ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how, where, and why Taita have experienced drought and also shows how they have dealt with food shortages that have occurred as a consequence of drought. The Taita live in a compact and highly dissected hill area totally surrounded by arid, scrub-covered plains. Most Taita are smallholder farmers growing combinations of food and cash crops on holdings of 2 ha or less. The single most significant variable in Taita agriculture is rainfall. Travellers in the Taita area between 1848 and 1910 commented on the abundance of food available for sale in Taita communities and markets even at the height of cycles of drought, and deplored the Taita willingness to exchange foodstuffs for “frivolous goods” such as cloth, beads and ornaments. The ability of the individual Taita household to control land in a number of different microniches has gradually been reduced under the onslaughts of rapid population growth, tax and labor demands, and land tenure reform.
