The dynamics of land use change, a case study of Meatu and Iramba Districts of Tanzania

The study was carried out in Iramba and Meatu Districts of Tanzania to examine the drivers of land use change. Household questionnaires, focus group discussions and key informant interviews were used to collect data. Data were analyzed descriptively, inferentially and content-wise with socially referenced interpretation to give a general theme for the findings. In tracing the historical trend of land use changes, the key informants a mentioned 1983-1985 and 1988, 1993, 1996, 1998, 2002 and 2007 as periods which had severe droughts resulting into food insecurity, human and animal populations encroachment into unused land, land resources degradation and decreased number of livestock. Extension into unused land and increase of area under crop cultivation were the main proximate causes of land use changes. Moreover, the determining factors for farm size are adequate land and affordable price of agricultural inputs (seeds, pesticides and fertilizer) with Chi-Square value of 85.443 which was significant at 0.00 % (p ≤ 0.05) and presence of labour with a Chi-Square value of 137.820 which was highly significant at 0.00% (p ≤ 0.05). Other determining factors were climate change and variability (rainfall specifically). Effects of land use change were reported on area under cultivation with average of 86.9% of the respondents reporting that formal grazing land were put under crop cultivation. There were also land use change effects on environment and forest production including increased soil erosion and reduced forest size.(EPNAV