of the three recognised types are more
certain than their origins. ‘Original Ndijani’ is preferred by most farmers
despite the fact that it is a thorny tree and the fruit therefore difficult to
harvest. Its favourable characteristics are reported to be (i) the ease
with which it can be propagated (at zero cost); ((ii) good yields; (iii) the
fact that fruits can be left on the tree for some time after they mature
without any decline in quality and with less damage from pests than
other varieties (which favours delayed marketing strategies); and (iv)
the attractiveness of the fruit to customers in terms of its average size,
yellow peel colour, and especially its sweetness and juiciness. These
last two characteristics override the fact that the fruit contains more
seeds than any of the budded oranges.
22. While the fruit of ‘Budded Ndijani’ does not match up to that of ‘Original
Ndijani’ and the tree is equally thorny it has other advantages: (i) the
rootstock makes it more resistant to disease and drought; (ii) the tree
 matures early; and (iii) it produces the highest yields, bearing fruit
which are larger than ‘Original Ndijani’. High yield is its most favoured
characteristic, and individual trees are reported to produce up to 20
basket-worth of fruit per season (around 3,000 oranges calculated on
an average of 150 per susu).
23. By comparison ‘Budded Binti Juma’ has relatively little in her favour.
Although the trees are thornless and the fruits large and seedless they
contain very little juice and sometimes none at all when overripe. As a
result the market demand is minimal. It is ironic that this offspring of a
‘commercial’ cultivar (assuming that ‘Binti Juma’ is ‘Washington Navel’
or something very close to it) should be the least successful. It is
common knowledge that ‘Washington Navel’ produces very large fruits
in wet climates, and presumably no one would attempt such an
introduction now in a place with conditions similar to those of Zanzibar.
24. The principal factor in the local demand for sweet oranges is clearly
juiciness and taste, and in this respect ‘Original Ndijani’ comes out well
on top. Many and probably most of the oranges sold in the local and
town markets and roadside stalls are sucked by consumers after being
skilfully peeled and sliced in half with a knife. The pips in the oranges
are a minor inconvenience for these consumers and are readily spat
out.

The Expansion of Production in Ndijani

25. It seems that prior to the Zanzibar Revolution in 1964 oranges were
grown in and traded from Ndijani, but only on a small scale. In this
respect oranges were no different from many other tree crops,
including mangoes, which were planted in small numbers around
homes in the plantation area, providing fresh fruit for domestic
consumption and a useful source of seasonal and in most cases petty
income for the farmers who had enough oranges to sell and wanted to
do so. A relatively small number of farmers probably earned more
income from buying and trading oranges further afield. This, at least, is
the pattern still found throughout most of the plantation areas of both
Unguja and Pemba, and all the indications are that Ndijani was once
 not much different. Certainly sweet oranges were not the major cash
crop which they have since become. Local farmers derived the main
part of their income from coconuts and cloves and/or working on the
larger plantations of these.
26. Some informants stated that Ndijani became famous for its oranges
just after the 1964 Revolution, though the production histories we
collected suggest that significant expansion did not take place quite so
soon after this major transformation in the political and social economy
of Zanzibar. In the absence of more detailed information about
orange-growing in this period, we can only guess at what may have
happened. The flight and eviction of most large landowners, the
nationalisation of their land and its redistribution to squatters, farm
labourers and other had far-reaching consequences for smallholder
production, creating a whole new set of agricultural opportunities for
farmers once they had oriented themselves to the changed social and
economic environment. At the same time the Revolution and the
redistribution of wealth which it engendered seems to have had a
considerable impact upon the Zanzibar town market. No doubt many
trading links were severed in this process. It also appears, however,
that new opportunities emerged as a different class of urban
consumers came to the fore. Precisely what effects this may have had
upon the demand for Ndijani oranges is not clear, but it can be
presumed to have had some.
27. Individual case histories indicate that orange production began to
expand significantly in Ndijani in the early 1970s. By 1975 large
numbers of farmers had entered into production, many of them planting
trees in large numbers, and oranges had become the most important
economic crop in the Ndijani area. Thereafter production appears to
have expanded steadily year by year, as existing growers continued to
plant oranges and others, including young and newly-independent
farmers, established their own farms. At the same time some farmers
discontinued planting, especially those who were unable to obtain more
land on which to expand production. Nonetheless the overall trend has
been one of expansion, though there are some signs that this trend
 may be abating with the recent emergence of fears that the market
may be reaching saturation point.
28. This quarter-century history of increasing production can be attribute to
a number of factors. These include (a) population growth in Ndijani
and the need for farmers, especially first-time farmers, to open up new
land; (b) the availability of this land on the previously underexploited
uwanda bordering the original centres of settlement on plantation land;
(c) the evolution of an efficient mixed farming system on the uwanda
which increases its fertility through extensive manuring; (d) the
availability of agricultural labour , in the form of a large local population
of mainlanders, able to sustain this development; (e) the decline in
income from other sources, both on-farm and off-farm, which has
pushed farmers into developing alternative cash crops; (f) the
agronomic suitability of orange trees for this purpose, including their
adaptability to a mixed farming system on uwanda soils; (g) the
presence of a good local cultivar and the availability of budded trees,
all of which farmers (or at least some farmers) were familiar with; (h)
the existence of a well established market for Ndijani oranges and the
experience of some farmers in marketing them; (i) the capacity of this
market to expand considerably (which it clearly has, though we can
only speculate on the evolving relationship between supply and
demand in this case); and (j) the development of new marketing
strategies by orange growers and traders to match this expansion.
29. This is a long list, and other factors might be added (for example the
improvement of transport links between Ndijani and Zanzibar town).
Clearly these have not all contributed equally to the development of
oranges as a cash crop, and some of them belong to quite different
causal categories. In later sections we will examine a number of these
factors in more detail, and attempt to pinpoint the most important in the
concluding section. First, however, we will present a series of
individual case histories which illustrate the expansion of production
and development of marketing strategies in more detail and provide a
starting point for the analysis which follows.
Farmer Case Studies
30. The following individual case studies are abstracted from our field
notes, and presented in sequence according to the year in which each
farmer started to grow oranges. All of the farmers interviewed were
men, reflecting the fact that women play very little direct role in the
production and marketing of oranges in Ndijani, except as farm
labourers. The figures they quoted are not always exact, but should be
treated as estimates or approximations. This is particularly so in the
case of large numbers of orange trees, and likewise in the
measurement of farm acreages.

1971
Farmer A, currently living at Ndijani Kwa Baniani. Originally he grew
maize, tomatoes and pumpkins as his main cash crops. He started to
grow oranges in 1971. In this year he planted a total of 40 trees, 37
‘Original Ndijani’ from seed and the remaining 3 ‘Budded Ndijani’. In 1981
he planted another 25 trees on a different farm in Ndijani, but was unable
to grow more because of he had insufficient land on which to do so. In
1985 he was given a plot by his father and so planted a further 25 trees.
He therefore has a total of 90 trees and in 1995 was planning to plant 40
more ‘Original Ndijani’ from seed. Oranges are now his main cash crop,
and are intercropped with coconuts. He does not know who organises the
rotating marketing system and does not take part in it. He usually picks all
his own fruit even if the prices are low. Sometimes he leases out the
harvest to middlemen from the village. He reckons that 3 masusu of fruits
per tree can be lost because of damage caused by bugs.

1973
Farmer B, Binguni. He originally lived and farmed on family land in Ndijani
village, before purchasing a farm about a mile away in Binguni so that he
had greater freedom to plan his own agricultural activities. He bought 13
acres of land for Tshs 750, and paid an additional Tshs 250 to obtain the
relevant documentation. In 1973 he planted 100 orange trees on this land,
planting a further 180 in 1975, 250 in 1985, and 300 more trees in 1990
300 trees. All of the 830 trees he has planted were the ‘Original Ndijani’
variety grown from seedlings, and he financed each stage of this
expansion with his income from orange sales. He stopped planting
oranges in 1990 because of the low price which was then being offered in
Zanzibar market. He fear that continued planting by many other farmers
will result in an oversupply of fruits and cause a drastic fall in prices,
possibly in 3-5 years’ time. In response to this prediction he has begun to
plant ‘Boribo’ mangoes and coconuts instead of oranges, noting that the
markets for mangoes and copra provide much better future prospects. He
has heard about the rotating marketing system which operates in Ndijani
and Binguni villages, but notes that farmers in other areas are not
interested in it: he does not participate in it himself or know who organises
it. Instead he prefers to picks his oranges as soon as they are mature and
thinks that there is no point in leaving them unpicked on the tree while
waiting for higher prices on the market. Instead he thinks that orange
prices should be set by a commission of farmers with advice from the
government, and that price information should e broadcast on the radio. In
his view a reasonable price would be Tshs. 1,000-1,500 per susu in the
peak of the orange season and Tshs 3,000-3,500 per susu when oranges
are in short supply (more or less the same as the current price). He says
that about 2-3 mausu per tree can be lost from bugs, the rotting of fruit,
and theft.

