Land Rush, Day 1: Food availability doesn’t always equal food access

While proponents of corporate farms argue that large scale land investment will enhance food security, activists and academics alike are highlighting how detrimental such land deals could be for the food security of those who are moved off the land to make way for corporate farming.

Speaking at a meeting of the Pan African Parliament yesterday, parliamentarians, civil society, academics and agribusiness came together to discuss how to make large scale land investment work for Africa.

Civil society activists, such as Constance Mogale from the Land Access Movement of South Africa (LAMOSA), highlighted how moving women off land to make way for investors meant that women could no longer produce food to secure their livelihoods. As this leaves affected women all but destitute, they also cannot access the food being produced by the commercial farm which had replaced their activity. Food security for the poor and vulnerable is often not about availability, but about access. Increasing production through commercial farming, therefore, does not help those who do not have cash to purchase their food.

Echoing Constance Mogale’s point, Prof Ruth Hall (PLAAS/Future Agricultures) explained that large scale land deals are not just creating land loss, but are actually restructuring the entire food system towards a model in which the food system is controlled and owned by multinational corporations. Corporate farming is leading to the supermarketisation of the food system, limiting access for those who cannot pay. She gave the example of South Africa, where most food is produced by the corporate sector. South Africa is food secure, produces abundant food and even exports food, yet many South Africans are going hungry, simply because they cannot afford to buy it.

While African governments enter into investment deals under the belief that large scale commercial farming will improve the lot of the hungry populations, the evidence from these examples suggests the opposite: these types of land deals often make the vulnerable even more vulnerable. Therefore it is essential that African governments look more closely at the fine print of such deals. They must ensure that the benefits of investment will accrue to their populations, not just to profit-hungry corporate investors.

by Rebecca Pointer, Institute of Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) 

IFAMA 2014: Is Africa's future 'upstream' and 'post-farm'?

African agriculture is the next frontier for local and global agricultural services and input companies. Here, we are told, the "underutilised" land and water resources are enormous, and agricultural productivity so low that it translates into massive potential for new markets and scope for profit.

I attended IFAMA's (International Food and Agribusiness Management Association) "Agribusiness & Food World Forum" on 17-19 June 2014 in Cape Town, held for the first time in Africa.
The forum programme states that Africa's agriculture and agribusiness future has "soared to the top of the world's most elite economic growth and development agendas" and that this "heightened attention" on agriculture and agribusiness in Africa is based on the fact that her enormous growth potential, "now tangibly in sight, hinges on expanding the capacity of these industries".

Sessions at the forum had a strong focus on the so-called ‘talent factor’, those bright young students who are being groomed to become the next generation of scientists, technology developers, supply-chain specialists and CEO's of multi-national companies.

The future, it seems, is downstream and upstream from the farm, as the fastest growth in Africa's food system is expected to occur in the supply of inputs and in the "post-farm segments" of the supply chain. David Tschirley of Michigan State University suggested that African universities with agricultural faculties would need to make an institutional "double pivot", which means that they will have to shift from serving public sector to private sector clients and from on-farm technologies to post-farm segments of the food system.

David vs. Goliath
According to Lulama Traub of Stellenbosch University, the mega-trends that shape the African continent include rising global food and energy prices and rising income and urbanisation, though evidence suggests an increasing concentration of wealth. While this will cause a shift in demand for food, the fact that the non-farm sector will not on its own be able to absorb Africa's future work-seeking population, means that there will be pressure on agriculture to create employment.

In the light of such heavy expectations of agriculture, who should be the agricultural producers?

At a session titled "David vs. Goliath: The revolution in Africa's farm structures", aimed at identifying the trends and constraints affecting agriculture, Antoine Ducastel, CIRAD research fellow at Pretoria University's research on large-scale land investments in Africa showed that investments are made by private investors with market-driven strategies from Western countries and countries rich in capital, but with poor land and water resources, who invest in land to secure supplies of agricultural commodities and to get around volatile commodity markets. Contrary to popular perceptions, China remains a small player in land acquisitions in Africa, while investors from South Africa are becoming more engaged, especially in Southern African countries.

