__smbhome.uscs.susx.ac.uk_safa4_Documents_Old Files_My Documents_Irrigators_Articles_The politics of scale_JMAS_final accepted version.pdf (355.88 kB)
Size isn’t everything: narratives of scale and viability in a Tanzanian irrigation scheme
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 04:17 authored by Elizabeth HarrisonElizabeth Harrison, Anna MdeeThis paper explores tensions over scale and viability in irrigated agricultural development in Tanzania. A revival of ambition to transform African agriculture has reawakened debate over what type of agriculture can best deliver increased production and poverty reduction for rural populations. This paper examines these debates through the lens of an ethnographic study of an irrigated rice farm in Tanzania. With a chequered history of state and donor intervention management, Dakawa, Rice Farm in Mvomero District is now collectively farmed by a cooperative society of ‘small farmers’. It is widely hailed as a success, both of irrigation production, and of ‘small farmers’ in delivering this. However, such narratives of smallness and success obscure a more complex reality in which smallness of scale may be more of a discursive tool than a reflection of empirical reality. Although notions of ‘viability’ and ‘success’ in such development interventions are themselves also contested and depend on perspective, there is evidence that there are fundamental problems of both short- and long-term viability.
Funding
Innovations to Promote Growth among Small-scale Irrigators in Africa: An Ethnographic and Knowledge-Exchange Approach; G0983; ESRC-ECONOMIC & SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL; ES/J009415/1
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
Journal of Modern African StudiesISSN
0022-278XPublisher
Cambridge University PressExternal DOI
Issue
2Volume
55Page range
251-273Department affiliated with
- International Development Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes