Vines

Vines were introduced into Tanzania by the Holy Ghost Fathers near Kondoa

Vines were first intoduced into Tanzania in 1938 by the Holy Ghost Fathers near Kondoa. In 1957 Passionist Father Irioneo Maggioni, of the Bihawana Mission, planted near Dodoma, three vine seedlings out of curiosity. They proved such a success that today [1984] some 2,980 acres of vineyards are under cultivation around the new capital.

Since 1940 after the pioneers, the Catholic Missionary Fathers (Passionist Fathers from Italy), introduced the crop by planting the grapevine at Bustani Roman Catholic Mission in Kondoa District (Dodoma Region) residents of Dodoma and around saw the potential of a lucrative business as the crop proved to be doing very well in the semi-arid areas.

Available records of the time show that Rev Father Andrea Krieger, the Passionist Father from Italy, made a successful experiment to introduce the crop in Dodoma, now Tanzania's administrative capital.

Vines were first intoduced into Tanzania in 1938 by the Holy Ghost Fathers near Kondoa. In 1957 Passionist Father Irioneo Maggioni, of the Bihawana Mission, planted near Dodoma, three vine seedlings out of curiosity. They proved such a success that today [1984] some 2,980 acres of vineyards are under cultivation around the new capital.

Immediately after independence in 1961, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere, now deceased, visited the place and was very much impressed with the plant. He requested the missionaries to assist the introduction of grapevine production in Dodoma region by providing planting materials and expertise.

Isanga prison, the oldest institution in Tanzania started with only four acres in 1963 and after three years the crop was gradually introduced to the five villages namely Mpunguzi, Msalato, Nala, Nkulabi and Mundemu.

The National Service Camp at Makutupora near Dodoma town also accepted the idea thus increasing the acreage and the yields rising high from the grapes to be consumed fresh as table grapes to wine production.

The first government institution to invest much in wine production was Isanga prison which was prompted to construct a winery plant in 1969. The company, well-known and famous in Africa, was later the sole buyer of grapes for wine processing.

"Dodoma Wine Company DOWICO will not easily be forgotten in the history books of grapevine production in Tanzania," says Job Lusinde, the former Cabinet Minister and retired diplomat in a special interview.

"In setting up of a winery," Lusinde said, "DOWICO bought grapes from farmers, established a research centre to determine appropriate types of grapes of wines and encouraged more and more farmers to come forward and open grape farms".

In 1969 the Ministry of Agriculture also established a vineyard state farm of 126 acres adjacent to Vineyard Research and Training Centre VRTC at Makutupora. The vineyard produced grapes for selling and revenue accrued taken by the Treasury.

The Vineyard State Farm was later given to the Dodoma District Development Corporation (DODIDECO). The corporation produced 31,280 litres of red wine in the first year.

The production raised up to 1.2 million litres in 1986 when another smaller winery called Capital General Manufactures reflected the grapes purchases vis-a-vis wine production before the two major factories were closed down.

During the villagisation period (1970-1976), villages were stimulated and urged by government authorities to establish both communal and individual vineyards. This was the only period of steady expansion of vineyards in Dodoma region, both rural and urban.

The era witnessed the villages competing on production and growing of the grapes while becoming economically stronger to the extent of buying village buses, trucks, tractors and moving into decent houses from tembe, a local hut with a thatched roof, and accumulating wealth on communal basis.

Individual farmers with vineyards also had their living standards raised including Magge Matonya's family.

Reverend Father Gaula, the Vicar General of Dodoma Diocese and Rector of Bihawana Seminary, currently the main grower of grapes and producer of red wine maintains the standard of production. He points out that the early success of this crop in Dodoma "was mainly an outcome of intense efforts by religious institutions".

In his brief observation, Gaula focuses back to a period of some 30 years: Between early 1960s and the late 1980s when grape farming in Dodoma was steadily becoming a dependable cash crop to the peasants.

"Grape farmers were indeed making money at that period but today the acreage has dropped down," Gaula noted.

We've 250 miles ahead of us today, so up at 6.15 for an early start. Peer out over the balcony to see baboons swarming all over the place, taking apart the ornamental gardens.

