Abstract
South African corporate agribusiness and large-scale commercial farmers have been major players in the current acquisitions of large tracts of very fertile land in southern and eastern Africa through massive investments in large-scale commercial farming, food processing, the production of biofuels and eco-tourism. By emphasising the significance of analysing the changing capital smallholder relationship in historical perspective, the paper explores continuity and change in the agrarian social structure and the land use dynamics of the Kilombero valley. It argues that smallholders are differentially and adversely integrated within agribusiness-led vertically organised agri-food chains consolidating and widening existing patterns of social inequality.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Lucy Misinzo for her precious fieldwork assistance in the Kilombero valley. I also need to acknowledge the support of Illovo managers who provided me with vital statistics on Illovo and KSCL. Last but not least, I need to thank the numerous outgrowers I had the opportunity to interview during fieldwork who spent time and shared their knowledge with me.
Notes
1. FAO et al., Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investments.
2. GRAIN, Seized and La via Campesina, “Conference Declaration.”
3. Zoomers, “Globalization and the Foreignization of Space,” 429.
4. Amanor and Moyo, Land and Sustainable Development.
5. World Bank, “Rising Global Interest in Farmland,” vi.
6. Moyo et al., “Imperialism and Primitive Accumulation.”
7. Hall, “Land Grabbing in Southern Africa.”
8. Hall and Cousin, “Commercial Farming and Agribusiness in South Africa.”
9. Greenberg, “Agrarian Reform and South Africa’s.”
10. McMichael, “A Food Regime Genealogy.”
11. Hall, “The Next Great Trek?”
12. Richardson, “Big Sugar.”
13. Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty.
14. Miller, “New Regional Imaginaries.”
15. Shivji, “South Africa’s Second Primitive Accumulation,” 38.
16. Moyo et al., “The Agrarian Question.”
17. Edelman, “Messy Hectares” and Oya, “Methodological Reflections.”
18. Borras and Franco, “Global Land Grabbing.”
19. Peters, “Conflicts over Land.”
20. Sulle, “A Hybrid Business Model.”
21. Cotula and Leonard, Alternatives to Land Acquisitions.
22. Daviron and Gibbon, “Global Commodity Chains”; Gibbon and Ponte, Trading Down.
23. Bryceson, “Deagrarianization.”
24. Bernstein, Class Dynamics.
25. Cousin, “Smallholder Irrigation Schemes.”
26. Marx, Capital.
27. Chacage, Land Acquisition.
28. Sulle and Hall, Reframing a New Alliance.
29. Bond and Garcia, BRICS: Anti-Capitalist Critique.
30. Cheru and Modi, “Introduction.”
31. Martin, “South Africa,” 180.
32. Borras, et al., “Politics of Agrofuel.”
33. Hall and Cousins, “Commercial Farming.”
34. Sauer and Pietrafesa, “Cana de Açugar.”
35. Smalley et al., “The Role of the State.”
36. Illovo, Integrated Report, 6.
37. Ibid., 46.
38. Borras et al., “The Rise of Flex Crops,” 2.
39. McKay et al., “The Politcal Economy,” 20.
40. Illovo, Integrated Report, 96.
41. McKay et al., The Political Economy, 21.
42. Interview, KSCL Corporate Manager, 5 June 2014.
43. Furfural is an organic compound derived from a variety of agricultural by-products and used as an extractive solvent in the purification of base oils.
44. Phytofortifiers/soil improvers, fertilizers, fungicides and agricultural nematicides.
45. Illovo, Integrated Report, 27.
46. Nkonya and Barrero-Hurle, Analysis of Incentives.
47. Beck, “The Kilombero Valley,” 37.
48. East African Royal Commission, 1953–55 Report.
49. Sprenger, Sugarcane Outgrowers, 11.
50. Kopoka, Acquisitions and Utilization, 8.
51. Baum, “Land Use.”
52. Beck, “The Kilombero Valley,” 39.
53. Cliffe and Cunningham, “Ideology.”
54. Huizer, “The Ujamaa Village,” 3.
55. Cliffe, “Nationalism.”
56. Kopoka, Acquisitions and Utilization, 18.
57. Sprenger, Sugarcane Outgrowers, 11.
58. Baum, “Land Use,” 23.
59. Kopoka, Acquisitions and Utilization, 19.
60. see Cliffe, “Rural Class Formation,” 206.
61. The policy of territorial (re)organisation which prescribed the creation of new administrative entities and villages in which local population were often coercively assembled allegedly in order to facilitate services provision.
62. Sprenger, Sugarcane Outgrowers, 11.
63. Smalley et al., “The Role of the State,” 7.
64. Ibid.
65. Kopoka, Acquisitions and Utilization, 20.
66. Sprenger, Sugarcane Outgrowers, 12.
67. Coulson, “Agricultural Policies.”
68. Sprenger, Sugarcane Outgrowers, 13.
69. Kopoka, Acquisitions and Utilization, 15.
70. Tibajuka and Msambichaka, “The Role of Large-scale Farming,” 68.
71. Kopoka, Acquisitions and Utilization, 17.
72. Wuyts, “Accumulation, Industrialization and the Peasantry,” 160.
73. Bernstein, “Agricultural ‘Modernization’.”
74. Coulson, Tanzania: A Political Economy, 257.
75. Dinham and Hines, Agribusiness in Africa, 120.
76. Mbilinyi, “Agribusiness and Casual,” 115.
77. Sprenger, Sugarcane Outgrowers, 16.
78. Mbilinyi and Semakafu, Gender and Employment.
79. Sprenger, Sugarcane Outgrowers, 25.
80. Though it later sold government shares.
81. Smalley et al., “The Role of the State,” 7.
82. Interview, Msolwa Ujamaa outgrower, 15 June 2014.
83. Smalley et al., “The Role of the State,” 12.
84. Interview, company official, 9 June 2014.
85. Smalley et al., “The Role of the State,” 12.
86. Interview, company official, 10 June 2014.
87. Illovo, Integrated Report.
88. Interview, company official, 10 June.
89. MUCGA, Historia.
90. Interview, Msolwa Ujamaa Chairman, 13 June 2015.
91. Illovo, Integrated Report, 43.
92. Hickey and du Toit, “Adverse Incorporation.”
93. Borras and Franco, “Global Land Grabbing.”
94. Monson, Africa’s Freedom Railway.
95. Mbiliny and Semakafu, Gender and Employment.
96. Smalley et al., “The Role of the State.”
97. Bernstein, Class Dynamics.
98. Illovo, Integrated Report, 43.
99. Interview, Illovo Communication Manager, 16 November 2013.
100. Sulle, “An Hybrid Business Model.”
101. Oya, “Contract Farming.”
102. World Bank, Agriculture for Development.
103. Smalley et al., “The Role of the State” and Illovo, Integrated Report.
104. Richardson-Ngwenya and Richardson, “Aid for Trade.”
105. Rifkin, Entropia.
106. Rifkin, Entropia, 77.
107. Altieri, “Ecological Impacts of Industrial Agriculture.”
108. Weis, “The Accelerating Biophysical Contradictions.”
109. HAKIARDHI, Facts Finding.
110. Interview, Msolwa Ujamaa outgrower, 1 July 2014.
111. Mwakalila, “Vulnerability of People’s Livelihoods.”
112. O’Laughlin, “Burning Cane.”
113. Borras and Franco, “Global Land Grabbing.”