Analysing agricultural investment from the realities of small-scale food providers: grounding the debates

Abstract

Over the past decade, agricultural investment has been presented as a catchall solution to a converging set of global crises, often with poor rural communities as the proclaimed beneficiaries. Yet the promises of such investment, such as poverty alleviation and improved food access, are routinely at odds with realities on the ground. This article offers frameworks for analysis of agricultural investment that are grounded in the realities of small-scale food providers, drawing from two studies. The first study employs a right to food framework to identify the main channels through which food for consumption is procured by small-scale food providers and the factors impacting these channels. It draws on empirical data from within the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT), an investment model promised to lift rural communities out of poverty, which reflects a regional trend. Based on the shortcomings of the large-scale investments examined, the second study employs a food sovereignty framework to explore alternative forms of investment envisioned and/or already being put into practice by small-scale food providers in the SAGCOT area and elsewhere in Tanzania. While two different frameworks formed the basis of two different studies, both the studies and their frameworks are interrelated. The final section of this article makes the case for why both the right to food and food sovereignty are essential lenses for understanding agricultural investment vis-à-vis small-scale food providers and the ways in which they can serve as complementary tools for effective analysis.     

“Mtwara will be the New Dubai”: dashed expectations,grievances, and civil unrest in Tanzania

When does inequality lead to conflict? Despite recent studies highlighting the effects of group exclusion, this question has not been fully answered. We argue that objective group inequality is not sufficient to fuel unrest. Structural inequalities need to be perceived as unfair, and become grievances, in order to spark mobilization. While most conflict scholars recognize this on a theoretical level, statistical tests of the effect of inequality on conflict almost exclusively rely on objective data. This limits their ability to distinguish when inequality is politically relevant and when it is not. Southern Tanzania is a case in point. Despite decades of marginalization, the population remained peaceful until natural gas was discovered, and the government was perceived to break their promises of local development. Demonstrating that objective regional inequalities have remained relatively constant, while group grievances seems to have increased, we argue that direct measures of grievances are needed to pinpoint when inequality becomes politically salient. Using novel survey data, we find that people who think that the region is treated unfairly have the highest likelihood of supporting and participating in civil unrest.     

A personal issue: feminist standpoint theory,epistemologies of ignorance,and perceptions of HIV transmission among northern Tanzanian wildlife conservation professionals

Drawing on ten months of qualitative research from 2009/10, we present a case study of situated HIV transmission knowledge claims among wildlife conservation actors in northern Tanzania. Utilizing feminist standpoint theory and epistemologies of ignorance, this article explores why a single professional group consistently articulated divergent explanations of the causal forces shaping on-going HIV transmission dynamics. Elite respondents were more likely to consistently attribute viral transmission to individual-level behaviors, while non-elite conservation actors more often situated HIV transmission dynamics in relation to extra-personal structural forces. This case study reveals the experiential grounding of HIV-related knowledge claims; illuminates the partiality of authoritative knowledge and the intersections of practices of power, embodied understandings and socio-structural location with hierarchical matrices of status and privilege; disrupts the presumed accuracy of certain forms of knowledge by foregrounding the insights of those in positions of subordination; and exposes ineffectual HIV/AIDS interventions in northern Tanzania.     

Challenges and methodological flaws in reporting the global land rush: observations from Tanzania

Since international awareness of a global rush for land has grown from 2008 onward, various databases and reports have attempted to provide an overview of the situation by compiling information on individual land deals. While providing such an overview is challenging owing to the dynamic and untransparent nature of the investments, flawed methods of using and citing data are aggravating that challenge and allowing dissemination of inaccurate information. The consequences are an unnecessarily blurred picture of the land deal situation and thus an inadequate basis for related political decisions or social actions and a misleading starting point for new research projects. In this article we demonstrate some of the flaws in the use of data and their consequences, with examples from fieldwork and literature on Tanzania. The paper illustrates and contributes to the evolving debate on appropriate research methodologies for studying the global land rush.     

