The Symbiotic Food System: An ‘Alternative’ Agri-Food System Already Working at Scale

Abstract

Abstract:This article is an analysis of the agri-food system that feeds most of the over four million residents of the fast growing city of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. It is based on qualitative research that has traced the sources of some important foods from urban eaters back through retailers, processors and transporters to the primary producers. Particular attention is given to the functioning of the market places and how new actors enter into the food system. These reveal that more important to the system than competition are various forms of collaboration. Of particular interest is how a wide range of small-scale and interdependent actors produce the food and get it to urban eaters at a city feeding scale without large vertically-or horizontally-integrated corporate structures. This "symbiotic food system" is an existing alternative to the corporate-dominated agri-business food system; it can and does deliver at scale and in a way that better responds to the needs of people in poverty who are buying food and the interests of food producers. It is not perfect in Dar es Salaam, but the food system is working and is a model that should be built on.

Land Inequality Trends and Drivers

“…The contestation in Tanzania is not only over land, but also about control of other resources, such as water, and different approaches to markets, from the belief in the value of existing territorial markets [106,107] to the promotion of "formalization" and visions of commercial farmers linked to larger processors with more focus on exports [105,108]. While there are a small number of winners, many small-scale farmers and local communities have lost land and autonomy [104,109] and there have been large-scale and in some cases violent evictions of pastoralists from fertile and water rich land that is being targeted for investors as part of SAGCOT [110].…”

Exploring the Staple Foodscape of Dar es Salaam

“…Maize is the dominant staple crop in Tanzania and it is grown "almost exclusively by small-scale farmers" [16] (p. 32). The supply of maize to Dar es Salaam has been written about elsewhere [11] so we will only touch on a few salient points in this article.…”

“…This implies it should be used as an analytical tool, mapping, describing and analyzing the socio-spatial relations of food provisioning, rather than as a normative tool, exploring how food provisioning can be spatially confined within a specific territory. This article analyzes the foodscape of a "symbiotic food system" [11] that exists as the main supplier of foods to a major African city; Dar es Salaam. Dar es Salaam is the ninth fastest growing urban center in the world, with a population of over 4.5 million that has increased by over two million people in the last 14 years [11][12][13].…”

“…This article analyzes the foodscape of a "symbiotic food system" [11] that exists as the main supplier of foods to a major African city; Dar es Salaam. Dar es Salaam is the ninth fastest growing urban center in the world, with a population of over 4.5 million that has increased by over two million people in the last 14 years [11][12][13]. Sustainably feeding cities like this, where many of the residents of the city and those in the rural hinterlands of the same country live in poverty, is a growing challenge that any food system will have to meet [7,8,14].…”

“…Important findings from the research that informs this article are that the primary food system that feeds Dar es Salaam has emerged without any state or other institutional intervention. Instead, it is built through the interdependent actions of a wide range of small-scale actors that are operating within a common set of cultural repertoires [11]. The foodscape that this food system creates does not align with any administrative boundaries and continues to evolve and change in response to a range of influences.…”