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
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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.
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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
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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:
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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
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STEPS America Latina launches new website

The Centro STEPS America Latina – the new Latin American regional hub for our Global Pathways to Sustainability Consortium – has unveiled its own dedicated website.

The new website is now live at www.stepsamericalatina.com.

stepsalweb

The Centro STEPS website is run by a team at the Centro de Investigaciones para la Transformación (CENIT) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, who have been working with the STEPS Centre since 2008 on issues linking science, technology and innovation with environmental sustainability and social justice.

The new website showcases the Latin American hub's research, policy engagement and other activities in the region, featuring publications, multimedia outputs, events and a blog. Research areas highlights include 'innovation movements', 'productive transformations', 'power & knowledge', and 'knowledge networks'.

At the moment, the website is available only in Spanish, but English-language content will be added soon.

Making global connections

Centro STEPS America Latina is the first centre in our Global Consortium to launch its own website following the launch of the hub with a series of debates earlier this year (insert link. The five other hubs in the Consortium are being developed by our partners in South Asia, China, Africa and North America. News from the hubs will be posted here as it happens.

To keep up to date with developments, join our mailing list.

To contact the Latin America team, email info@stepsamericalatina.com
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26 November 2014: China and Brazil in African agriculture - news roundup

This news roundup has been collected on behalf of the China and Brazil in African Agriculture (CBAA) project.

For regular updates from the project, sign up to the CBAA newsletter.

New policy brief by Sérgio Chichava on China in Mozambique
Sérgio Chichava’s presentation in Washington DC has just been published as a policy brief. Its title is ‘Chinese Agricultural Investment in Mozambique: the case of the Wanbao rice farm’.
(SAIS (pdf))

Foreign-based Chinese farms face obstacles to selling produce in China
Two officials from China’s Ministry of Agriculture have published a report about the difficulties overseas Chinese farmers and agricultural firms face in exporting their produce back to China. The report found that many agricultural firms had to buy import quotas from other companies, and some were only allowed to export a fraction of what they produced back to China.
(South China Morning Post)

New FAO Credit Line for Mozambican farmers
The FAO is said to have opened a new line of credit to reduce pockets of hunger in 36 districts of Maputo, Beira and Nacal with loans becoming available in the first quarter of 2015. This will mainly be targeting families that grow vegetables and grain.
(Macau Hub: English / Portuguese)
African organic foods in Kunming Agriculture Fair
The 14th Kunming Pan-Asian International Agriculture Fair was hosted last week, and a Chinese news article reports on an African vendor present. This year’s fair was focused around “natural ecological” products and the African stall owner is quoted as saying that because of Chinese perceptions of Africa, Chinese consumers may not have faith in African manufactured products, but may give greater respectability to their “natural ecological” products.
(21food.cn)

Agência Brasileira de Cooperação sends delegation to Ghana
Brazil’s international co-operation agency sent a delegation to Ghana in May 2014 to look at strengthening nutrition programmes in schools. The seminar convened delegates from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, and Brazil’s National Fund for the Development of Education (FNDE).
(ABC (in Portuguese))

Chinese construction firm plans $5bn investment in Angolan farming
The Chinese consortium, CITIC Construction Co., is reportedly planning to invest $5 billion in 500,000 hectares of land in Angola next year. This will focus on maize, soy and wheat planting. The company also claims to have already developed two 10,000ha farms in the country already.
(China Daily)

What Brazil could learn from Ghana
This article argues that rather than just focusing on Brazil’s agricultural development model, it could also learn something from Ghana. This is interesting, because it raises questions around whether Ghanaian agricultural development lessons could be transferred to Brazil (or China) too.
(AllAfrica)

Zimbabwe: lessons from China
This article by Fay King Chung in the Zimbabwe-based Herald discusses lessons that the country could learn from China. It touches upon how China encouraged its diaspora communities to invest in the rebuilding of the country, and wise economic management. The writer also recommends that the Zimbabwean government should focus on agriculture, and attract Chinese support in the infrastructure sector.
(The Herald)

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The new irrigation entrepreneurs: commerical horticulture in Masvingo

This week, we are releasing the next video in the 'Making Markets' series. This time it focuses on vegetable production in Mavingo (if you’ve seen the other ones, you can skip the first 1 min and 30 secs, as it’s the same intro. The total length is 11 mins. Also, if your internet connection is slow, there’s a lower resolution version too).



