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Articles

Large investments, small farmers: A financialisation perspective on value chains in a development corridor

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ABSTRACT

Development corridors have recently gained momentum as territorial tools to attract flows of global capital into agricultural value chains. As this includes the controversial blending of public with private funding for investments into farmland, the integration of smallholders in large-scale operations is increasingly promoted as legitimatory practice. With this article, we discuss the role of finance in shaping such value chain arrangements. Using a spatially sensible financialisation perspective, we present two investment cases that have touched ground as reaction to the promotion of the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT). We assess how finance unfolded along territorial (corridor region and investment origin) and relational (investment chain and value chain) spatialities, to scrutinise the tensions and fragile outcomes that were co-constituted by mixed financial and moral investment imperatives. This helps to understand whether, why, and with what consequences smallholders can benefit from corridor-related investments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 From here on ‘smallholders’.

2 Silverlands #4.

3 Silverlands #1.

4 Silverlands #4.

5 Silverlands #2.

6 Silverlands #2.

7 Silverlands #4.

8 NGO #2, Silverlands #2; 3.

9 CDF #3.

10 Smallholder #1; 2; commercial farmer #2; NGO #1; SAGCOT #1.

11 SAGCOT #1.

12 Silverlands #4.

15 CDF #4, SAGCOT #1.

16 CDF #4.

17 CDF #1; 4, NGO #1, commercial farmer #2, smallholder #1; 3, government representative #1; 2.

18 Commercial farmer #1; 2.

19 CDF #3.

20 CDF #4.

21 CDF #4.

22 CDF #4, smallholder #3; 4.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [INST 217/928-1] and is part of the CRC-TRR 228 ‘Future Rural Africa’.