Training In Agriculture and Animal Husbandry at the Government Teachers' Training School, Mpwapwa, Tanganyika Territory

Abstract

Situated in the Central Province, one of the driest areas in Tanganyika, Mpwapwa has a rainfall varying between 17 and 35 inches annually, averaging from 20 to 25, and falling almost entirely between December and March. I! is at an altitude of approximately 3,500 feet above sea level on a slope which averages 1 in 17 and on highly erodible soil. To the north lies the Kiburiani massif, rising to 6,500 feet. The people of the Central Province are mainly pastoral, and though boys are admitted to the school from other provinces, it is the local background which has to be borne in mind in any system of agricultural training. Tl1is may be summed up as dry, highly erodible land, subject to heavy rain storms; miles and miles of bush producing an ephemeral pasture during the rains, but through which half starved cattle eke out a bare subsistence during most of the year; its main needs are anti-erosion work and pasture making.