Because of a high rate of failures and the difficulty of implementing projects in Africa's "uncertain institutional environment ... [with a] lack of markets and financial services, high settlement and transaction costs", land investments had been slowing down since 2010, but the trend is still upwards. Of all the hectares acquired since 2010, only 1,7% is operational and producing. The only investment models that seem to be successful are "nucleus estate models" (based on small-scale contract or outgrower schemes) and "agribusiness estate models" (where big agro-food companies buy land and farm to secure supplies of commodities and integrate production in their own value chains).

As a consequence, investor strategies and business models are being transformed and increasingly integrated into closed value chains, but few inclusive business models were found. The major impacts on agrarian structures of affected countries have been the corporatisaton of agriculture, concentration and industrialisation in agriculture and the proletarianisation of agricultural societies.

Ducastel said the question that remained unanswered was how local actors and communities could benefit from these transformations and added that he found few cases with a positive social and economic effect. He also found a lack of long-term thinking among policy makers and investors about alternative development trajectories and an increasing shift towards a large-scale development paradigm.

Not just foreigners: the rise of urban business and bureaucratic elites
In the same session, Milu Muyanga of Michigan State University showed an interesting table of the changing structure of small and medium scale farming in Zambia from 2009 to 2012.

(click on image for full size)

Besides the fact that the area of farm land has decreased by about 30% since 2009, the figures show that farms are getting bigger, but that a smaller proportion of the bigger landholdings are cultivated. Muyanga says the medium-scale farmers (owning 10 - 20 ha) are the fastest growing group. He found that most of them were civil servants and professional people who used money made in other sectors to buy more land. The majority of them had higher education and also inherited land from their fathers.

His comparative research found that there were more conflicts taking place over land than in the past, especially in Kenya, probably because the landholdings were becoming smaller because of increases in population. The land that was still available is often remote and there is a lack of infrastructure and services.

African consumer growth and the large-farm model
During a session about the rise of an African consumer class Paula Disberry of the South African retailer, Woolworths, said that retailers needed a value chain that can service their needs for scale, quality and consistency. They have big, powerful brands to protect and cannot risk disappointing customers. At the same session, M.D. Ramesh, Olam International's regional head for South and East Africa, said that African countries annually import $81 billion's worth of products, of which $32 billion is spent on imports of maize, rice, wheat, sugar and edible oils, because the agricultural sector did not received the support it deserved. He reckons it would take 100 companies like Olam (with a market capitalisation of almost $6 billion) and $55 billion to resuscitate small farms and transform agriculture in Africa.He did not say what this transformation would entail, but one of his Olam colleagues suggested that, while the ‘David model’ is an emotive model, it is more expensive and capital-intensive and this multinational at least favours ‘Goliath’.

By Amelia Genis, PhD student, Institute of Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS)

Amelia Genis attended Ifama as an agricultural journalist, but wrote this blog in her personal capacity. She is a PhD student at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, which is the Southern Africa hub of Future Agricultures

GM crops: what people in the global South really think

GMO maiz by nolosabias on Flickr
(cc-by-nc-nd)

Durham University has just published an important new research report on the governance of transgenic crops in three of the world’s ‘rising powers’ – Brazil, Mexico and India – looking at how different groups in those countries have reacted to GM crops.

The document, A new approach to governing GM crops? Global lessons from the rising powers, was launched during an interesting discussion workshop at the Royal Society’s premises in London on Friday 13 June.

If you’ve kept half an eye on public debates and media reporting about transgenic crop issues over the last decade, you may well have received the impression that farmers and publics in several ‘developing’ countries have embraced GM crops and foods. After all, transgenic crops such as soybeans, cotton and maize are being grown by numerous farmers, including small-scale cultivators, in populous low- and middle-income nations such as China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Pakistan, and a handful of others.

More than a few commentators have suggested that these countries’ openness to transgenic crop technologies puts the ‘selfish’ and ‘irrational’ anxieties of affluent European consumers into a shameful perspective. Unlike the well-fed Europeans, goes this argument, impoverished cultivators and hungry consumers in the global South cannot afford to turn up their noses at this vital, safe and productive technology.