A response to Steven Feierman’s ‘writing history: flow and blockage in the circulation of knowledge’

ABSTRACT

This paper responds to Steven Feierman’s ‘Writing history: flow and blockage in the circulation of knowledge.’ Feierman has noted that most of the publications produced in Tanzania, and in Africa more generally, do not circulate to America. As a result, American scholars do not have access to such publications. The consequence of this phenomenon is that American scholars have difficulty producing African historical knowledge that is rich in context. While agreeing with Feierman’s thought-provoking intervention, this paper makes three main propositions. First, while acknowledging the problem of knowledge circulation between Africa and America, the paper renders visible an equally serious and disturbing reality: that the circulation of knowledge between African institutions is far more limited than it is between Africa and America or Europe. Many Africans consume knowledge that is largely produced in America and Europe. Secondly, while agreeing with Feierman that many scholars in America have difficulty producing historical knowledge about Africa that is rich in context, the paper argues that it is still possible for historians to produce contextually-rich knowledge. To do so, it is proposed, such historians need to craft locally-based methodological strategies that are sensitive to Africans’ perspectives on their changing cultural and physical world. Finally, while recognising that the limited circulation of knowledge is an important reason for some American scholars to produce historical knowledge about Africa which is rich in context, the paper offers four additional explanations on this problem, namely the failure of some scholars to conduct sustained primary field research in Africa; lack of personal sacrifice, a proper attitude and commitment to do long-term research in Africa; the tendency of some scholars from America to make no effort to find works produced in African institutions of higher learning when they visit Africa; and the growing over-reliance on digitised sources of information for producing histories, sources which can hardly capture such things as emotions, feelings, thoughts, silences, or cosmologies that are inevitable in the production of contextually-rich historical knowledge.     

全球化与非洲

过去几十年来,在日益加速的全球化过程中,非洲是受益最少的大陆,尤其是撒哈拉以南地区。非洲的历史与其现状有着内在的关联,并值得密切关注。由于非洲各国遭受过长期殖民统治,因此独立后的非洲国家不可能在短期内拥有完善的民主和繁荣的经济。在日益全球化的今天,只有西方跨国公司从中获利,而非洲国家却身处难以扭转的劣势。在这种情况下,南南合作是非常必要的,其最终目标就是要尽力摆脱工业富国的掌控。     

理想与现实结合西倾与东向并举——坦桑尼亚外交特色与绩效评析

自1985年尼雷尔总统卸任后,坦桑尼亚新一代领导人审时度势,对坦桑尼亚外交政策做出较大调整,努力在国际主义理想和务实外交之间寻求合适的平衡点。坦桑尼亚一方面本着国际主义和人道主义关怀,呼吁建立公正合理的国际秩序,促进地区一体化,积极调解周边地区的国际冲突,接纳和善待从周边国家涌入的难民,树立了一个负责任的国家形象;另一方面,避免在一些具体的国际问题上作高调反应,更加务实地展开经济外交,西倾与东向并举,争取国际社会的政治和财政支持。坦桑尼亚外交成效卓著,成功地树立起良好的国际形象,赢得了国际社会的广泛肯定和赞许,源源不断地得到来自东西方捐助国和国际金融组织的援助资金和投资。     

Green economy,Scandinavian investments and agricultural modernization in Tanzania

‘Green economy’ is a broad concept open to different interpretations, definitions and practices ranging from the greening of current neoliberal economies to radical transformations of these economies. In Africa, one emerging and powerful idea in the implementation of the green economy seems to be to use a green agenda to further strengthen development as modernization through capital-intensive land investments. This has again reinvigorated old debates about large-scale versus smallholder agriculture. Influential actors justify large-scale ‘green’ investments by the urgency for economic development as well as to offset carbon emissions and other environmental impacts. In this contribution, we discuss the case of the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) to give examples of how the green economy may materialize in Africa. SAGCOT is presented by the Tanzanian government as well as investors and donors as a leading African example of an ‘investment blueprint’ and as a laboratory to test green growth combining profitable farming with the safeguard of ecosystem services. In particular, we discuss three Scandinavian investments within SAGCOT, their social implications and their discursive representations through the public debates that these investments have generated in Scandinavia.     

Is small beautiful? Village level taxation of natural resources in Tanzania

This article examines collection of natural resources revenue by village governments in Tanzania as part of a decentralisation reform. An analysis of empirical data in the form of taxation records from 14 villages, which collect and retain revenues on natural resources utilisation suggests that decentralising revenue collection to the lowest local government tier may yield: (i) considerable increases in revenue collection; (ii) increased transparency in public finances through requirements that village governments document their incomes and expenditures to the villagers; and (iii) a financial surplus that is used to finance public services at the village level. The evidence presented in this article suggests that decentralising taxation to the lowest local government tier may be a viable approach to enhance revenue collection on the utilisation of relatively low value natural resources, and assure that a share of the collected revenue is used to finance public services. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.