Opportunities and conflicts in rapid agricultural growth: creating awareness and policy engagement with contract farming in Southern Africa

Agricultural sectors in sub-Saharan Africa have historically experienced production booms and periods of accelerated growth. However, at the mercy of global market fluctuations, political or economic crises, the gains obtained during periods of rapid expansion are also rapidly lost. More attentive study of the dynamics that underpin agricultural booms gives us clues for understanding under which set of conditions do producers find solutions to the constraints that otherwise prevent their effective integration to markets. Such bottlenecks include the absence of agricultural credit to finance production; the scarce provision of research and development and technical assistance necessary to enhance both productivity and investible surpluses; and the relative underdevelopment of the infrastructure and logistical services that boost domestic value addition and that guarantee the timely and coordinated arrival of commodities to processors and consumers. This research set out to identify how the transformation produced by periods of accelerated growth can be transferred into other economic sectors in a sustainable manner that can effectively benefit the most deprived segments of the population. In light of these considerations the foundational research conducted as part of this proposal examined the way an agricultural boom in the production of cured tobacco leaf unfolded over a period of two decades in central Mozambique, one of the most deprived areas of the country and the region most harshly affected by the violence and destruction of the Mozambican civil war (1977-1992). The research documented the mechanisms and institutions that helped solve binding constraints during the tobacco boom and examined the positive impact that the expansion of production had on the livelihoods of thousands of tobacco farmers. However, the research also found that, to a great extent, the impressive growth of Mozambique's tobacco sector, now the country's foremost agricultural export, was largely predicated on the contribution of unpaid labour by members of the farming households and in many cases on the work of hired migrant workers in very precarious conditions. The research concluded that the benefits of agricultural growth are highly unevenly distributed and that specific interventions on the part of state institutions and unions are necessary in order to guarantee that economic expansion leads to effective productivity upgrading without being simply based on the exploitative mobilisation of precarious labour. Insights and analysis presented in the research demonstrate this contradiction.
In order for these research insights to reach academic and policy-making audiences and for them to have a transformative impact, a solid dissemination and advocacy strategy is necessary. The proposed fellowship will focus on the preparation of different academic papers and policy briefs adjusted to the diverse languages and requirements of academic and non-academic communication. These documents will help structure a set of meetings with representatives of the Mozambican state and labour unions at national and provincial level and will furnish them with arguments, data and policy proposals in order to support policy makers in the process of adopting a more nuanced approach to the contradictory needs of different social groups intervening in agricultural production. The project will also consolidate the work of setting up a network of scholars working on contract farming and tobacco in the Southern African region with the aim of devising a strategy to invite regional governments to boost coordination and exchanges in the regulation of the tobacco sector.