Urban agriculture and the sustainable Dar es Salaam project
Sawio,Camillus J. / 1994

This is the first project in a series on urban agriculture (UA) to be developed in East Africa, for a network to build on previous IDRC-funded project findings, to inform and influence city-specific urban environmental policies. Research will seek to promote urban management changes enabling UA to contribute more to urban food self-reliance, employment, waste recycling, and the productive management of urban space. This project is sited in Dar es Salaam where UA is significant and well documented, and also where the UNCHS/UNDP/WB Sustainable Cities Program is implementing the first of a series of city demonstrations on environment planning and management. As per 1988 census, UA ranks as second largest urban employer in Dar es Salaam; it occupies 11 percent of people aged 10 or more, but 20 percent of those employed, and produces 100 000 tonnes of food crops annually, plus dairy cattle, pigs, broiler chickens, layer hens, etc. However, UA in Dar es Salaam faces a number of constraints, identified by previous IDRC projects (86-0090, 90-0123, and 90-6060-25): marketing obstacles, inadequate technical extension, unrealistic city bylaws, land shortage, congestion, noise, and odour from livestock. This joint effort with UNCHS will establish study conditions needed for optimizing UA in the city and document the policy-making process for the benefit of other large African citie