Size isn't everything: narratives of scale and viability in a Tanzanian irrigation scheme

Harrison, Elizabeth; Mdee, Anna

AfricaBib

bibliographic database
Line

New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article

Title:	Size isn't everything: narratives of scale and viability in a Tanzanian irrigation scheme
Authors:	Harrison, Elizabeth Mdee, Anna
Year:	2017
Periodical:	Journal of Modern African Studies (ISSN 0022-278X)
Volume:	55
Issue:	2
Pages:	251-273
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Tanzania
Subjects:	settlement schemes irrigation agricultural development small farms
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X17000027
Abstract:	This 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.