1975
Farmer C, Ndijani Uwandani. In the mid-1960s he and an Arab friend
worked together as orange middlemen, buying the picked fruits from local
farmers and selling them in Zanzibar town. In early 1975 they started to
lease orange trees for the harvest season from their owners, picking the
fruits themselves before trading them. Sometimes tree owners went back
on their verbal contracts, claiming to have agreed to lease out fewer trees
than they actually had (for example 10 trees instead of the 14 originally
promised). Frustrated by this he decided to grow his own oranges, and
later in 1975 bought 2 acres of land at a cost of Tshs 600 for this purpose.
He started out with a very small number of trees, 10-20 in all, planted in
both masika and vuli. Now he has 120-150 mature trees. One tree can
produce 10-12 masusu of oranges per season, one or two of which may
be lost as a result of pests, the rotting of fruit, and theft. He says that the
current rotating marketing system was introduced in Ndijani and Binguni
villages. He follows the system and waits for his turn to sell, but does not
do this to get a better price, just to conform. In his opinion the future of the
orange market is uncertain, and he thinks that ‘Boribo Muyuni’ mangoes
should now be grown on the uwanda instead of oranges. He also
suggests that the government should establish a multipurpose processing
plant to absorb the increasing supply of oranges and other fruits.

Farmer D, Binguni / Uwanja wa Ndege. He has access to 8 acres of

family and private land. He began to grow oranges in 1975 by planting
300 trees, a mixture of ‘Original Ndijani’ and ‘Budded Ndijani’. Between
1985 and 1990 he planted 350 of the same, and another 500 between
1990 and 1994, making a grand total of 1,150 trees. He has expanded
orange cultivation to increase the profits he makes from sale of the fruit.
Although he knows about the rotating marketing system he prefers to sell
to middlemen who come from town and pay what he thinks is the
reasonable price of Tshs 10-15 per fruit. Because he sells to middlemen
he is not worried about supply to the market. He picks the fruit himself as
soon as they are mature because if they are left for longer on the tree will
not grow well before the next season. Each tree produces around 10-15
masusu of oranges per season, while 3-4 masusu per tree are lost
because of pests and diseases and theft.

Farmer E, Ndijani Mseweni / Congo. He started to grow orange trees in

1975 because by then oranges had become the most important economic
crop in the village. Over a period of eight years he planted 70 trees every
other year: in 1975 (a mixture of all three types), 1977 (50 ‘Original Ndijani’
and 20 ‘Budded Ndijani’), 1979 (all three varieties), 1981 (all ‘Original
Ndijani’), and finally in 1983 (variety unspecified), making a total of 350
trees. He did not plant any more after 1983 because he had no more land
on which to do so. In the valley areas he loses 4-5 masusu of oranges per
tree each season because of the damage caused by bugs: sometimes all
the fruits on a tree are lost. In addition to this 1-2 masusu of fruit per tree
may be lost from rotting.

Farmer F, Ndijani Mtakuja. He turned to orange farming because his

salary from paid employment was insufficient. He bought 3 acres of land
for Tshs 1,500 and planted 100 orange trees on it in 1975 (a mixture of
varieties). In 1976 he planted 50 more, and between 1977 and 1980 150
trees, making a total of 300. About 60% of these were budded tres, the
remaining 40% ‘Original Ndijani’. He stopped planting on this farm after
1980 because he had no more land on which to expand production.
These oranges are intercropped with jackfruit, coconut, mangoes and
miembe ya kizungu (Golden Apple, Spondias cythera) and cover about
70% of the total cultivated area. In 1989 he was able to start another
orange farm in Dunga which now has about 200 trees, all of them ‘Original
Ndijani’. In all he therefore owns a total of about 500 trees. He was one of
the first participants in the rotating marketing system, in the northernmost
of the three zones which comprise it. When the market is flooded with
oranges he has to delay picking his fruits. As a result about 30% of them
fall to the ground, and they are then collected by his children and sold by
them at the roadside. The fruits which remain on the trees are harvested
and sold in Zanzibar town at the end of the season. He reckons that 3-4
masusu of oranges per tree can be lost, and all of the fruit if the tree is
invaded by bugs.

1977
Farmer G, Ndijani Mseweni / Congo. According to him there were no
oranges (mature trees) in this area in 1975. He started to grow oranges in
1977, planting 50 trees in masika and another 75 orange trees, followed
by 200 (all ‘Original Ndijani’) in 1990, and 100 trees in 1991. He now has
a total of some 675 orange trees. He estimates that 80% of these are
‘Original Ndijani’, 15% ‘Budded Ndijani’, and the remaining 5% ‘Budded
Binti Juma’ (if it is true that he planted 50 of these in 1980 this last figure
should be 8% or higher). Only 20% of the total are budded because they
have always cost more than Ndijani seedlings, and are more difficult to
obtain. He picks and sells all of his oranges (though he did not specify
how). During masika and especially at the end of the rains he may lose up
to 15 masusu of oranges because of bugs (mabungu), and the equivalent
of one susu of fruit because of poor picking practices (when the picker in
the tree throws fruit down to an assistant who does not always catch
them). He has not experienced any problem with crop theft.

1978
Farmer H, Ndijani Mseweni / Congo. Like Farmer G, he says that there
were no orange trees in this area in 1975. In 1978 he planted 35 ‘Original
Ndijani’ seedlings which he obtained from the Forestry Department
nursery in Ndijani. In 1980 he planted a further 20 trees. He did not plant
any more after this because he had no more land on which he could do so.
If he can raise the capital from orange sales or other business activities he
will buy land on which to plant orange trees.

1982
Farmer J, Binguni. In 1982 he planted 100 orange seedlings, obtained
from the government nursery at Machui, together with 40 coconuts. In
1984 he raised his own orange seedlings and planted 40-50 on his farm.
Thereafter he expanded production as follows: 1986, 30-40 trees; 1988,
30 trees; 1990, 30 trees; (plus 5 tangerine trees) 1991, 30-45 trees; (plus
20 tangerine and 10 jackfruit trees) 1992, 42-50 trees; and 1993, 40-50
trees. He now has a total of about 370 orange trees and plans to plant 50
more in 1995. He increased the number of trees gradually so that it would
be easier to weed and therefore manage the farm. In 1985 he borrowed
20 cattle for the first time to manure and improve the fertility of the soil. He
has also planted some tangerine trees (5 in 1990 and 20 in 1991) and
jackfruit trees (10 in 1991) to insure against a possible future decline in the
price of oranges. He reckons that he can lose a total of 4-5 masusu of
oranges if he delays picking and up to 20 masusu from theft.
 1983
Farmer J, Binguni. In 1982 he bought a farm for Tshs 11,000 and the
following year planted 150 ‘Original Ndijani’ seedlings on it. He added
another 30 trees of the same variety between 1985 and 1990. Every year
he has lost some trees, 10 in all, because of fire invading from a
neighbouring farm. So he now has a total of 170 trees. He usually lets
other lease his trees for harvest and never picks the oranges himself
because he is too busy and does not like the trouble of taking them to
market. One tree can produce 12-15 masusu of fruit per season, while 4-6
might be lost. He thinks that the government should find an overseas
market for oranges, should buy them itself, or set prices in conjunction with
farmers and traders. He also thinks that the rotating marketing system
(which he does not participate in) should be extended to the whole of
Unguja island.