Leave an hour later, taking the right turn at the end of the hotel drive. The safari traffic turns left and I feel a quite

poignant sense of regret at leaving the animals behind.

A rough track, uncomfortably negotiated, brings us out onto the main road from Dodoma to Arusha. This is a fine, recently constructed highway. It even has white line markings. We sizzle along it for 15 miles, as far as a large phosphate factory at Minjingu. I know it's called Minjingu because it's written several times on a roadside hoarding: 'Have You Applied Minjingu Phosphate Fertiliser?', 'Have You Taken Your Sample?' and finally 'Bon Voyage from Minjingu'. It's quite the opposite as it turns out. Mal voyage from Minjingu to Dodoma, on a road surface, once metalled but since left to break up into a cracked and pitted mess.

We're out of the dramatic scenery and bumping along between dry straw-coloured fields through which bare patches of an ash-grey rock can be glimpsed, with only the occasional 'sausage tree' to enliven the view with its long, cylindrical fruit dangling from the branches.

The villages are plain and poor, growing staple foods like banana and papaya and tomato. At the junction town of Babati we buy samosa and bread for lunch. Even the children here seem to view us with caution, a sort of guarded suspicion which we have not met anywhere else but Sudan, where xenophobia seemed like government policy. What have the children been taught here? I know that Julius Nyerere preached self-sufficiency and nonalignment which may have delivered national pride but not much in the way of economic self-confidence.

For five or six hours we progress along a winding ridge, densely wooded with acacia resplendent in colours of deep green, pale brown and golden yellow, a splash of Vermont in the fall. Then we're running down onto the plain and the baobab trees are the star turn. Some of them are believed to be 2000 years old, massively built, 20 or 30 feet around the trunk, with flanks the colour and texture of gunmetal. Birds love them and owls, hornbills, bats and buffalo weavers nest amongst them.

Over 10 hours after leaving Lake Manyara we finally reach the outskirts of Dodoma, a city of only 45,000 people, not even among the ten largest cities of Tanzania, but plum in the middle of the country. It is announced by a faded sign beside a broken road, Welcome to Dodoma, Capital City'.

This is strong missionary country. On the way in we come across the incongruous sight of orderly rows of Vines, tended by the Passionist Fathers, and producing Dodoma Red, which I am warned against.

The Vocation Centre of the Precious Blood Missionaries and the Assemblies of God Bible College beckon with their signs as does the New Limpopo Bar. A stretch of dual carriageway around the refreshingly modest Parliament building passes the Roman Catholic bookshop, the Paradise Theatre � Elliott Gould and Kate Jackson in Dirty Tricks � and the headquarters of the ruling CCM party (attached directly to the Parliament) before depositing us before the colonial fa�ade of the Dodoma Hotel. Considering this is the best hotel in a capital city it's disappointing that there is no hot water on tap, but a bucketful can be brought to you on request. In the public rooms fat armchairs with their stuffing leaking out are set around an old John Broadwood piano with middle C missing. The food is dull but the beer is cool and welcome. My bed has a huge mosquito net, though I point out to the attendant that it has three very large holes in it. He smiles helplessly and produces a can of fly-spray the size of a bazooka which he uses so freely that I am unable to breathe inside the room for at least ten minutes.

There is a disco in the hotel tonight and it's a measure of how tired I am that the music blasts me to sleep.

Every year gloomy faced vegetable and fruit growers in Tanzania watch helplessly as their produce rot in farms because of lack of transport, reliable market and adequate canning or preservation facilities. It is indeed the most painful period especially for the growers in Dodoma, one of the leading vegetable and fruit producing regions in East Africa. Many farmers are rethinking their careers.

Magge Matonya (not her real name), a widow and mother of seven children - all school drop-outs - is no longer interested in growing mizabibu, literally grapevine, the famous cash crop of Italy as well as of Dodoma region in Tanzania.

Her family's efforts had been frustrated after the death of the head of her household several years ago. She is presently the only provider for her family and all her energy is directed towards gainful endeavours.

Mbukwa Matonya, her husband, died of AIDS-related ailment. But unlike in many other similar circumstances, he left his family reasonably provided for. He earned much from his three acres of vineyard at Mpunguzi Village situated about ten kilometres south west of Dodoma town.