Testing the narrative
The Durham University research used an innovative combination of social science research methods to put this narrative to the test. The project was carried out in collaboration with a team of academics from the countries concerned, and funded by the John Templeton Foundation, a philanthropic donor that likes to invest in the study of big social, philosophical and scientific questions.

The researchers spent time observing, interviewing and discussing GM crop issues with national scientists, groups of small-scale farmers and urban consumers in each of the three countries, culminating in deliberative workshops that brought these diverse groups and other stakeholders together.

The researchers found that the spread of GM crop cultivation did not necessarily mean that farmers and consumers were all completely comfortable or satisfied with the technology. In fact, transgenic crop technologies have proved quite controversial, and unpopular with some stakeholders in all three of the focus countries.

Both growers and consumers said that they felt ill-informed about the technology, its environmental and socio-economic implications, and its prevalence in agriculture and the food system. They felt excluded from decision-making and suspected the motives of agribusiness companies, entrepreneurs, large-scale farmers, politicians, and regulators.

Differences
Scientific experts were more likely to dismiss public concerns and argued that the development and deployment of transgenic technologies was rightfully an urgent priority for the sake of national prestige, scientific competitiveness, economic development, and food security.

Yet in some cases, younger scientists were more likely to have reservations about the necessity and benefits of genetic modification. They worried about ecological effects and sustainability, and did not necessarily share the confidence of previous generations in the inevitability of achieving social and economic progress through modern technology.

The researchers also identified interesting differences between Brazil, Mexico and India. For instance, it is quite widely known that maize (corn) occupies a central place in the cultural traditions and identity of Mexicans, but soybeans in Brazil are an introduced crop without traditional culinary associations, which is produced largely for animal feed or for export.

Cotton in India is an intermediate case – a non-food crop whose history is, nevertheless, intimately linked with that country’s experience of colonial exploitation. Differences like these help to explain why national controversies over genetic modification have followed different paths.

A breakdown in trust
For me, one of the report’s most troubling observations was of a pervasive breakdown in public trust in institutions of science, governance and regulation. This is especially troubling with regard to small-scale farmers’ lack of confidence in the scientists and technical advisors of the agricultural extension services, agro-dealers and seed companies, who should be helping them to solve their farming problems.

When agricultural technicians and farmers freely blame one another for problems that are beginning to appear in transgenic cropping systems (such as pest resistance and herbicide-tolerant weeds), and neither accepts responsibility for their part, we have evidence of a serious breakdown in a key relationship that should be helping to improve the productivity and sustainability of agriculture around the world.

New forms of governance
The Durham-led research team intends to build on the insights from this research in various ways. One of these ways is towards the practical goal of building better institutions for the governance of controversial technologies, using the ‘AIRR framework’.

AIRR stands for four dimensions of ‘responsible innovation’: anticipation of future developments in science and technology; inclusion of diverse stakeholders; reflexivity among scientists and technology developers; and responsiveness to societal needs and problems.

This framework has a lot in common with elements of the STEPS Centre pathways approach, which calls for the opening up and broadening out of public debates and governance frameworks for new technologies.

If the Durham report achieves the impact it deserves, it will achieve a valuable purpose by internationalising narrow British and European public debates about transgenic crops and foods, and about the relationship between agricultural technoscience and socio-economic development. It will undermine the complacent assumption that the ‘rising powers’ have definitively resolved the controversy over transgenic crops and that the future will see them inevitably race ahead in embracing GM technology.

Links

• A new approach to governing GM crops? Global lessons from the rising powers (GMFuturos website)
• STEPS Centre Hot topic: GM Crops – risk, science, public trust
• Made by Monsanto: the corporate shaping of GM crops as a technology for the poor – STEPS Working Paper 11

GM crops: continuing controversy

In 2002, the international press was full of headlines such as 'Starving Zimbabwe Shuns GM Maize'. This was repeated again in 2010. The context was the refusal to import whole-grain GM maize from South Africa, as regulatory approval had not been granted, and there were fears that the food aid grain would be planted when GM crops had not been approved for release by the national regulatory authorities. The 2002 episode in particular caused a massive furore, with the governments of Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique cast as villains, at odds with the needs of their people.