1985
Farmer K, Ndijani Uwandani. He moved into orange production after
hearing a speech by the President in mid-1984 in which he advised
farmers to grow other cash crops (including oranges, ‘Boribo’ mangoes,
and coconuts) because of the falling price of cloves. Soon after this he
bought 5 acres of land for Tshs 2,000 and in 1985 he planted 200 budded
trees from the government nursery at Machui. Between 1985 and 1990 he
planted another 300, and by 1994 he had planted a further 350 trees,
making a grand total of 850. He has expanded production by reinvesting
his profits from orange sales. He says that the rotating marketing system
was introduced by large farmers, but does not help small farmers like him
because Ndijani is not the only area which supplies oranges to the
Zanzibar market. Nonetheless he participates in the system, and does so
to conform rather than to secure better prices through delayed harvesting
and marketing. He thinks that delaying is unhelpful because a lot of
oranges can therefore be lost while a farmer is waiting for his turn in the
system. He estimates that one tree can produce 8-10 masusu of oranges
on average and that 2-3 are lost because of pests and the delay in picking.
However, he does not want to lease out his trees because his children
would then be unable to collect the fallen fruits to sell at the roadside. The
people who lease trees will not allow anyone to collect fallen fruits. They
usually pick the fruits as soon as they are mature (and have had less
opportunity to fall) because they do not take part in the rotating marketing
system and are not therefore obliged to delay picking. He thinks that it
would help if he government found an export market for oranges.

1986
Farmer L, Binguni. Before he become an orange farmer he used to take
his father’s oranges to the market in Zanzibar town. When he saw the
large amount of cash which this trade earned he decided to grow oranges
himself on 2 acres of spare land owned by his father. In 1986 he planted
15 ‘Original Ndijani’ seedlings. Thereafter (year not specified) he planted
another 120 of the same, and 200 more in 1990, making a total of 335
trees. He plans to plant another 500 trees in 1995. He participates in the
rotating marketing system and especially at the end of the season he
leaves mature fruits on the tree so that he can get a higher price. He
estimates that one tree produces an average of 6-7 masusu of oranges
and that 2-3 masusu can be lost from various causes including the delay in
picking. He thinks that overseas markets should be found to solve the
problem of oversupply.

1987
Farmer M, Tunguu. In 1986 he bought 4 acres of uwanda land for Tshs
200 and moved there from his natal home because of the growth of the
family and the pressure which this put on their land. In the following year
he planted 16 orange trees, another 16 in 1990, and 45 trees in 1992. The
total of 77 is a mixture of ‘Original Ndijani’ and ‘Budded Ndijani’. He
stopped planting because of the high price of seedlings and his decision to
concentrate upon the management of his existing trees. In 1995, however
he plans to start to raise his own trees from seed.
 1988
Farmer N, Binguni. He was a late entrant to orange growing because
previously he lived and worked in Zanzibar town. He left his government
job as a printing engineer because of the low salary and dim pension
prospects, having decided that he could earn a better living from
agriculture. He bought some land for Tshs 1,700 in 1980 and in 1988
planted 30 ‘Original Ndijani’ seedlings on it. In 1990 he planted more trees
(he cannot remember how many), and plans to plant 200 in masika 1995.
He prefers ‘Original Ndijani’ to the budded trees because he believes that
the latter have a short life and do not produce as well. He knows about
the rotating marketing system but does not participate in it. Instead he
leases out his trees when the fruits are mature and does not become
involved in the picking. He leases out to anyone who is willing, whether
they are from the village or Zanzibar town. He thinks that the rotating
marketing system was introduced by people with many trees primarily in
order to protect their own interests, because they could not all send to
market on the same day. His own position is that this system should be
removed, a step which he believes would ensure free competition and
improve the market for and price of oranges.

31. While these case studies comprise a somewhat loosely assembled

sample, and could have been expanded with a lot more detail (had
time allowed), collectively they provide a number of important insights
into the development of orange production and marketing and form a
good starting point for further analysis. In the sections which follow we
will look at the key issues which they raise (and some which they do
not) in greater depth.

The Availability of Land

32. Land availability has been a factor of critical importance in the
development of oranges as a cash crop in Ndijani. Before 1964
settlement and agricultural production were concentrated in the
plantation area, where the landscape was dominated by tree crops
(including cloves and coconuts) and multi-storey cropping in the home
 gardens around human habitations. Land ownership followed the
typical pre-Revolution pattern of large estates interspersed with the
smaller farms of squatters and others who also worked on these
estates. The nearby uwanda land was barely utilised, except for
sporadic shifting cultivation of annual crops, and was generally
considered to have little potential for further agricultural development.
33. The Revolution of 1964 ushered in a major transformation in land
ownership and, ultimately, in land use. Many large landowners left the
area, and their estates were nationalised, broken up, and redistributed
among smallholders. The new opportunities which this transformation
created encouraged an influx of settlers from outside Ndijani, many of
whom moved in from the coral rag villages to the south and east of this
area. Although the pattern of land ownership had changed, the
existing system of land use by and large persisted through the second
half of the 1960s. Farmers in the home garden area, Ndijani viamboni,
continued to cultivate the traditional plantation crops as their main
source of cash, along with scattered plots of annual food crops. The
greatest change took place in the large rice valley of Cheju, which lies
to the south of Ndijani. The nationalisation of land in the valley and the
development of mechanised and irrigated rice production under
government supervision can be assumed to have had a considerable
impact upon the livelihood of farmers who were able to gain access to
the seasonally-allocated plots. Rice production in Cheju certainly
provided an added stimulus to immigration into the area, seasonal or
otherwise, and affected all of the villages around it, some of them more
distant than Ndijani.
34. By the early 1970s, however, population growth had created something
of a land shortage in the plantation area. This shortage was most
keenly felt by young farmers who were entering agricultural production
for the first time. Although they had access to family land owned and
managed, sometimes jointly, by their fathers and other family
members, the fact that it was often in short supply and subject to the
competing interests of different relatives gave them relatively little
freedom to develop it as they wished. This is a problem, in part a
 function of the prevailing system of land inheritance, which can be
found to a greater or lesser degree throughout the plantation areas of
Zanzibar, and it becomes particularly acute when land becomes a
scarce resource relative to the number of family members who have
rights in it and no other option but to exercise them by farming. In this
situation it may be next to impossible for an individual and especially a
junior family member to plant permanent tree crops. This is both
because there may be little space in which to plant more trees and
because planting them may produce friction with other joint owners
who perceive this as an attempt to stake an individual claim to part of
their collective property.
35. The solution to this problem which was widely adopted in Ndijani was
to move onto the hitherto underutilised uwanda, though for many
farmers this may initially have seemed less of a solution than the only
available option. Buying land in the plantation area was another
possibility, but this land was more expensive and the available plots
few and relatively small. Orange growers who remained in the
plantation area soon ran into difficulties as a result. The case studies
show that a number of small to medium producers stopped planting in
the early 1980s because they had no more land on which to do so.
Even some large producers had problems in converting their orange
profits into more land in the plantation area. One successful farmer in
Binguni related how, in 1984, he had tried to secure another farm in
Jendele, about two miles from his home. The chairman of Jendele
CCM branch agreed to sell him a 3 acre plot for Tshs 9,000, and
presented him with a written contract when he handed over this sum
(which he raised by selling a herd of exotic Jersey cattle for Tshs 7,000
and adding a further Tshs 2,000 from his orange income). However,
the branch committee subsequently refused to confirm this allocation
because he was not a resident of Jendele. Eventually they paid him
Tshs 6,000 to return the land, by which time he had planted 55 orange
trees on it.
36. Therefore throughout the 1970s and 1980s many farmers, and
especially young farmers, started new farms on the uwanda and built
 their homes there, creating a series of new hamlets away from the
older plantation settlements. As a result the uwanda was transformed
from the older plantation settlements. As a result the uwanda was
transformed from an area of shifting to permanent cultivation. It is not
entirely clear how individual rights in the uwanda were established, or
exactly when this took place, though it seems to have happened quite
early in some parts of Ndijani where a land market had already
developed by the mid-1970s. In some cases existing use rights were
converted into more permanent ones simply by continuous cultivation,
the planting of tree crops, and finally by settlement on the land. This
process can still be seen in its early stages in other parts of the coral
rag on Unguja, where a land market has begun to emerge prior to
permanent settlement, driven by people who have staked early claims
and then sold them off before developing the land further. In other
cases the local party branches seemed to have played a role in
allocating and even selling land, drawing their mandate from the
government’s de jure ownership of the uwanda and the relative
weakness of existing de facto claims.
37. Apart from the independence of decision-making which it afforded
farmers, the advantage of owning land on the uwanda was that there
was plenty of land on which to expand orange production. The case
studies illustrate vividly how many farmers progressively planted more
and more orange trees, using their profits from the crop to do so.
Those with insufficient land and the capital to do so purchased
additional farms. Prices in some areas seem to have remained quite
low through to the mid-1980s, ranging between less than Tshs 100 and
Tshs 500 per acre. More recently, however, there has been a dramatic
jump in the cost of land, even allowing for the post-liberalisation
devaluations of the Tanzanian shilling. In mid-1995 the going rate for
an acre of uwanda land in Ndijani Mseweni was said to be between
Tshs 100,000 and Tshs 150,000. Two main causes can be posited for
the recent inflation of land values in this area: first, because there is no
more uncultivated uwanda left; and second, because the land itself has
been improved considerably by manuring and management practices.
 38. The filling-up of the uwanda and the current prohibitive cost of land in
areas where it has already filled up will make future expansion of
orange production there increasingly difficult. Farmers have already
begun to move onto poorer maweni (coral rag) soils, and it is possible
that history will repeat itself if these can be improved. Nonetheless it
seems unlikely that orange farming will be the starting point for this
improvement in the way that it was on the uwanda, where orange
farmers are currently in the process of diversifying into other cash
crops.

Land Improvement
39. In many ways oranges were a fortuitous choice of crop for growing on
the uwanda. They readily fostered the development of a mixed farming
system which has resulted in an increasing improvement of soil fertility,
while the orange trees themselves have contributed to this
improvement by providing shade and organic matter from their leaf-fall.
The evolution of an efficient mixed farming system has been the key to
the sustained development of agricultural production and the further
diversification which is now taking place in Ndijani. This system is
described in greater detail in ZCCFSP’s study of Ndijani (Mseweni)
Farmer’s Research Group, Mixed Farming and Improving Fertility on
the Uwanda of Central Unguja, and only the main points need to be
summarised here.
40. The soils of Unguja, indeed Zanzibar as a whole, are for the most part
poor in structure and deficient in minerals. In common with many
tropical soils of non-volcanic origin they are only as good as the top
layer of organic matter which vegetation provides them with. The
balance is a fragile one, and in the absence of adequate vegetation
cover (or artificial fertilisers) soil fertility can decline very rapidly, with
disastrous consequences for agriculture. The uwanda soils are no
exception. Although the uwand is sometimes characterised as
‘grassland’ and ‘low bushland’, it seems likely that it originally
supported woodland or forest, and tthat its present appearance when
uncultivated is the result of more than a thousand years of shifting
 cultivation by Unguja’s indigenous farmers. The implications of this are
that the uwanda can support tree crops, and in fact might do a lot
better by them than by periodic firing and the cultivation of grains and
other annuals.
41. However, orange trees cannot perform this role alone, certainly not in
short period of time and when the land between them has to be kept
clear of weeds or is cultivated with annual crops. Ndijani’s farmers
have (almost literally) filled the gap with cattle and their manure. How
this came about is unclear: presumably some cattle were kept on the
uwanda when it was under shifting cultivation, but their value as
fertilising agents only came to the fore when farmers started to corral
them on their farms and graze them between their orange trees.
Informants are agreed that manuring only became important after
orange production had been established. Thereafter cattle-keeping
became an integral part of the farming system, to the extent that
farmers in Ndijani do not feel the conflict between cattle and crops
which forces farmers elsewhere on the islands to limit their livestock
holdings or keep them away from cropland and in the coral rag bush.
42. A high proportion of the orange farmers in Ndijani own cattle, having
purchased them with income from their harvests. Relatively few
owners, however, both manage and herd their own animals. Small
herds are often given to others to manage and/or herd, while large
herds may be split up and similarly parcelled out. These arrangements
may involve different kinds of payment, often in kind (milk and calves).
Farmers without cattle are frequently able to borrow them for manuring.
Otherwise a herd can be hired for this purpose: in early 1995 the going
rate in Ndijani Mseweni was between Tshs 10,000 and Tshs 20,000 for
a 1-2 month hire, depending on the exact period and the number of
cattle hired. Farmers interviewed said that ideally 25-30 cattle should
be grazed on an acre of land before both the masika and vuli rains,
though most farmers are unable to manure all of their land so
intensively. Nevertheless they report that as a result of manuring soil
fertility has increased on the uwanda. This is in marked contrast to
farmer’s experience elsewhere in Zanzibar, where continuous cropping
 without fertilisers (natural or artificial) has resulted in a noticeable
decline in fertility and therefore yields in recent years.
43. Other fertility management practices employed on the uwanda include
mixed cropping and crop rotations, and to a lesser extent fallowing. A
variety of root crops and vegetables are grown between the orange
trees, providing additional income outside of the orange seasons.
Manuring is usually concentrated on the most responsive crops,
because there are not enough cattle in Ndijani to manure every plot
every year. While it is difficult to assess the precise impact of
manuring on orange farming per se, it has certainly enabled farmers to
develop an efficient system around it. Agricultural diversification has
become an important part of this system, helping to support orange
production as well as providing alternatives to it. If, as some farmers
predict it will, the market price of oranges falls significantly, then many
of them will be well positioned to exploit other opportunities.

The Availability of Labour

44. It is difficult to imagine that orange production could have expanded as
it did and the uwanda developed as it has without an adequate supply
and inputs of labour. The fact that this development was driven by
local farmers, many of them young men, is significant here. ZCCFSP
studies in different parts of Zanzibar suggest that, as a group, young
men (especially those in their twenties and thirties) tend to be the most
innovative in exploring new sources of income, both on-farm and off-
farm. There are a number of reasons for this. The initial impetus
derives from their need to secure economic independence and raise
the cash for bridewealth so that they can marry. Once they have
established their own households, then the need to provide for these in
their critical phase of growth (as children are born and place increasing
demands on household resources) further exercises the energy and
ingenuity of the men who head them. While individual heads of mature
households can be equally innovative and energetic in their pursuits,
many of them are relatively conservative and content to consolidate the
position that they have secured for themselves in their own youth.
45. This conservatism is most marked in the plantation areas of Zanzibar,
where opportunities for agricultural development are limited by a
number of factors, not least of which is the difficult of removing
‘permanent’ tree crops and replacing them with something else. As
already mentioned above, the prevailing pattern of land tenure in these
areas acts as a further constraint. In this situation one of the most
attractive options for young men is to seek off-farm employment, and to
move into town (whether Zanzibar town or elsewhere) to do so.
However, in places like Ndijani which are on the edge of the plantation
area and border underutilised coral rag (uwanda or maweni) land, the
ready availability of this land provides an alternative to labour
migration. The successful development of this land by young farmers
in Ndijani appears to have largely stopped and even reversed the flow
of male labour from farms to the town. Whether this will continue to be
the case remains to be seen. It is possible that the current shortage of
cheap uwanda land, coupled with growing opportunities for
employment and enterprise in Zanzibar town, will result in many
members of the next generation moving out of farming.
46. To date the growth of the orange industry and of a mixed farming
system around it have created a wide range of local employment
opportunities. In addition to providing agricultural labour of different
kinds, an expanding network of backward and forward linkages has
developed which embraces small-scale manufacture (for example
basket-making, to provide the masusu which oranges are marketed in),
the provision of services (including ox-cart hiring) and various trading
enterprises (from shops through to the activities of middlemen engaged
in the marketing of oranges and other farm produce). The further
development of these off-farm linkages and the jobs which they create
could to some extent counter the lure of urban employment for
householders who have little land on which to produce cash crops, and
no doubt this is already happening.
47. Unpaid family labour is only used to a limited extent in orange
production, most often on the smaller plantations. Farmers usually
plant their own seedlings (and in some cases seeds to be later
 transplanted), while all of the members of a household, including
women and children, may take part in picking the fruit. Sometimes
friends and neighbours are also called to help in harvesting oranges, in
which case they may be given some cash reward after the crop has
been sold, though not a predetermined sum. As noted in the case
studies, children are sometimes allowed to collect fallen fruits and sell
them at the roadside. Otherwise many farmers take the main crop to
market themselves, though they usually pay for them to be carried to
and from the bus, in addition to the cost of transporting the oranges by
bus and the farmer’s fare for the journey.
48. Paid labour has played a critical role in the development of orange
production in Ndijani, and continues to do so. Most uwanda plots were
cleared by hired labourers, who also do most of the weeding and
harvesting on all but the smallest plantations. Most of this paid labour
is and has been provided by Nyamwezi (and Sukuma) men and
women, originally from western Tanzania. Although some local Swahili
men will also perform these tasks for payment, most orange-growers
prefer to employ labourers of mainland origin because they have a
reputation for being more hard-working, work for lower rates than the
locals, and will often accept delayed payments for their labour until
after the crop has been sold. In May 1995 farmers in Ndijani Mseweni
quoted the following rates for weeding orange farms: between Tshs
12,000 and Tshs 15,000 per acre for a pure stand of trees, and as little
as Tshs 3,000 per acre for oranges intercropped with bananas, sweet
potatoes and/or vegetables. Labour rates are generally highest during
masika, when the demand for labour is greatest. Harvesting oranges
was said to cost between Tshs 1,400 and Tshs 2,000 per acre for a
single harvester, each acre of oranges requiring four to six harvesters
(giving a total outlay in the range of Tshs 5,600 to Tshs 12,000 per
acre).
49. Nyamwezi labourers have been an important feature of the rural
economy in Ndijani and other parts of Unguja, especially in the
plantation areas, since long before the 1964 Revolution. It is difficult to
assess what proportion of the present population is permanently settled
 on the island. The Nyamwezi in Ndijani are certainly highly mobile,
with the exceptions of individuals who have bought land and/or married
into the local community, and to some extent have adopted a Swahili
identity. They often arrive in Ndijani as couples, sometimes with
children, and are invited to settle on the land of local farmers, where
they are allowed to build temporary houses and cultivate their own
plots. Technically they are squatters, though always with the
agreement of the landowner, who can expect to benefit from having
favoured access to their labour (which they still pay for) and from the
security which they provide. The majority of them leave after two or
three years, ostensibly to take their earnings back to the mainland,
though it is said that many of them simply move elsewhere in Unguja.
The apparent reason for this pattern of mobility is their wish to avoid
greater integration into the community, which would have the effect of
reducing their ability to accumulate cash as they became enmeshed in
local networks of social and economic obligation and all that this entails
for resource-sharing. Farmers in Mseweni estimated that at any one
time Nyamwezi comprise around 25% of the total population of the
area. It is some measure of their importance to the local economy that
orange-growers freely admitted that without their labour inputs it would
not be possible to sustain the current farming system.

Social and Economic Differentiation

50. The intensification of agricultural production, and especially production
for the market, is often associated with increasing social and economic
differentiation, and in this respect Ndijani is no exception. The
development of orange production has seen the emergence of a
pattern of differentiation which is absent or only very weakly developed
in most other rural communities in Zanzibar, though it can be predicted
that sooner or later they will follow suit. This might be considered as a
negative impact of cash crop development, particularly in view of the
egalitarian ethos which has prevailed since the 1964 Revolution,
though in many ways it would seem to be inevitable (much as
 economic liberalisation has fuelled the process of economic
stratification in urban Zanzibar).
51. At the risk of over-simplification, it is possible to identify three different
strata which have emerged or are in the process of emerging in
Ndijani. These are the large landowners (and orange-producers),
small landowners, and the shifting pool of agricultural labourers. There
is no sharp boundary between the first and second of these categories,
which comprise interrelated members of the same ethnic group and
others who have assimilated to it. They are, however, quite clearly
distinct from the third category, and this distinction is reinforced by their
separate ethnic origins. In economic terms the key factors
distinguishing all three strata are their differential access to land and
their different roles in the labour process.

Large and Small Farmers

52. Wealth differences (in terms of property ownership) in rural Zanzibar
frequently correlate with the stag which a household has reached in its
developmental cycle. These differences are also commonly negated
by the social and economic integration of individual households within
wider groupings of kin, as a result of which the individual ownership of
resources may be more apparent than real in terms of the number of
people who can claim access to them. To the extent that this is the
case wealth differences may be neither permanent nor perpetuated,
though at any particular time certain households and certain lineages
may command more resources than others. In Ndijani, however, this
pattern has been significantly altered, at least for the time being.
53. The uwanda was opened up by young male householders in response
to their need for resources in a context in which these had become
severely limited in the overpopulated plantation areas of Ndijani. The
planting of oranges and the improvement of the uwanda, however,
transformed it into a valuable resource which was individually owned
from the very start. For successful orange-growers and their
households this marked a break in the normal pattern of development,
which would typically only have enabled them to accumulate resources
 gradually as their households grew and matured. As we have seen,
farmers who remained in the plantation areas have experienced
considerable difficulty in expanding their farms and orange production.
As uwanda land too has become scarce, and land prices have risen,
differences in the area of land owned and planted with oranges and
other cash crops have become critical, and can be expected to become
an even more important factor in the future.
54. Farmers themselves frequently distinguish between large and small
orange producers. The largest individual holdings of land on the
uwanda are said to reach up to 20 acres or more in total (combining
separate plots), while large orange farmers may possess 800-1,000
plus trees. One farmer in our sample had planted 1,150 trees on 8
acres (an average of 144 trees per acre); another 850 trees on 5 acres
(an average of 170 trees per acre); and a third 830 trees on 13 acres
(an average of only 64 trees per acre). The latter farmer stopped
planting oranges in 1990 because of his fears for the future of the
orange market. With the exception of one farmer with 675 trees, the
rest of the orange-growers in our sample had fewer than 400 trees, and
three or four of them less than 100. These smaller orange farmers
typically owned 2-3 acres of land suitable for orange production, and a
number of them had stopped planting oranges because they had
insufficient land on which to expand production. It should be noted
here that our sample was biased in favour of large-scale producers,
and we can safely assume that they form a rather smaller proportion of
the total population of farmers than these figures imply. In absence of
data from a large and random sample of Ndijani farmers, however, it is
difficult to be more specific on this point.
55. This picture is complicated by the fact that in recent years many
orange-growers on the uwanda have diversified into other kinds of
cash crop production as well as other types of economic activity. In
Ndijanii Mseweni vegetables, root crops and irrigated rice provide
farmers with alternative sources of income which in some cases have
become more important than oranges. Livestock-keeping is another
important source of income for some farmers. The wealthiest farmers
 have also begun to invest their profits from farming in off-farm
enterprises. These include the establishment of roadside shops and
the construction of houses for rent in Zanzibar town. Ownership of
orange trees is therefore not the only criterion by which the most
successful class of farmers can be recognised. The total acreage of
land owned by an individual, including uwanda and valley (reinfed
and/or irrigated) land, provides a more reliable guide.
56. One of the most striking features of the stratum of wealthier farmers in
Mseweni is their relative youth. Some of the richest farmers are aged
in their late twenties and early thirties. Another way in which they have
invested their agricultural wealth has been to marry two and in some
cases three wives. This contrasts with the more common pattern in
Unguja whereby men are usually only able to marry additional wives at
a somewhat later age, when they have accumulated sufficient
resources to do so. In deed most of the fathers of Mseweni’s
successful young farmers still have only one wife. Polygny is a clear
mark of their sons’ status. When asked why he and others like him had
married more than one wife, one young farmer frankly admitted that it
was purely for “pleasure”, brushing aside any suggestion that this
practice might have an economic motive. Nevertheless, such motives
can be reconstructed: additional wives may ease the management of
widely separated land holdings (when, for example, these are in both
plantation and uwanda areas), while polygyny doubtless also functions
to create wider networks of potentially useful social and economic
alliances.
57. On the other hand it is possible that these polygynous farmers may
thereby be sowing the seeds of their own future decline, or at least that
of their descendants. Without more land to expand onto, one
consequence of this marital practice may be the accelerated
fragmentation of their land holdings among large numbers of offspring.
In the long term the gap between large and small farmers might
therefore be narrowed, and the current process of differentiation
reversed. It is easy, however, to imagine alternative scenarious: for the
time being all of these remain purely speculative. One possibility is,
 perhaps, worthy of further investigation at present. In Mseweni there
was some suggestion that aside from individual differences in wealth,
the benefits of cash crop development had spread through at least one
local kinship group (ukoo) in its entirety, marking it off from other local
groups. If this has indeed happened, then it might be interpreted as
evidence both for the persistence inter-household levelling
mechanisms as well as for the emergence of an inter-lineage (and
therefore more readily reproducible) pattern of differentiation.

