A History of the Work of the Mwabagole Rice Station, Lake Province, Tanzania

Abstract

The Mwabagole Rice Station was started as a substation of the Western Research Centre, Ukiriguru, in 1935. It comprised some 20 acres of fertile mbuga soil, a heavy, black, deep-cracking, alkaline clay, containing nodules of limestone. (Milne 1938, Prentice 1943.) The station was situated eight miles from Ukiriguru on the shore of Mwanza Gulf at the mouth of a valley. The land sloped gently towards the Lake, and supplementary irrigation was provided by pumping from a furrow dug inland from the Lake, and allowing the water to flow back through the rice fields. Flood water coming down the valley after heavy rain could also be directed on to the land