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| Agro-ecological map of Tanzania |
Most of the people think that crop production requires only
farms and funds, however there’s one thing they forget. It’s the ecology of
their farm lands, Agro-ecological zone.
By the way, what is an Agro-ecological zone?
Agro-ecological zones are geographical areas exhibiting similar climatic
conditions that determine their ability to support rained agriculture.
FAO on the other hand defines Agro-ecological zone (AEZ) as: a land resource
mapping unit, defined in terms of climate, landform and soils, and/or land
cover, and having a specific range of potentials and constraints for land use.
According to FAO the essential elements of the core applications of
agro-ecological zone comprise of: (i) land resources
inventory (ii) inventory of land utilization types and crop requirement and
(iii) land suitability evaluation.
However our interest is on crop requirements and land suitability for crop
production
Now, let’s begin this way.
Agro-ecological zones (AEZ) are influenced by a number of factors. The
key factors being:
- Altitude
- Temperature
- Humidity
- Rainfall
amounts
- Seasonality
- Distribution
during growing season and
- Latitudes
at a regional scale
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| The agro-ecological map of African Region |
Remember
the factors aforementioned, then let’s continue.
If we assume all the socio-economic factors to be constant, agriculture is
majorly affected by environmental factors which are: climate, topography/relief
(high lands, sloping lands or lower lands) and soil fertility. However climate
is made up of, among others; temperature, humidity and rainfall which are also
the major factors influencing agro-ecological zones (AEZ) as shortlisted above.
If you review the factors influencing crop growth and development you will find
out that it is temperature, moisture/water/rain, light and soil fertility
(plant nutrients).
What actually I’m a trying to say?
My point is “the performance of the crops depend on the agro-ecological zone”,
and that “not all crops can do better in all agro-ecological zones”. So you
must choose carefully either the crops to cultivate in your agro-ecological
zone or the agro-ecological zone for the crops you want to produce.
You understand now, right?
The knowledge of agro-ecological zone is essential to crop growing period, and
provides a way of including seasonality in land resource appraisal. In many
tropical areas, conditions are too dry during part of the year for crop growth
to occur without irrigation, while in temperate climatic regimes crop
production in winter is limited by cold temperatures. The growing period
defines the period of the year when both moisture and temperature conditions
are suitable for crop production in that particular zone.
The growing period provides a framework for summarizing temporally variable
elements of climate (in a particular agro-ecological zone), which can then be
compared with the requirements and estimated responses of the plant. Such parameters
as temperature regime, total rainfall and evapotranspiration and the incidence
of climatic hazards are more relevant when calculated for the growing period,
when they may influence crop growth, rather than averaged over the whole year.
Do you understand now how important it's to choose a suitable zone? If you
mistake, you are done!
Now back to our home land;
Division of Tanzania into Agro-ecological zones (See the map
on top of this post)
The research done by Mlingano Agricultural Research Institute (ARI Mlingano)
divided Tanzania into seven Agro-ecological zones. These are
- Central zone which
covers the central regions of Tanzania; Dodoma and Singida.
- Eastern zone which
covers Morogoro, Dar es salaam, Tanga, Coastal region, Unguja and Pemba
islands.
- Western zone: covers
Kigoma and Tabora regions.
- Lake zone: includes Mara, Shinyanga,
Mwanza and Kagera
- Northern zone covers
Arusha, and Kilimanjaro regions
- Southern zone has two
regions: Lindi and Mtwara
- Southern highlands zone which
includes Mbeya, Iringa, Njombe, Ruvuma, and Rukwa regions.
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