Squatters and Agricultural Labourers

58. As noted above, the social and economic boundary between local
landowners and the labourers of mainland origin who are allowed to
squat on their land is much sharper, though not entirely impermeable.
Although a landless class has yet to appear among the indigenous
population of Ndijani, all but a handful of Nyamwezi (those who have
bought land) do not possess land of their own in this area, but are
obliged to borrow it from their hosts. The greater part of their income
derives from the sale of their labour to local farmers, and very little from
the sale of crops grown on their borrowed, which are cultivated
primarily for subsistence purposes. In other respects, however, the
Nyamwezi do not form a landless class of labourers in the normal
sense. On their own account temporary settlement in Ndijani (and
elsewhere in Unguja) comprises part of a strategy of accumulation
which, at least in theory, is completed when they return with their
earnings to their homes in western Tanzania. What subsequently
happens to these earnings, and indeed how likely they are to make this
journey, are subjects which remain to be clarified. It seems that a
significant number of the Nyamwezi on Unguja are more or less
permanently resident, in Zanzibar town as well as in the rural areas.
59. The Nyamwezi (and Sukuma who fall under the same label) have
performed a similar role in the economy of Zanzibar since at least the
early colonial period, adapting to the changing political and economic
circumstances of the islands. A detailed history would presumably
show significant shifts in their role as agricultural labourers, especially
 following the abolition of slavery and, more recently, as a consequence
of the nationalisation and redistribution of the larger estates. The
development of the uwanda and cash crop production in Ndijani has
provided a new set of opportunities in this particular area of Unguja,
and the transient population of mainlanders there has increased
accordingly. We have no evidence to suggest that this has either
worsened or improved their social and economic position, which to
some extent is the result of their own economic choices (hence the
decision of most Nyamwezi to remain in Ndijani for no longer than two
or three years, allegedly in order to escape further integration within the
local community and the likely consequences of this for their ability to
earn and accumulate cash). Our data on the Nyamwezi, however, are
largely second-hand, and it is quite possible that more thorough
research on their economic strategies will reveal factors which we have
overlooked.

Gender Differentiation
60. The pattern of stratification which we have outlined above is crosscut
by another, based on gender differences. Women play a very much
secondary role in the farming system of Ndijani. While some local
women do own and cultivate land of their own, the majority of them do
not, but only provide labour inputs on farms which are owned,
borrowed, and otherwise managed primarily by their husbands or other
male relatives. These labour inputs tend to be limited to particular
operations (especially weeding and harvesting) and/or focused upon
particular crops (especially the cultivation of irrigated rice and the
small-scale production of vegetables for domestic consumption).
Women in resource-poor households which cannot afford or do not
have the need to employ hired labourers typically perform more
agricultural tasks than those in wealthier households, though most
important farming decisions are still made by men. Male farmers in
Ndijani Mseweni declared that women’s primary place is in the home,
performing domestic chores, rearing children and undertaking small-
scale income-generating activities (such as kofia-making). While in the
 field we were presented with graphic evidence of this by farmers’
reluctance to involve their wives in interviews and their keeping them
more or less hidden from our view (including that of a woman
interviewer).
61. We did not come across any cases of women who had planted
oranges, though an estimated 2% of all the orange trees in Ndijani are
owned by women who had inherited them. Oranges have been
developed as a cash crop and the uwanda opened up and therefore
claimed by men. As might be expected, women play no part at all in
the marketing of oranges (or indeed of other cash crops which are sold
outside of Ndijani), though they do provide some of the labour in
weeding and harvesting the crop. It will be interesting to see what
happens over time as women gain more ownership rights in orange
trees as part of their share in the inheritance of farms. Unless
inheritance practices are modified, it seems likely that events will follow
a similar course to that which can be traced for mango tree ownership
in Muyuni. Over the past 100 years women’s ownership share has
increased from as little as 5-10% (estimates vary) to around 30% of the
total number of trees. The trees owned by women, however, are
almost exclusively managed by their male relatives, who in many cases
lease the trees out for harvest. Women’s share of the proceeds is
therefore less than it might be, and their income from mangoes is often
superseded by that from other sources over which they have more
direct control, such as the collection and sale of firewood (for a more
detailed account see ZCCFSP’s report on The Development of
Mangoes as a Cash Crop in Muyuni, Unguja).
62. A comparison of the experiences of Ndijani and Muyuni indicates that
in the initial phase of development (which in the case of Ndijani has
already lasted for a quarter of a century) women’s rights of ownership
in the new tree crop are negligible. Gradually these rights increase,
though the management of the crop remains largely in the hands of
men, and women’s direct access to the income from it continues to be
limited as a result. On the other hand, women can and do benefit
indirectly from the development of tree crops owned and/or managed
 by their husbands and other male relatives. In Ndijani the wives of
successful orange growers are spared from bearing the burden of
agricultural labour, most of which is performed by their husbands and
the labourers which they hire. From this point of view the ability to stay
at home (and concentrate upon domestic tasks and other off-farm
income-earning activities) is a mark of improved (and urbane) status,
and widely considered to be so. A large proportion of the Nyamwezi
labourers who work the fields in their place are, nonetheless, women
and children. We have no information on how the development of cash
crop production in Ndijani and elsewhere has affected their status. It is
perhaps significant that Nyamwezi women who become the wives of
local men are said to switch roles quite readily, as far as possible
withdrawing from agricultural labour (on the family farm) and confining
themselves to the home.

The Evolution of the Marketing System

63. Farmers employ a number of different strategies for selling their
oranges. These include (1) the seasonal leasing out of trees and their
harvests to middlemen, who do the picking themselves before taking
the fruits to market; (2) the sale of picked fruits to middlemen; (3) the
transport of picked fruits to the town market by farmers themselves,
without the mediation of middlemen; and (4) an organised version of
the latter, whereby farmers take turns to harvest their fruits and take
them to the town market. This last strategy is designed to counter
oversupply in the market during the peak harvesting season, and
enable farmers to take advantage of the higher prices which oranges
command at the end of the season.
64. These four main strategies differ in the extent to which orange growers
themselves participate in the marketing process and the degree to
which they can control this as a means of obtaining higher prices for
their crop. The first of the strategies listed above gives farmers the
least leverage and, unless they have negotiated shrewdly, the smallest
return for their crop. Potential returns increase when farmers pick their
own crop, and more so when the role of middlemen is eliminated. The
 fourth strategy, participation in Ndijani’s rotating marketing system,
offers, at least in theory, the highest possible returns. As the case
studies indicate, farmers tend to adopt a single marketing strategy,
though they may switch strategies over time. To some extent
marketing strategies mirror the pattern of differentiation (large versus
small farmers) outlined in the preceding section, and a correlation can
be traced between the volume of an individual farmer’s production and
the strategy adopted. At the same time, however, and especially in the
case of participation in the rotating marketing system, there is some
mismatch between farmers’ practice and what they feel to be their best
interests. We will examine this mismatch, which emerges quite clearly
in the case studies, in greater detail below.

Leasing Arrangements
65. The seasonal leasing of tree crops has a long history in the plantation
areas of Zanzibar. It is often the preferred strategy of farmers who only
have a modest number of trees or who are unable to play an active role
in managing, harvesting and selling the crop, as is often the case with
absentee owners and women owners. Given that there are very few
absentee or women orange farmers in Ndijani, we should expect to find
that this practice is most common among small-scale producers. Our
farmer case studies support this conclusion: the three farmers who
leased out their crops (one of them only in some seasons) all had less
than 200 orange trees in total. An estimated 20% of all orange growers
in Ndijani lease out their trees, the vast majority of whom presumably
have such relatively small holdings.
66. Although leasing out generally gives the farmer the lowest returns, it
makes economic sense for those who expect to derive relatively little
income from oranges (for whom the proportional loss of income is not
so significant)), and whose agricultural labour and cash resources are
therefore best invested elsewhere. At the same time farmers who have
entered into leasing agreements may subsequently wish that they had
not done so, especially when harvests and/or prices are much better
than they had expected. In this situation some farmers are not averse
 to backing down on earlier verbal agreements, as one of our
interviewees (Farmer C, who leased trees in the mid-1970s)
discovered to his cost. One solution to this problem, at least for the
middlemen, is to ensure that leasing agreements are written down and
witnessed. However, we have no more information on this point,
though we would expect that written contracts have become the norm,
especially when large numbers of trees are involved (certainly more
than the 14 which our informant gave as an example).
67. Those who lease trees also risk paying more than they would
otherwise for a poor crop. Presumably, however, the rates they offer
take account of this, and by the same token they can also gain from a
bumper crop. In order to maximise harvests leasing agreements
extend to fallen fruits as well as those on the tree, while the latter are
picked and taken to market as soon as they are mature. Lessees
employ their own pickers and transport the fruits to town themselves.
Most of them are local farmers who may also act as ordinary
middlemen, buying oranges which farmers have already picked.

