Biofuel production and food availability in Meru district, Arusha, Tanzania

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN HUMAN NUTRITION OF SOKOINE UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE. MOROGORO, TANZANIA.

Jatropha cultivation for biofuel production in Tanzania started in 2006 and the process has kept on increasing. In Meru District it has continued through inter-cropping system, which can lead to food insecurity due to its competition with food crops in its growth requirements. A cross sectional research design was adopted in this study to examine how jatropha production as biofuel raw material influences food availability in the District. Overall, 232 male and 58 female farmers were involved. Wards Agricultural Officers and District Agricultural and Nutrition Officers were also involved. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20. Household food security status was assessed using questions obtained from Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS). Results show that: Food secure access was 16%, mildly food insecure access was 35%, moderately food insecure access was 46% and severely food insecure access was 3%. This means that communities were food insecure since only 16% were able to access food all the time. Jatropha cultivation was done in small scale whereby 2% of agricultural land was used for cultivation and 98% of agricultural land was for other crops. No biofuel production was done in the District since the responsible company for production was closed. We reject the null hypothesis that the production of jatropha as raw material for biofuel production will unlikely lead to food insecurity since there is reduction of number of bags of maize harvested in post jatropha production, the jatropha production did not generate income to 95% of the farmers since there was no market for the seeds and made farmers to abandon their plants even though the plants already occupy 2% of the agricultural land. So jatropha cultivation affects food availability, other factors which affect food availability are food price, government subsidies, rainfall, business, labour, distance to the market and land.