Fields of Friction : Practices and politics of irrigated urban agriculture in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Summary

Irrigated urban agriculture is a day-to-day reality in many cities across sub-Saharan Africa despite not receiving popular attention. This dissertation examines how the practices and politics of irrigated urban agriculture shape urban space in the growing city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Irrigated urban agriculture is defined as the irrigated production of food crops on land located within cities or as part of urbanising landscapes, interacting both quantitatively and qualitatively with other urban water usage, surrounded by policies and other institutions, while serving multiple functions. The dissertation is positioned at the intersections of water, food, and the city, and describes the Fields of Friction between irrigated agriculture and the city.---After introducing the research context and approach in Chapters 1 and 2, Chapters 3 to 5 present a detailed analysis of everyday practices while showing how they are part of a politically-constituted space. A foodshed analysis quantifies the food flow of the leafy vegetable amaranth and shows that 70 per cent of all amaranth consumed in Dar es Salaam was produced within the city. This urban embeddedness of agriculture raises questions about farmers' right to existence, as urban planning and governance largely ignore agriculture as urban land use, irrigation as part of the urban water system, and local production for urban food security. Therefore, irrigated urban agriculture is consequently studied as an exponent of everyday urbanism. Farmers claim their (informal) right to the city and are persistently part of the city’s appearance and how it functions, yet face pressure from powerful ideas about what fits the modern city. Two distinct types of ‘urban agriculture’ are recognised by policy actors in Dar es Salaam, referred to as ‘apartment agriculture’ and ‘city agriculture’ (in Swahili expressions) that respectively align with modern planning ideals and the everyday reality of agriculture. While authorities aim for modern technologies that legitimise the presence of agriculture in the city, the majority of urban farmers rely on self-organised types of agriculture built on informal agreements over access to land and water. Chapter 6 zooms out and explores the academic literature and the day-to-day governance of wastewater reuse in agriculture. The growing academic attention for wastewater reuse shows a prevalent managerial focus on water quality and quantity, rendering the role of power and politics invisible.---The last chapter synthesises the research and sheds light on the (contested) appropriation of urban space. Building and reflecting on the lessons learned, three ways of engagement are explored regarding the bottom-up appropriation of space (of which irrigated urban agriculture is an exponent). The dissertation concludes that studying urban space from the perspective of farmers pluralises the understanding of cities and contributes to addressing knowledge inequities. The Fields of Friction between irrigated agriculture and the city described in this work represent more than just the spaces for growing food; they are spaces where issues of access, equity, and sustainability are contested. Urban farmers, in practice, actively shape and control urban space, yet do not hold an equal right to the future city.