Sale to Middlemen
68. Some farmers pick the fruits themselves (or hire people to do it for
them) and then sell to local middlemen. This practice is less common
than either the leasing out of trees (a strategy of minimal labour
investment) or picking and taking them to the market (to gain maximum
returns from a much greater labour investment). It seems likely that it
was more common before and during the early stages of the expansion
of orange production, when fewer farmers had the experience or the
need to seek their own markets outside of Ndijani. Now, however, only
an estimated 5% of orange farmers pick and then sell their oranges to
middlemen.
69. Only one farmer in our sample said that he sold his crop in this way.
Interestingly enough, this was the farmer with the largest declared
number of orange tree (1,150). He harvests as soon as the fruits are
mature because, he says, delayed picking affects tree growth in the
following season. As a result he does not participate in the rotating
 marketing system. Although he did not say so, it is possible that he
prefers to sell to middlemen because of the amount of his own and
time and labour which he would otherwise have to invest in taking such
a large crop to town. He said that he is quite happy with the price
offered by middlemen, in the range of Tshs 10-15 in 1994, suggesting
that he gets a large enough income from the crop to be relatively
unconcerned about any extra sum he might earn by taking it to market
himself.
70. Middlemen sometimes select the fruit they buy and pay a premium for
it, otherwise they buy all of the fruits which have been picked, at a
lower price (one example was given of Tshs 12 per selected orange
and Tshs 10 per orange of variable quality). None of the middlemen in
Ndijani participate in the rotating marketing system, but derive their
profits primarily from the difference between farm-gate and market
prices during the peak season.

Sale Direct to the Market

71. An estimated 70% of Ndijani’s orange growers pick and take their own
crop to the Zanzibar market. This includes a mixture of both small and
large farmers. They incur a number of costs in the process. The
following list shows prices quoted in late 1994 (the main harvest
season being June to September):

Hire of orange pickers: Tshs 100 per susu

Produce permit (cheti): Tshs 50 per consignment
Transport by ox-cart from farm to roadside: Tshs 50 per susu
Transport by bus to Zanzibar town: Tshs 70 per susu
Return bus fare for farmer: Tshs 400 per trip

This list excludes the cost of the masusu themselves. It might be

added that the cost of produce permits, which are obtained from the
local sheha, is said to vary somewhat, and may be as high as Tshs
200.
72. At the same time (in 1994) the following range of prices were paid to
farmers in the central market for their oranges:

Start of season: Tshs 800-1,000 per susu

Peak season: Tshs 1,000-1,500 per susu
Late season: Tshs 1,500-3,000 per susu

The low prices obtained at the start of the season presumably reflect
the fact that early-maturing oranges are generally of lower quality than
the main crop. These and other figures we recorded in the course of
this study do not provide a rigorous enough basis on which to analyse
the costs of production in detail, and we will not attempt to provide such
an analysis here. If they wish, however, readers can get some idea of
the sums involved by relating the figures quoted in this section to the
production data which appear in the individual farmer case studies.

73. Farmers who pick their own fruit but who do not participate in the
rotating marketing system usually pick them as soon as they are
mature. They do not therefore make any special attempt to sell at the
end of the season when prices are highest. Why this should be will be
discussed below, when we look at the rotating marketing system in
more detail. Many farmers do, however, pack their fruits according to
size, separating the larger from the smaller oranges to conform with the
preferences of their town buyers. Orange awareness of the urban
market and its requirements has certainly increased as orange
production has expanded. Marketing has also become easier as
transport links have improved between Ndijani and Zanzibar town. In
the past few years, for example, buses have started running to and
from some of the uwanda settlements. In part this improvement has
been brought about by growth of the orange industry. In part this
improvement has been brought about by growth of the orange industry.
In turn it has increased farmers’ willingness to market their oranges
themselves.
74. Although most of the oranges grown in Ndijani are taken to Zanzibar
town market, some of them are still marketed locally. Farmers who
pick their own fruits, including those who participate in the rotating
marketing system, often make use of fallen fruits by allowing family
members, especially children, to gather them and sell them direct to
consumers at the roadside in Ndijani. An estimated 5% of farmers sell
all of their crop in this way, all of them small-scale producers. This
practice predates the development of oranges as an important cash
crop, and was once much more common than it is now. We did not
come across any cases of farmers bartering their orange crop for other
produce or goods, which they are also said to have done in the past.
Oranges are also consumed directly by farmers and their families, and
are presumably of some nutritional importance in the local diet.
Leasing arrangements are unpopular among some small farmers
because they restrict domestic consumption and the sale of fallen
fruits, despite their other advantages.

The Rotating Marketing System

75. A large number of orange growers who take their own produce to the
urban market now do so according to an organised rota. This is said to
have been introduced in recent years on the initiative of large-scale
producers, including Maulid Mussa and Abdallah Yussuf of Binguni.
Farmers participating in the rota are assigned to one of three zones,
and each zone is allotted two consecutive days during which the
farmers in it can take their oranges to market before the next zone has
its turn. Farmers who have just had their turn must therefore wait four
days before they can sell their produce again. Sometimes, however, if
a particular zone has a large harvest waiting for market, then its two
days can be extended, with the effect that farmers in other zones have
to wait a little longer before they can sell their oranges.
76. The object of this rotating marketing system is to prevent oversupply
during the peak season and therefore ensure that prices do not drop as
much as they otherwise might at this time. It also has the effect of
increasing the supply of oranges towards the end of the season and
 encourages farmers to delay harvesting so that they can take
advantage of the higher prices which they then command (given that
the supply still does match that of the peak season, when many
farmers and middlemen who do not participate in the system sell most
of their oranges). As noted in an earlier section, ‘Original Ndijani’
oranges grown from seed are particularly well suited to this system,
because they can be left on the tree after they have matured much
longer than other varieties without suffering the same degree of loss.
Nonetheless, and as the case studies make clear, delayed picking
does result in higher losses than would otherwise occur, and not all
farmers are convinced that the higher prices they obtain at the end of
the season will compensate them for this loss.
77. A number of interviewees voiced the opinion that the rotating marketing
system works most to the advantage of large-scale producers (though,
ironically, one of the farmers who said this and counted himself as a
small farmer in fact had 850 trees). Our data make it clear, however,
that both large and small-scale orange producers participate in the
system. Judging by their comments some of these farmers only
participate in order to conform, and not because they think it gives
them any economic advantage. It seems then that the rotating
marketing system has not captured the minds of all of its participants,
much as it has failed to incorporate all of the farmers and middlemen
who are content to operate outside of it. However, given the extent of
participation in the system, especially by large farmers, it has clearly
had a significant impact upon the market and thereby helped to sustain
the expansion of orange production.
78. It is difficult to predict what will happen to this system in the future, and
there are some suggestions that it is in the process of breaking down.
The fact that a large number of farmers are engaged in orange
production in Ndijani and have been for a relatively long period of time
makes consensus particularly difficult to attain. This contrasts with the
recent experience of egg-plant producers in Gamba in northern
Unguja, where a rotating marketing system has developed for this new
cash crop and is continuing to expand without any apparent dissent (for
 further details of this case see ZCCFSP’s report on The Expansion of
Cash Crop Production and Development of Marketing System in
Northern Unguja)
79. The basic problem seems to be one of seasonal oversupply. It is
difficult to determine whether this situation has arisen because a lot of
farmers do not participate in the rotating marketing system or in spite of
the fact that many of them do. Ndijani farmers point out that the urban
market is also supplied with oranges from other areas of Unguja which
are not subject to organised marketing systems, thereby further
undermining the impact of their own system. Farmers who are
dissatisfied with the Ndijani system suggest alternatives which would
not necessarily be any better. One of these is a call for official price
controls managed by the government and set following the advice of
farmers. This and other farmers’ comments suggests that many of
them have an incomplete understanding of the marketing strategy
which lies behind the rotating marketing system, which is designed to
achieve the same result without government intervention. The call for
the development of markets outside of Zanzibar seems to be a more
sensible proposal, though it remains to be seen whether Ndijani
oranges can complete against other varieties in the region. They
certainly have no obvious future on the international market.
80. Many Ndijani farmers have already indicated that they have no faith in
the future market for their oranges by switching their attention to other
cash crops. These include a range of vegetable crops (which are
intercropped with oranges) and, most recently, cassava, which is now
being grown on land in the Cheju valley formerly planted with rainfed
rice. As the case studies illustrate, farmers have also begun to
experiment with other tree crops on the uwanda, including ‘Boribo
Muyuni’ mangoes. It may well be that the orange industry in Ndijani
has reached a point beyond which it will be very difficult to develop
further. Whatever the case, orange production has had a wide-
reaching impact upon the farming system of Ndijani, and provides one
model for the sustainable and dynamic agricultural development of the
uwanda land of Unguja.
Conclusion: Lessons Learned from the Study