The debate has re-emerged recently with calls from a number of quarters, including the CZI and CFU, for Zimbabwe to accept the inevitable and formally approve the planting of GM crops. Of course GM crops, and especially maize, are planted widely as so much maize grain has been imported through informal routes from South Africa in recent years. An official acceptance of GM crops would, it is argued, increase productivity, reduce food aid dependence and tackle poverty. GM for some is the silver tech bullet that Zimbabwe urgently needs.

The Zimbabwe debate, not surprisingly, almost exactly replicates the international discussion that has heated up recently too. In the UK a group of science advisors to the Prime Minister have recently reported their view that the UK should lift its moratorium. The UK Chief Scientist, Sir Mark Walport, argued in his covering letter that 'people will go unfed' if such a response was not forthcoming. Some extreme press coverage, including in the normally restrained Sunday broadsheet, the Observer, has backed the advisors, with claims that such a move would help solve the global food crisis and world poverty. A similar narrative is being pushed by some commentators in a debate this week convened by SciDev.net.

Most sensible scientists would not go so far. Indeed these days much of the advocacy of GM crops is presented in terms of seemingly balanced positions on technology choices. The same lead author of the recent advisers' report also led an inquiry for the Royal Society on 'biological science-based technologies' for crop production. Professor Sir David Baulcombe is a respected plant scientist from Cambridge, but also an ardent advocate of GM solutions. Yet the position of his 2009 Royal Society report seems at face value completely balanced: GM is only one part of a wider array of technologies, both genetic and agroecological:

Over the next 40 years, biological science-based technologies and approaches have the potential to improve food crop production in a sustainable way. Some of these technologies build on existing knowledge and technologies, while others are completely radical approaches which will require a great deal of further research. Genetic improvements to crops can occur through breeding or GM to introduce a range of desirable traits. Improvements to crop management and agricultural practice can also address the constraints identified….. There are potential synergies between genetic and agroecological approaches. Different approaches will be needed for different regions and circumstances. There is a need to balance investment in radical new approaches that may have major consequences on productivity with investment in approaches which deliver modest improvements on a shorter timescale.

What could be wrong with that? The strapline is 'reaping the benefits' from science-based 'sustainable intensification'. Seemingly all good things – although see next week's blog on some of the hidden politics of the 'sustainable intensification' buzzword. In his more recent report, Baulcombe is less circumspect: GM is most definitely central to the answer. Five years on there is a greater determination it seems to change the policy landscape, and deal with what they term 'dysfunctional' regulation imposed by the EU. Also the composition of the advisory group is distinctively different with strong industry links: no troublesome agroecologists amongst their number this time.

As someone who has tracked this debate now over 15 years, and studied the role of GM crops and the politics of regulation in India, Africa and the UK, it is interesting to note the changing patterns of discourse. Today the advocacy for new technologies to solve global food problems is particularly shrill. Yet where is the evidence for such approaches being 'pro-poor' and enhancing 'food security'? Dominic Glover did a very detailed analysis of the available data, and found very little in the way of hard evidence to support the claims made. Others have provided similar assessments. Yes, GM pest-resistant cotton has been a success, but has it always benefited the poor and improved food security? Probably not.

This is of course no reason to reject a technology as part a mix, but the near obsession with GM solutions can act to crowd out alternatives. As explained by Gaëtan Vanloqueren and Philippe Baret in an excellent paper, agricultural innovation processes can become locked in to particular trajectory: through R and D funding flows, the need to recoup investment costs through intellectual property sales and via the biases and motivations of particular scientists' professional careers. The GM hype that reached its apogee in the early 2000s has created such a dynamic, and some companies, most notably the US multinational Monsanto, have hooked their fortunes on GM technologies. As funders of much so-called public research, the big companies reinforce this too. This dynamic is unhealthy, and means that alternatives are not identified, funded and developed.

The counter to this is that the biotech and genomics revolution is throwing up all sorts of new possibilities. Certainly this is a frontier area of bioscience, and there are multiple exciting avenues being pursued. Indeed, many are not hooked into the transgenic GM promise at all, but more based on innovative applications of bioinformatics and genomics. The GM lobby for most of the past 15 years has promised an exciting 'pipeline' of new products that will solve inter alia constraints of drought, nutrients, aluminium toxicity and much more besides. Indeed, Baulcombe and colleagues provide a familiar list in their report. But while some may be forthcoming, others have been long promised. Unfortunately the hype fuels expectations, garners venture capital as well as public funding, and pushes R and D in ever narrower directions.

Despite the promises, GM science has yet to deliver anything approaching an effective product for tackling drought for example. Yet biotechnology and marker assisted selection has done wonders in improving drought tolerance in maize in Africa. This research, led by the CGIAR Centres CIMMYT and IITA, was pioneered in Zimbabwe, and has resulted in a suite of new varieties that have transformed farmers' possibilities in maize farming. This work has used high-end biotech science, but it has not relied on proprietary technologies and has been publicly-funded. The result is a widespread use of drought tolerant maize, with traits embedded in well-adapted background genetics. In many ways this approach is far more sophisticated than the rather brutal technique of transgenics, where a gene (or a stack of them), usually owned by a company, is inserted into a variety that the company also owns. Sometimes, while the transgene may be effective, the background variety may be hopeless, and the net effect is negative (as was the case in the early years of Monsanto's Bt cotton in India).

So should Zimbabwe hurriedly embrace GM crops? It's a difficult question to answer generically. It depends on the trait, the crop, the intellectual property arrangements, the costs and risks relative to the benefits and the alternatives that exist. This is why a precautionary policy stance, backed by a solid regulatory framework, is essential, as I argued in a paper with James Keeley over a decade ago. This has been the position of the Zimbabwe government since the 1990s, and there doesn't seem any reason to change now, despite the clamour.

Much of the simplistic advocacy of GM crops as the tech solution to 'feed the world', as illustrated by the recent flurry of reports and media articles in the UK, fails to take account of the political and social contexts in which such technologies (if they existed – remember most useful ones are 'in the pipeline') are used. It really does matter who owns, controls and oversees access. And when one technological track is favoured over others, then a whole raft of much more suitable and sustainable alternatives may be missed.

Contrary to the Observer's claim that 'there is no choice', there certainly is, and the multiple choices available need to be thoroughly debated, including by those who are the users of technologies (as occurred in an interesting engagement on Zimbabwe's food and farming futures in the early 2000s). We should always avoid being pushed in a singular direction by those who are (mis)using the authority of science, without a proper and open debate.

This post was written by Ian Scoones and originally appeared on Zimbabweland

Beef value chains in Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe

There has been a lot of talk recently about reviving the beef sector. The donors are commissioning consultancy after consultancy. But most fail to look at the reality on the ground, instead harking back to a model of the past. As discussed in an earlier blog, I believe that this is missing the point. The past will not return, nor should it. The days of the heavily subsidised large scale commercial ranching sector are gone. Instead, there are multiple, smaller producers, with offtake coming often from multiple use herds in A1 and communal areas. In addition there are the new beef producers who link small and medium scale production on A2 farms with new value chains.

In the next few weeks, it is this group of producers, and their inter-linkages, that I want to focus on in a series of blogs. This is something we have been investigating as part of a project on ‘space, markets and employment’, and the implications of new economic linkages for local economies, with one of our cases being beef value chains in Masvingo province. Yet this new dynamic of cattle production has been almost completely forgotten in the current discussions, yet such producers perhaps the potential core of a new commercial beef sector. This week, let me illustrate my point with a series of short case studies drawn from our on-going work in Masvingo province.

Case 1: Mr OM has an A2 farm north of Masvingo of around 250 ha. He runs around 60 cattle there, which are regularly slaughtered. He also milks the cows and sells soured milk locally, and even has plans for a dairy on the farm. He has a truck which can transport live animals for slaughter at the abbatoirs in town. He also owns a small supermarket in town, which now has a thriving butchery section, supplied by his farm. When his own supply is short, or animals are in poor condition on his farm, he sends buyers out to the communal and resettlement areas near his farm to purchase more to make the trip to town worthwhile. He also buys from local abbatoirs. The supermarket was established some years ago when he was working in government and then the NGO sector. During the economic crisis it was not making any money, and it was closed for some time. But since 2009 and dollarization business has been booming. Demand for beef remains high, and he can undercut the main supermarkets (OK and TM), by strategic pricing, particularly of the lower quality cuts. He employs labourers on his farm, as well as at the supermarket, and buyers work on contract. His relatives act as farm managers and oversee the shop.

Case 2. Mrs M acquired A2 ranches in the lowveld during land reform. They also own a butchery and local store in Ngundu. Today the two enterprises are connected, with cattle being brought to the butchery for slaughter and sale from the ranches. They also have a meat supply contract with the local mission which provides a regular demand. The main challenge is transport as the farms are several hundred kilometres away along appalling roads. Sometimes they make arrangements with the town abbatoirs to bring their livestock for slaughter in their own trucks, allowing a greater number to be transported at a time. The herds are gradually being stocked at the two plots, and since there is plenty of grazing they believe that greater numbers can be held, despite the dry conditions. Check out the video, where Mrs M explains how all this works, and her plans for the future.

Case 3: A local family business, into retail, restaurants, transport and a range of other activities in Masvingo, rented the essentially unused CSC abbatoir as part of a new vertically integrated local ranching business. This was short-lived however, as the local deal with CSC was not approved. They switched instead to other local abbatoirs for slaughter. They have combined their own A2 farm with a number of others which are now leased, allowing them to run some 450 head of cattle across 3-4 farms. The other farms had been acquired by local elites during land reform, but were not being fully utilised, and spare grazing was available for leasing. They now have a network of farms supplying beef across the province at outlets they own in Masvingo, Chiredzi, Bikita, Mashava and so on. Their butcheries remain good business, but they are now branching out into a restaurant business in Masvingo town.

Case 4: Lease grazing is also at the centre of another business, run by a white farmer whose family used own over 10000 ha in the province across multiple properties, including unused CSC ranches. These days he only has one farm, which is subdivided which is far too small to keep his cattle on. Instead, he leases grazing from new A2 plot holders. At the peak around 3000 head were grazed in this way across a dozen properties. These are however scattered, and managing these lease arrangements and maintaining fences etc. is a major headache. While he kept this going for around 10 years, in the end he decided the costs of managing such an arrangement were too much. Instead he focuses on the purchase, sale and marketing of stock from a variety of sources, including communal and resettlement areas. Cattle are purchased at auctions and then slaughtered at Montana and Carswell abbatoirs in Masvingo, with sales to town supermarkets, as well as school contracts. Occasional leasing is required, but he no longer maintains such a network of farms, and has many fewer cattle of his own.

Case 5: Mr RM says that "land reform unlocked grazing potential and gave me the opportunity move more cattle from distant areas and lease graze then in nearby resettlement areas like Beza and Kenilworth" He also leases CSC land and Mushandike ranch. He breeds Brahman bulls with indigenous females which he says is ideal for this area. Around 50 cattle are sold per month, nearly all to Montana Meats in Masvingo. Their prices are not the best, but they pay immediately, he says. Two years ago he established a restaurant in town. At the restaurant 1kg of meat can yield $10, so $2000 from a dressed animal of 200kg, instead of $700 by selling it at $3.50/kg (late 2010 prices). The restaurant takes around 2 beasts a week. "While there is stiff competition in the restaurant business in Masvingo, it's still a good option compared to just meat selling", he explains.

Case 6. Mr D used to own plenty of land in the lowveld of Zimbabwe around Mateke hills, and had a huge herd of good quality Brahman cattle. When land reform came he diversified his business with connections over the border in Mozambique. He established a camp over the border, and employed people there to create small settlement and large holding pens. He illegally drove cattle across the border, paying bribes to the Zimbabwean and Mozambican officials. On a visit during 2010 there were over 3000 cattle being held at Bazani camp. He also has acquired land for holding pens near Maputo where the cattle are transported for slaughter and sale. Transport is by train or by truck. Some animals are sold locally at the bazaars along the border which thrive on illegal trade with Zimbabwe and South Africa. Animals are still transported across the border, but he is working on a plan to develop the ranch business in Mozambique, where land is plentiful

