“Sugar cane will liberate us!” : smallholder imaginaries about a planned outgrower scheme connected to a large-scale agricultural investment in Tanzania

Abstract: Large-scale agricultural investments (LSAI) are common in today’s globalised world and frequently involve outgrower schemes. A complex situation involving land conflicts, government bureaucracy and requirements for international best practice in resettlement is causing continuing delays to a Swedish LSAI in Bagamoyo district, Tanzania. A sugar cane factory is to be built and farmers in surrounding villages will be offered the opportunity to supply sugar cane as outgrowers to the investor, Bagamoyo EcoEnergy Ltd (EE), on the farmers’ own land. The Swedish international development cooperation agency (Sida) provided support to the EE investment through credit guarantees for the ongoing initial phase of investment. This thesis investigated farmers’ perceptions of the planned outgrower scheme and the origins of these perceptions through interviews with farmers in two affected villages. The theoretical concept of imaginaries was used to analyse farmers’ expectations as regards the outgrower scheme. Imaginaries are long-term visions where people imagine themselves in the future and are a powerful tool that can affect subjects’ actions. Here, farmers’ more concrete expectations were examined and set in relation to the risks that the farmers perceived. It was found that, despite delays and risks, farmers expected a higher standard of living from the outgrower scheme. They expressed scepticism about the investor and were worried about the risks, but they regarded the outgrower scheme for sugar cane as a large part of the future. This imaginary was strongly influenced by the one-sided way in which information had been presented to the farmers. Poverty and lack of agenda-setting power are also limiting the farmers’ choices – they essentially can only take this opportunity or stay in their current situation. Their high motivation for the EE outgrower scheme may be because it is regarded by all actors as the villagers’ only chance to develop economically. The farmers’ expectations and risk perceptions were problematised and compared here with the imaginaries of EE, which hopes to change local farmers’ attitude towards farming as a business, and of Sida, which hopes for policy changes regarding land in Tanzania.