Jatropha curcas cultivation and its impact on land use and cover change in Monduli and Mpanda districts, Tanzania
Loading...
Date
2010
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
Competition over kind resources between food and energy production is very crucial
aspect of development, if energy crops takes in larger share of land resources food security
could be compromised. Energy crop such as sugar cane, palm and Jatropha curcas
production is being promoted all over the country at small and large scale. The question is
whether the introduction of energy crop production plants has any impact on land
use/cover? To investigate this Monduli and Mpanda districts were selected for the study
because there are active outgrowers cultivating Jatropha in hedges and plots respectively
for more than six years in these districts now. Multi-temporal remote sensing (RS) data
and Geographic Information Systems (G1S) were used to quantify land use and land cover
types before and after introduction of Jatropha cultivation in the districts. To integrate RS
and G1S data with the society at the study areas socio-economic data was collected using
household questionnaires. It was found that the most negatively impacted land cover/use
was agriculture as most of agriculture lands were converted into Jatropha cultivation.
However it was also found that planting Jatropha on hedges is more profitable than in
farm plots, it does not compromise arable land and still there is high potential for
cultivating Jatropha in hedges. It was concludes that in order to have sustainable
agriculture and food security a biofuel policy should be developed to regulate biofuel
production in the country and should categorically state that biofuel crops which can grow
on marginal land like Jatropha should not be grown on high quality arable land.
Description
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of master of science in the management of natural resources for sustainable agriculture
Keywords
Jatropha curcas cultivation, Land use, Cover change, Monduli districts, Mpanda districts, Tanzania