Struggles over crop rights and labour within contract farming households in a Gambian irrigated rice project

Abstract

Contract farming schemes based on smallholders are expanding in Africa. Peasant household production is being restructured by the process. Research carried out in the Jahaly Pacharr irrigated rice scheme in The Gambia examines the changes that developed with the genesis of ‘contract farming of the dietary staple, rice. The production routine generated conflicts and struggles within project households over access to and control of female labor. These have led to new labor processes in the project area, which are shaping producers’ abilities to comply with contract farming production strictures.

Notes

Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley. Research for this article was made possible over the past few years through funding from the Center for Research on Economic Development of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan and the Institute for Development Anthropology, Binghamton, New York. I also wish to thank Michael Watts, Peter Little, Susana Hecht, Lucy Jarosz, and Carol Dickerman for comments on earlier drafts.