Research Articles (PLAAS)

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Browsing by Subject "Africa"

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    Exporting contradictions: the expansion of South African agrarian capital within Africa
    (Taylor & Francis, 2017) Hall, Ruth; Cousins, Ben
    Agrarian change in South Africa over the past two decades has seen consolidation of the hegemony of large-scale commercial farming and corporate agribusiness within agro-food systems. Constrained domestic demand and growth opportunities elsewhere have driven both farming and agribusiness capitals to move into other African countries, attempting to reproduce agro-food systems similarly centred on the dominance of large capital. This is evident in five areas: first, the financialization of agriculture and ‘farmland funds’; second, multinational and South African input supply industries; third, large-scale land deals to expand industrial farming systems; fourth, the export of South African companies’ food processing, manufacture, logistics and distribution operations; and fifth, the expanding reach of South African supermarkets and fast food chains. Regional expansion involves South African agrarian capital encountering substantial obstacles to entry, and challenges mounted by competitors in destination markets. Success as a regional hegemon in Africa’s agro-food system is thus far from assured, and even where it does appear to succeed, generates contradictions, and rising social tensions of the kinds experienced in South Africa itself.
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    Narratives of scarcity: Framing the global land rush
    (Elsevier, 2019) Scoones, Ian; Smalley, Rebecca; Hall, Ruth
    Global resource scarcity has become a central policy concern, with predictions of rising populations, naturalresource depletion and hunger. The narratives of scarcity that arise as a result justify actions to harness resourcesconsidered‘underutilised’, leading to contestations over rights and entitlements and producing new scarcities.Yet scarcity is contingent, contextual, relational and above all political. We present an analysis of three framings–absolute, relative and political scarcity–associated with the intellectual traditions of Malthus, Ricardo andMarx, respectively. A review of 134 global and Africa-specific policy and related sources demonstrates howdiverse framings of scarcity–what it is, its causes and what is to be done–are evident in competing narrativesthat animate debates about the future of food and farming in Africa and globally. We argue that currentmainstream narratives emphasise absolute and relative scarcity, while ignoring political scarcity. Opening upthis debate, with a more explicit focus on political scarcities is, we argue, important; emphasising how resourcesare distributed between different needs and uses, and so different people and social classes. For African settings,seen as both a source of abundant resources and a site where global scarcities may be resolved, as well as wherelocal scarcities are being experienced most acutely, a political scarcity framing on the global land rush, andresource questions more broadly, is, we suggest, essential.
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    Narratives of scarcity: Framing the global land rush
    (Elsevier, 2019) Scoones, Ian; Smalley, Rebecca; Hall, Ruth; Tsikata, Dzodzi
    Global resource scarcity has become a central policy concern, with predictions of rising populations, natural resource depletion and hunger. The narratives of scarcity that arise as a result justify actions to harness resources considered ‘underutilised’, leading to contestations over rights and entitlements and producing new scarcities. Yet scarcity is contingent, contextual, relational and above all political. We present an analysis of three framings – absolute, relative and political scarcity – associated with the intellectual traditions of Malthus, Ricardo and Marx, respectively. A review of 134 global and Africa-specific policy and related sources demonstrates how diverse framings of scarcity – what it is, its causes and what is to be done – are evident in competing narratives that animate debates about the future of food and farming in Africa and globally. We argue that current mainstream narratives emphasise absolute and relative scarcity, while ignoring political scarcity. Opening up this debate, with a more explicit focus on political scarcities is, we argue, important; emphasising how resources are distributed between different needs and uses, and so different people and social classes. For African settings, seen as both a source of abundant resources and a site where global scarcities may be resolved, as well as where local scarcities are being experienced most acutely, a political scarcity framing on the global land rush, and resource questions more broadly, is, we suggest, essential.
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    Plantations, outgrowers and commercial farming in Africa: agricultural commercialisation and implications for agrarian change
    (Taylor & Francis OA, 2017) Hall, Ruth; Scoones, Ian; Tsikata, Dzodzi
    Whether or not investments in African agriculture can generate quality employment at scale, avoid dispossessing local people of their land, promote diversified and sustainable livelihoods, and catalyse more vibrant local economies depends on what farming model is pursued. In this Forum, we build on recent scholarship by discussing the key findings of our recent studies in Ghana, Kenya and Zambia. We examined cases of three models of agricultural commercialisation, characterised by different sets of institutional arrangements that link land, labour and capital. The three models are: plantations or estates with on-farm processing; contract farming and outgrower schemes; and medium-scale commercial farming areas. Building on core debates in the critical agrarian studies literature, we identify commercial farming areas and contract farming as producing the most local economic linkages, and plantations/estates as producing more jobs, although these are of low quality and mostly casual. We point to the gender and generational dynamics emerging in the three models, which reflect the changing demand for family and wage labour. Models of agricultural commercialisation do not always deliver what is expected of them in part because local conditions play a critical role in the unfolding outcomes for land relations, labour regimes, livelihoods and local economies.