These cases show that the cattle and beef business is thriving in Masvingo province, but not in the ways it did before. The CSC abbatoir is effectively defunct, a massive white elephant created on the back of subsidies to white farming in the 1970s. Instead smaller abbatoirs are thriving, along with informal pole slaughter linked to butcheries. New value chains are being created, no longer based on massive individually owned ranching operations. Instead, with smaller farm sizes, there is a need to aggregate from multiple farms. In this way benefits are more widely shared, and more people become involved in the market. Links to the big retailers still exist, such as the large supermarkets in Masvingo, but increasingly it is smaller operations, sometimes linked to new farm operations. The new beef entrepreneurs are not poor –they require capital, transport and connections, and are beneficiaries (often from elite circles) of the A2 farm allocations. Former white ranchers are also engaged, through lease grazing, cross-border trade and purchase and selling operations. But again their businesses have transformed. All are generating business and employment, and linking communal and other resettlement farmers into new market networks.

If the consultants employed by the aid agencies want to get to grips with the new beef economy and build practical solutions and new policies on what is happening rather than some perception of what ought to be the case, they need to take a trip to Masvingo. And of course, as already hinted at, it is not just the production side that has changed, but also the pattern of meat retailing, and cattle purchasing. In the next few weeks, the blog will look at the growth of butcheries and the changes in the retail sector, as well as the role of abbatoirs and the challenges and opportunities of local cattle marketing.

This post was written by Ian Scoones and originally appeared on Zimbabweland

What role for large-scale commercial agriculture in post-land reform Zimbabwe: Africa’s experience of alternative models

Much of the debate about the future of Zimbabwe’s agriculture has got stuck in the dualistic trap of contrasting ‘large-scale’ with ‘small-scale’, without thinking about the mix, and the relationships between them. In southern Africa with its colonial inheritance, this dichotomy is deeply entrenched. But with a new agrarian structure, there is a need to escape from this framing and think more creatively about opportunities and constraints.

A recent paper by Rebecca Smalley, published by the Future Agricultures Consortium, and produced as part of the Land and Agricultural Commercialisation in Africa (LACA) programme, led by PLAAS, sheds some light from historical experience from across the continent. This review offers some important pointers for Zimbabwe, when we ask what forms of commercial agriculture makes sense today?

Following land reform in Zimbabwe, there are farms of all sizes, although now dominated by a small-holder sector in the communal, old resettlement and A1 resettlement areas. However in addition there are A2 farms, largely medium scale operations of several hundred hectares in extent, and so-called large-scale A2 farms, that are larger. In addition there are existing estates that were untouched by land reform, including the large sugar estates in the lowveld of Masvingo.

How then should we think of ‘large-scale commercial farming’ in contemporary Zimbabwe? How can a mix of farm types and sizes complement each other? And what lessons can we draw from elsewhere to inform this?

Public Private Partnerships for agriculture in Kenya: new FAO report

What can public private partnerships (PPPs) in agribusiness do for sustainable and inclusive agricultural development? A report by Future Agricultures members Hannington Odame and Elsie Kangai looks at agribusiness PPPs in Kenya. It is part of a series of case studies commissioned by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to gather evidence on how governments and the private sector can collaborate effectively for agribusiness development.

From the preface:

It is recognized that high levels of investments are required to unleash the potential of agriculture for sustainable development and poverty reduction in developing countries. However, in recent decades, many countries have decreased their relative budget allocations to the agricultural sector, yet at the same time, the expected increase of private sector investments and the associated efficiency improvements have not been forthcoming. The high risk (actual and perceived) of doing business in agriculture often deters private sector participation in agrifood sector investments. Against this backdrop, public private partnerships (PPPs) are being promoted as an important institutional mechanism for gaining access to additional financial resources, sharing risks, and addressing other constraints in pursuit of sustainable and inclusive agricultural development.

FAO website: Agribusiness Public-Private Partnerships: A country report of Kenya

Other publications from the FAO’s Rural Infrastructure and Agro-Industries Division