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. We interviewed him in 2012 as part of the 'Space, Markets and Employment in Agricultural Development' project:

"I am 30 years and originate from Chikombedzi. I am married to six wives and we have a total of 11 children. I belong to John Marange Apostolic church which emphasizes self-reliance. I used to survive using my hands as a tin smith based at Bhuka Irrigation scheme some 20 km south of Masvingo town. While there I was impressed by the fact that people were prospering through irrigation. I am the elder son. My father passed on in 2004 and left behind a large family of 20 on this 28 hectare plot who had to be taken care of. I had no option but to inherit the plot and the responsibility over family.
 
"In 2006 I decided to practise what I had seen at Bhuka Irrigation scheme in order to make money and cater for family needs. We started irrigating with buckets from a small dam near the homestead from 2006 to 2007, selling vegetables locally and a bit to Masvingo town. The funds allowed me to buy a water foot pump. In 2010 I bought a 5 HP diesel water pump for USD $220. Members of the community who were irrigating using buckets started complaining saying I was finishing the water in the small dam. I was irrigating just 0.4 ha, but they still evicted me in 2010.
 
"I approached the councilor, also from my same church, who gave me part of his land (0.3 ha) close to Mutirikwe river to do my horticulture pumping water from the river at the start of 2011. The area proved too small to satisfy increasing demand for my produce. I approached the councilor again who allowed me to use part of state land allocated to the cattle dip. My total irrigable area was now 1.5 hectares. All along I was renting irrigation pipes from Mr Madzokere, a plot holder, for USD$ 17 per month. In 2011 I bought 46 irrigation pipes from Mbare/Magaba in Harare at USD$46 per pipe. I was now irrigating full time and making good money which made people jealous.
 
"The struggle to evict me started again. I was accused of invading the dip area. First I was reported to Vet Department. They came and were impressed by my irrigation and allowed me to continue because I was using only a small part of the dip area. I was reported again to Zimbabwe National Water Authority ZINWA) for abstracting water without a permit. They came and again were impressed and advised me to get a permit which I did. ZINWA gave me a permit for domestic use which means I was not using amounts that warranted payment for water use. I was then reported to the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) . The allegation was that I was cutting trees during land clearing which caused deforestation. They came and made assessments and concluded there was no environmental threat in what I was doing. I was then reported e to the Ministry of Lands for using state land without a permit. The District Administrator, chief, councilor, Committee of Seven and other players became involved. They came to the conclusion that I was actually doing the community a service because I am the one who pumps water into the dip using my engine. The people who wanted me evicted had failed and as a last resort they physically confronted me at the irrigation plot. I stood my ground and they left humiliated up to now. I produce rape, tomatoes, cabbages and green mealies. I sell most of my rape and cabbbages to OK supermarket, Tsungai supermarket and the local market also buy rape and cabbages. The bulk of tomatoes is bought by 5 women vendors from the kutrain market in Masvingo. Supermarkets want tomatoes in bulk – the whole of 1 ha. I cannot supply that amount.
 
"I hope to manage the seasonal pattern of supply. For rape I supply 500 bundles twice per week. January to June is the highest production. It sells at 25-30c per bundle. The main season for cabbage February to September. I sell 300 heads/once per week at 50-65 c per head. I sell green mealies for $1 for 10, sold at Roy Business Centre along the highway. For green leaf vegetables we prepare dried vegetables (mufushwa) from poor quality plants and trimmings. This is sold at Masvingo kutrain market at $5/20 litre bucket.
 
"For transport I hire Mr Ruchanyu's two-tonne truck. He's a fellow Apostolic farmer nearby. It costs US$25 to town Also Mr Mugabazhi has a smaller 1 tonne truck. He is extension supervisor. He goes to work in town and will carry produce [since 2012, Mahove has bought his own from the proceeds of his sales]".
 
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. With a limited capital investment in irrigation equipment, the returns are significant, and many have, like Mahove, bought vehicles to assist with their marketing, as well as improving their homes, sending kids to school and so on.

But there are clear constraints to this form of production. Water is the key limitation, as the water sources are limited, and under increasing pressure. While extraction is not massive with the small pumps, as more and more join this form of small-scale commercial irrigation, seasonal water scarcities are emerging, along with conflicts over who has access. The authorities have not thought how to regulate such water access, as the Water Act offers only large-scale catchment management solutions geared to large scale irrigation. Policy innovation in this area will be important to ensure that people have equitable access to water, and that the resource is not permanently depleted. The other challenge of course is marketing. Mahove was a new entrant into the market, establishing early connections with supermarkets and traders. But there is intense competition, and major gluts at certain times of year. Tomatoes in particular are a favoured crop, and diversification is essential. This makes managing production in a market-sensitive way essential, as well as expanding out into processing to add value. Mahove and family are involved in drying vegetables, but other options will need to be explored in order to maximize income.

The post was written by Ian Scoones and appeared on Zimbabweland
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