Abstract:
Poverty alleviation is the most urgent task facing humanity today. It is a challenge
that no country, developed or developing can forego. The characteristics of rural and
urban poverty are quite different. In order to reduce rural poverty in Tanzania,
improvement in farm incomes of majority of the rural population is necessary. One
of the strategies which can be used as an intervention to alleviate poverty is Migowe.
This study therefore, was designed to investigate the role played by Migowe towards
rural poverty alleviation in four villages of Njombe District. The general objective
of the study was to investigate the role of Migowe towards rural poverty alleviation.
Specific objectives were to identify factors that influence community members to
abide to Migowe regulations, to assess contribution of Migowe towards household
food security and income improvement. The study adopted a cross-sectional research
design where interview schedules were applied to collect data from a sample size of
120 respondents. Data were statistically analyzed by the use of descriptive statistics
whereby frequencies and percentages were computed. Chi-square was employed to
examine the relationship between variables. Findings from this study show that
respondents participated in Migowe activities because they wanted to accomplish
their planned activities on time. Activities involved in Migowe included buying
pork, crop harvesting, cultivation, land preparation and milk selling. Migowe
activities helped farmers to increase household incomes and household food
security. Statistical T-test analysis result showed a significance difference at p≤0.05
between mean income of Migowe and non Migowe members. Furthermore, the study
recommends that farmers should be encouraged to continue working in groups of
people with homogeneous social norms and values and that there should be a
deliberate effort of publicizing this type of traditional cooperation throughout the
country to all farmers with similar activities.
