Thursday 11 December 2014

Knowledge, Technology and Society blog will no longer be updated but you can read all the latest opinions from the IDS community on our website

This will be the last post to be published on this blog. The Institute of Development Studies now publishes all our members’ and guest bloggers’ posts directly onto our website.

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The IDS Communications and Engagement Unit

Monday 8 December 2014

Space, markets and employment: 3 films from Zimbabwe


A new series of films explores the links between land reform and economic activity in Zimbabwe, focusing on three commodities: tobacco, beef and horticulture.

The films are produced for the 'Space, Markets and Employment in Agricultural Development' (SMEAD) project by Pamela Ngwenya, supported by the field team. They are accompanied by an overview film.

Zimbabwe is one of three countries where the SMEAD project has undertaken case studies. The others are Malawi and South Africa.



Watch the films on YouTube (high resolution playlist)
Watch the films on YouTube (low resolution playlist)


Overview

Over the last couple of years the SMEAD project has looked at the linkages between agricultural production, employment and other economic activity and the spatial patterns of these interactions. Detailed case studies have explored the different growth pathways linked to agriculture, and how inclusive these are, asking who gains and who loses from agricultural commercialisation.

The study links to well-trodden debates about scale and agriculture, and the linkage and multiplier effects of different types of farming. Do big or small farms create more employment and economic growth, for whom and where? What spatial mix of farm sizes and markets make sense? Can local economic development flourish in an era of globalisation?

The early indications from the SMEAD studies suggest an interesting story, especially for Zimbabwe. This suggests a focus on local economic development, capitalising on and amplifying the linkages already created by entrepreneurial farmers who have benefited from land reform. This will mean a major rethink of rural development policy and planning, but the benefits could be significant if the cases highlighted in these films are anything to go by.

Read more: Making markets: local economic development following land reform (Zimbabweland blog)

Watch this film on YouTube

Tobacco

The rebound of tobacco production in Zimbabwe is striking. From a low in the mid-2000s of only around 48 million kgs, the last season produced 216 million kgs, and exports have soared. For the coming season over 75,000 farmers have registered to sell.

How does tobacco production, spread across so many farmers, affect local economies? In the Mvurwi area in Mazowe district, you cannot escape the impacts of tobacco. The local economy includes companies providing inputs and transport; employment of labour; and farmers using their profits to start businesses and improving their homes and farms. Other local businesses benefit too. The downsides include health problems from tobacco curing, and the destruction of local forests for curing wood.

Read more: Tobacco: driving growth in local economies (Zimbabweland blog)

Watch this film on YouTube

Commercial horticulture

Mr Mahove of Wondedzo extension A1 resettlement area and his wives appear on the video, shot in 2014. He is an example of a new farming entrepreneur, focusing on irrigated horticulture for local markets. He was a pioneer in the area, but many others are now following his example, making often significant money from selling vegetables.

Mr Mahove is one of a number of new irrigation entrepreneurs in the Wondedzo area of Masvingo district. Each has invested in pumps and pipes and are making good use of available water supplies. All have developed market networks linking to Masvingo town and beyond, as well as supplying the local area. They are also employing people for a range of tasks. But there are constraints to this form of production, notably competition for limited supplies of water, which are insufficiently regulated.

Read more: The new irrigation entrepreneurs: commerical horticulture in Masvingo (Zimbabweland blog)

Watch this film on YouTube

Beef in Masvingo

The final film in the ‘Making Markets’ series focuses on the beef sector in Masvingo. In farms that were once large-scale ranches, with high quality animals stocked at very low rates, now a very different cattle production system has emerged on the new resettlements. Here multi-purpose herds are being kept providing multiple functions – draft, transport, milk, manure – and also meat.

The beef market has radically changed, from one focused on high quality cuts and exports to the supply of a growing urban domestic market. New farmers are supplying beef via a range of private abbatoirs, butcheries, supermarkets and informal meat traders. The whole value chain has transformed in ways that has resulted in employment and more locally-based, inclusive growth.

Watch this film on YouTube

About the SMEAD project

The 'Space, Markets and Employment in Agricultural Development' (SMEAD) project is co-ordinated by the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies based at UWC in Cape Town under supported by the UK ESRC and DFID growth research programme.

More video

The project has also produced a documentary film, Cultivating Unemployment, looking at jobs and poverty in the rural economy in South Africa.