81. The following is a summary of the principal lessons which we think can
be drawn from this study.
82. The development of oranges as a cash crop in Ndijani was achieved by
local farmers with minimal inputs from the government agricultural
research and extension services. Extensive efforts during the colonial
period to improve orange germplasm had no direct impact upon this
development, which was based upon an indigenous variety of orange
which was already being grown. The two budded varieties of orange
which farmers have adopted have been less important, and their
introduction played no part in stimulating the much later expansion of
cash crop production. Nonetheless government nurseries have
provided an important source of planting material for farmers.
83. The most important factor in the expansion of production from the early
1970s onwards was the opening up of new land on the uwanda.
Oranges were planted on the uwanda as a known cash crop with a
growing market. Farmers invested the profits from their orange sales
in improving the land further, and thereby evolved a mixed farming
system in which cattle play a key role in increasing soil fertility. In turn
this sustained the further expansion of orange production and, more
recently, it has fostered diversification into other cash crops. Cash
crop production is currently expanding throughout the uwanda and
other coral rag areas of Zanzibar. Ndijani provides a model of how this
can be done sustainably. While other tree crops can take the place of
oranges, the presence of tree and livestock in a mixed farming sysem
are essential in addition to the cultivation of short-term vegetable and
root crops.
84. This expansion was driven by young men seeking better livelihoods
than they could obtain by remaining in the overcrowded plantation
areas, where their rights to land and economic independence were
severely restricted. As population increases, this process is likely to
repeat itself throughout Zanzibar, and to some extent is already
 happening. One implication of our analysis is that young male
household heads are potentially the most innovative of all groups in the
farming community, and that they are most likely to innovate outside of
the plantation areas. Cash crop development programmes should
therefore pay particular attention to targeting this group as opposed to
older men.
85. The development of orange production in Ndijani has fostered a pattern
of economic differentiation in the form of a growing distinction between
large and small farmers. It has also reinforced the sharp boundary
between them and squatters and agricultural labourers of mainland
origin. To a certain extent this seems to be inevitable, and mirrors a
phenomenon which is recognised as widespread and by no means
confined to Zanzibar. This suggests that cash crop development and
the equitable distribution of its benefits may e irreconcilable goals,
though measures can be taken to ensure that benefits are spread as
widely as possible. There is still, however, a lot that we do not know
about social and economic differentiation in Zanzibar and how this is
developing and might develop in future. The economic position and
strategies of labourers from the mainland are very poorly understood.
In the short-term, therefore, further research is required to find out
more.
86. Women have played relatively little direct role in the development of
oranges as a cash crop in Ndijani. Only a few women own orange
trees which they have inherited, though their numbers can be expected
to increase over time. Otherwise most of the decisions about orange
farms, while women of mainland origin form a large component of the
hired labour force. Women’s access to resources relative to men’s has
certainly declined, though the extent that some women benefit from
their husbands’ incomes and have been able to withdraw from
agricultural labour their status has improved. However, we know that
gender relations are structured quite differently in different areas of
rural Zanzibar, the most apparent contrasts being between the
plantation areas and the villages on particular kind of crop, about the
 impacts of cash crop development upon women’s social and economic
status.
87. The marketing strategies adopted by men often reflect the importance
of their holdings. An estimated 20% of mostly small-scale producers
lease out their trees, while another 5% harvest and sell the fruits at the
local roadside. Relatively few farmers (5%) pick and sell their crop to
middlemen. The vast majority, an estimated 70% of farmers, harvest
and market the crop in Zanzibar town themselves. A large number of
these participate in an organised marketing rota designed to counter
oversupply and enable farmers to obtain higher end of season prices.
Many farmers, however, including some participants in the system, feel
that it mainly serves the interests of large scale-producers, including
those farmers who founded it. Some of them still look to the
government to intervene and control prices or find alternative markets.
It is not clear whether their concerns follow from the failure of the
rotating marketing system to solve the problem of oversupply, or from
their own failure to understand how it might work. It would be useful to
examine this issue further, in order to understand better the pros and
cons of marketing associations and how, if necessary, they might be
assisted.
88. Otherwise, and partly as a result of their fears for the future of the
orange market, farmers are already in the process of diversifying into
other cash crops. The development of one successful cash crop, and
a sustainable farming system around it, has evidently accelerated the
pace of agricultural development. It is quite possible that this pattern of
increasing diversification will, in time, become general throughout the
islands.

References:
Davies, F.S and Albrigo, L.G. 1994. Citrus. Wallingford: Cab
International.
Findlay, A. J. 1933. ‘Experimental Work, Zanzibar’, in Annual Report
of the Department of Agriculture for the Year 1933. Zanzibar. 12-13.
(abstracted in Smith 1992b).

Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P. 1975. The East African Coast: Select

Documents from First to the Earlier Nineteenth Century (second
edition). London: Rex Collings.

John, R. et al. 1935. ‘Other Perennial Crops’, in Annual Report,

Kizimbani Reseach Station, 1934. Zanzibar. 33-39. (abstracted in
Smith 1992b).

Kirkham, V. H. et al. 1930. Annual Report of the Department of

Agriculture for the Year 1929. Zanzibar. (abstracted in Smith 1992b).

Main, R. and Walsh, M. T. 1995. The Development of Mangoes as a

Cash Crop in Muyuni, Unguja, Working Paper No. WP 95/draft,
Zanzibar Cash Crops Farming Systems Project, Ministry of Agriculture,
Livestock and Natural Resources, Zanzibar.

Muir, J. C. et al. 1937. Annual Report of the Department of Agriculture

for the Year 1936. Zanzibar. (abstracted in Smith 1992b).

Purseglove, J. W. 1968. Tropical Crops: Dicotyledons. Harlow:

Longman Scientific and Technical.

Samson, J. A. 1986. Tropical Fruits (Second Edition). Harlow:

Longman Scientific and Technical.

Smith, P. D. (ed) 1992a. Agricultural Research and Development in

Zanzibar: An Analysis of the Literature. Bangor: Centre for Arid Zone
Studies, University of North Wales.
Smith, P. D. (ed) 1992b. A Bibiliography of Agricultural Research and
Development in Zanzibar (Volumes I and II). Bangor: Centre for Arid
Zone Studies, University of North Wales.

Walsh, M. T. (ed) 1995. Mixed Farming and Improving Fertility on the

Uwanda of Central Unguja: Principal Findings of a Study of Ndijani
Farmers’ Research Group, Working Paper No. WP 95/draft, Zanzibar
Cash Crops Farming Systems Project, Ministry of Agriculture,
Livestock and Natural Resources, Zanzibar.

Walsh, M.T. (ed) 1995. The Expansion of Cash Crop Production and
Development of Marketing Systems in Northern Unguja: Principal
Findings of a Study of Gamba Farmers’ Research Group, Working
Paper No. WP 95/draft, Zanzibar Cash Crops Farming Systems
Project, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Natural Resources,
Zanzibar.

Williams, R. O. 1947. ‘Plantation Crops’, in Annual Report of the

Department of Agriculture for the Year 1946. Zanzibar. 21.
(abstracted in Smith 1992b).

Williams, R. O. 1949. The Useful and Ornamental Plants in Zanzibar

and Pemba Zanzibar: Zanzibar Protectorate.