From cradle to chain? Gendered struggles for cassava commercialisation in Mozambique

ABSTRACT

This article draws on survey data, interviews and archival research to analyse women's mixed responses to a cassava commercialisation scheme in Zavala district, Mozambique. As an example of the “Green Revolution for Africa” (GR4A) approach to development, which holds that women farmers’ participation in “value chains” will reduce rural poverty and hunger, this initiative seeks to transform cassava from a food staple into raw material for cassava-based commercial beer. The study evaluates the contradictory claims and outcomes of the GR4A model, as the bumpy roll-out of the value chain in Zavala reveals the risks of overlooking the historical context and gendered knowledge in neoliberal development interventions.

RÉSUMÉ

Cet article s’appuie sur des données d’enquête, des entretiens et des recherches dans les archives pour analyser les réponses mitigées des femmes à un programme de commercialisation du manioc dans le district de Zavala, au Mozambique. Comme exemple de l'approche de développement « Révolution verte pour l'Afrique » (GR4A), selon laquelle la participation des agricultrices à des « chaînes de valeur » doit réduire la pauvreté et la faim en milieu rural, cette initiative vise à convertir le manioc d'un aliment de base à une matière première pour la production commerciale de la bière. L'étude évalue les prétentions et les résultats contradictoires du modèle GR4A, et illustre par la description de la mise en place chaotique de la chaîne de valeur à Zavala les risques de négliger le contexte historique et les connaissances différenciées selon le sexe dans le cadre d’interventions de développement néolibérales.

KEYWORDS:

• Mozambique
• cassava
• smallholder agriculture
• commercialisation
• gender

Notes on contributor

Heidi Gengenbach is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She is the author of the electronic book Binding Memories: Women as Tellers and Makers of History in Magude, Mozambique (Columbia University Press, 2005). In addition to her ongoing research on the nutritional impact of a donor-funded cassava commercialisation project in southern Mozambique, she is working on her second book, Recipes for Disaster: Gender, Hunger, and the Remaking of an Agrarian Food World in Central Mozambique, 1500–2000.

Notes

1 In October 2016, Anheuser-Busch (AB InBev) finalised its purchase of SABMiller, merging the world's two leading beer companies.

2 In 2007, then-President Guebuza called for Mozambique to “lead the Green Revolution in  …  Africa” (Malakata 2007).

3 We conducted surveys in 15 randomly selected villages (povoados). Since local census lists were not available, we surveyed roughly every third household we encountered on foot.

4 In addition to Cornwall’s (2007) important work on the anti-developmental effects of development discourse, see Faille (2011) and essays in Cornwall and Eade (2010).

5 Interviews with Alexander Fernando, IFDC, October 27, 2015; Anabela Manhiça, AGRA, November 12, 2015.

6 These statistics are problematic. If farmers on average sold 25 kg of cassava per week, which is unlikely, and received 2 mts/kg, which was typically not the case (see below), per capita weekly returns would be just 50 mts (USD 0.75).

7 Only sweet varieties can safely be eaten raw. Bitter varieties have dangerous levels of cyanogenic glucosides and must be processed before consumption. Rale is made with bitter cassava.

8 For example, Erskine 1875, 84.

9 By comparison, in July–August 2016, the purchase price in Maputo was 40–50 mts/kg.

10 DADTCO management and staff we questioned denied this claim, but none of the farmers who reported the reduced price was given a receipt for the sale.

11 “The Cassava Revolution” https://www.monaco-impact.org/the-cassava-revolution/, accessed 10 November 2016.

12 Space limitations prevent a full discussion of the relationship between male migrancy and food security in southern Mozambique. See Penvenne (2015), Chapter three for an excellent overview.

13 These non-food uses remain common today. See also Earthy (1933, 31).

14 Rosa Zavale, interviewed by Alcino Comé and Justino Nhabinde, Maputo, August 16, 2016.

15 It was precisely these areas of Zavala that suffered most, nutritionally, from the protracted drought and cyclone that struck Inhambane province in 2017.

16 Among women surveyed who sold cassava to DADTCO in 2015–2016, 50 per cent were married and 24 per cent lived with a male partner. Forty-one per cent of these women reported that their spouse/partner was engaged in migrant work outside Zavala.

17 See Doss (1999) for other African examples of men taking up women's farming activities once they become more profitable.

18 Hall, Scoones, and Tsikata (2017).

19 On the contrary, the project relies heavily on the neoliberal discourse of farmer choice and “participatory” development (for instance, the purchase agreement DADTCO signs with farmers obligates the firm to buy from them but does not compel farmers to sell). On “participation as tyranny”, see Williams (2004).

20 For a nuanced analysis of gender and technology adoption, see Beuchelt and Badstue (2013).

21 Justino Nhabinde and Alcino Comé, personal communication with author, May 31, 2018.

22 Interview with Olivia Mugunhe, Buque, September 21, 2016.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation’s Division of Behavioral & Cognitive Sciences (Geography and Spatial Sciences Program), under Grant #1539833.