Mailing list

To receive updates from this project, sign up to the PLAAS mailing list, ticking the "Space, Markets&Employment in AgriDevelopment " box.

Transforming beef markets in Zimbabwe

This week the final film in the ‘Making Markets’ video series is released. This focuses on the transformed beef sector in Masvingo. In farms that were once large-scale ranches, with high quality animals stocked at very low rates, now a very different cattle production system has emerged on the new resettlements. Here multi-purpose herds are being kept providing multiple functions – draft, transport, milk, manure – and also meat. The beef market has radically changed, from one focused on high quality cuts and exports to the supply of a growing urban domestic market. New farmers are supplying beef via a range of private abbatoirs, butcheries, supermarkets and informal meat traders.
The whole value chain has transformed in ways that has resulted in employment and more locally-based, inclusive growth.

The video picks up on themes discussed in earlier blogs, including on:
This work, and the production of the film, has been supported by the Space, Markets, Employment and Agricultural Development (SMEAD) project, looking at changing patterns of local economic activity following land reform.

Watch the video here (as before if you’ve watched others in the series, you can skip the first 1 min and 30 secs. Also if you would prefer a low resolution version, the link is here):




The post was written by Ian Scoones and appeared on Zimbabweland

COP20: Research from the edge

cop20_logo_text_173The UN Climate Change Conference (COP20) in Lima, Peru (1-12 December 2014) will settle the key elements of a global climate deal to be finalised in Paris next year, when the deadline for a new deal runs out.

The ESRC STEPS Centre and its partners around the world have been working on policy-relevant research in the places at the sharp edge of climate change, where it is having a huge effect on people’s lives and livelihoods. Here are a selection of resources, relevant to the COP20 negotiations, on the impact of climate change on poor and marginalised people, at the intersections of intersections of energy, agriculture, water and health.

Latin American partner:
Centro STEPS America Latina – the new Latin American regional hub for our Global Pathways to Sustainability Consortium, based at CENIT in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Projects:

  • Energy and Climate Change domain With increasing access to modern energy services a key international development priority, the STEPS Centre believes a much broader and ambitious approach to energy and development is needed.
  • Political Ecologies of Carbon in Africa New deals and funding mechanisms aim to reduce emissions. One consequence of this is the growth of a market in carbon. This project examines the power, politics and perceptions of carbon in Africa as new schemes are planned and put into action.
  • Uncertainty from Above and Below How do people deal with uncertainty about the climate? Theories, models and diagrams from "above" may have little to do with the way how everyday men and women live with, understand and cope with uncertainty. This project brings together the views of people who study uncertainty, with the perspectives of people who experience it.
  • Pro-poor, low carbon development This project aims to improve the transfer and uptake of low carbon technologies in developing countries, and to do so in ways that can assist in their economic development.
  • Environmental Change and Maize Innovations in Kenya
    In East Africa, maize is an important staple crop, a vital part of food security. This project examined the various options for farmers in the region – from choosing alternative crops, to using new techniques or technology. It looked at how farmers and others see and make these choices in the context of climate change, uncertain markets and changes in land use.
  • Low Carbon Innovation in China This project explores the extent, nature and social implications of low-carbon transitions in China, a key concern for the whole world.
Publications:
Recent blogposts:
Key People:

Monday 1 December 2014

Maker culture and sustainability

What are citizen labs and ‘maker’ culture providing to sustainable development? STEPS researcher Adrian Smith was part of a panel discussing this question at an event on 18 November in Madrid. A recording from the event is now available.

Listen to the discussion on the Medialab-Prado website (audio in Spanish)

The debate explored the connections between sustainability and the growing number of participatory spaces, mainly in cities, where people experiment with new ways of producing objects and processes – Fab Labs, hackspaces, makerspaces, urban orchards and the like.

The event was organised by Medialab Prado and itdUPM (Centro de Innovación en Tecnología para el Desarollo Humano). The other participants in the panel were Carlos Mataix (itdUPM director), a representative from Makespace Madrid, Ignacio Prieto (coordinador of the Fablab UPM), and Marcos García (director of Medialab-Prado), and the chair, Xosé Ramil (itdUPM’s communications coordinator).

For more on this topic, see our project Grassroots innovation: historical and comparative perspectives