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ABSTRACT
In 2010, political leaders of three countries—Brazil, Japan, and Mozambique—announced an ambitious trilateral collaboration intended to re-make the Mozambican savannah. Political and business leaders hailed ProSavana as an innovative project that would apply Brazil’s success in agricultural modernization to one of the poorest countries in the world. Drawing on interviews with project personnel and agricultural research scientists in Mozambique as well as on archival material from the colonial period, I argue that although ProSavana was promoted as a way to bring Mozambican agriculture into the twenty-first century with the aid of cutting-edge science, it was very much a throwback to the colonial period.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Wendy Wolford is the Robert A. and Ruth E. Polson Professor of Development Sociology at Cornell University
Notes
1 The reference to frontier farming is in a 2011 article in Reuters (Ewing Citation2011).
2 The archives I worked in in Lisbon were: the Torre do Tombo, the Geographic Society of Lisbon (SGL), the historical archive of the National Overseas Bank (BNU), the University of Lisbon’s Superior Institute for the Social and Political Sciences (ISCS), and the Institute for the Study of Economics and Management (ISEG). While doing this research, I was affiliated with the Center for the Study of Asia, Latin America and Africa (CeSA) at the University of Lisbon. I thank the National Science Foundation (grant SES-1331265), the Fulbright Program and Cornell University for sponsoring the research that made this article possible. This article is part of a larger research project on the politics of land, agricultural research and the state in Brazil and Mozambique.
3 This quote is from a day-long public seminar held in Brasília with representatives of ProSavana and civil society from all three countries. A summary can be found in the first pages of this note here: http://www.consultaesic.cgu.gov.br/busca/dados/Lists/Pedido/Attachments/497015/RESPOSTA_PEDIDO_Prosavana-2016.pdf. Quotes in this paper are from my transcription of the meeting.
4 The FAO estimates that there are 3.2 million small farmers and 400 commercial farmers in Mozambique (FAO Citationn.d.).
5 This study was conducted over several months in 2012, by three Japanese consulting firms in consultation with the Ministry of Agriculture and provincial agricultural offices. The three consulting firms were: Oriental Consultants Co. Ltd.; NTC International Co. Ltd.; and Task Co Ltd.
6 The study calculates the carrying capacity of the Nacala corridor under swidden farming by referring to a Japanese book Inasaku Izen (Farming Practices in Japan before Rice Farming came) by Sasaki (Citation1971).
7 This sense of surprise at local conditions came through in talking with the primary Japanese consultant in charge of implementing Japan’s contribution to ProSavana in Nampula. He said: ‘To select the participants, we really only did a one-hour interview with the community members, so we ask government to recommend … At first we thought we would go through the church but there are many religions – there are Muslims here!’ [And he sort of threw his hands up.] ‘The government usually picks groups to support but what about all of the others? We need a sociologist to tell us how to reach the poorest groups.’ (Interview 37, November 29, Nampula, 2016)
8 Newitt (Citation1995) describes the colonial economy in Mozambique as a combination of feudalism (particularly in relation to the large-scale land grants that granted rights to native labor), commercial capitalism (exemplified by the commercial companies and plantations, which were established to produce goods for export), and mercantilism (where production was legally and morally expected to satisfy demand in the metropole) (Newitt Citation1995).
9 The reports were published in English in the first issue of the journal Boletim da Repartição de Agricultura de Moçambique. They were subsequently re-printed in the second issue in Portuguese after receiving complaints.
10 Salazar’s approach to satisfying Portugal’s demand for raw materials with increased production in the territories bears many similarities to actions undertaken by the Marquis de Pombal in the mid-1700s. Of particular relevance is the Marques’ revival of mercantilism, which Salazar imitated by creating commodity boards that regulated exports, ensuring that Portuguese companies were privileged buyers.
11 Paiva went on to lament that much of the wealth from cotton would flow out of the colony because ‘the prices that are set for these crops always favor the metropole (the purchaser) to the detriment of the colonial producers and so ‘one can conclude that Portugal, of all the colonizing countries, is the one that least protects its colonies’ (Pitcher Citation1952, 48).
12 In 1943 Ministro Vieira Machado created the Cotton Center for Scientific Research (Centro de Investigação Científica Algodeira, or CICA). The very first task was to find out what conditions were actually available in the province, with the goal of deciding where to cultivate cotton – very much like ProSavana.
13 Statement in the justification for requesting a survey of the district of Lourenço Marques: Reconhecimento Agricola-Económico Distrito de Lourenço Marques (Manhiça, Sábiè, Magude e Bilene); Relatorios do Agronomo do Distrito 1916–1917. Imprensa Nacional: Lourenço Marques 1918 (Governo Geral da Província de Moçambique; Repartição de Agricultura).
14 There was a small group of people (roughly 4000) who had achieved the ambiguous status of ‘assimilated’ and these were described thus: ‘The assimilated indigene belongs to the black race and is more evolved and acts as a transition between the European civilization and the civilization of the aborigine, that is a phase not far from nomadism.’