Doctoral Dissertation Research: Organic Justice: Non-Traditional Exports and Inequalities in Tanzania

有机农业正在蓬勃发展。尽管最近发生了全球粮食和金融危机，但有机产品的生产和消费违背了共同的趋势。这一发展战略被誉为撒哈拉以南非洲有机革命的开端，前景广阔，原因有两个：首先，之前的农业革命--绿色和生物技术革命--在很大程度上避开了非洲大陆，特别是小规模农民。第二，即使在长期失败和剥削的背景下，农业主导的发展仍然是缓解贫困的主要途径。虽然有机农业的生态效益更为人所知，但关于有机出口生产对非洲农民的社会经济影响的学术研究一直很缺乏。社会经济不平等尤其很少或根本没有受到关注，尽管以往的农业革命继续突出了新农业技术在全球传播的高度不均衡和意想不到的影响。这一博士论文研究项目通过研究撒哈拉以南非洲有机棉花生产的领先区新阳加的六个村庄的有机农业增长来解决这一关键疏漏。在第一阶段，对有机农场主和传统农场主进行了120次调查，特别注重空间和规模经济的重要性。在使用参与式计量经济学和空间计量经济学进行量化分析之后，研究结果将在第二阶段通过后续访谈和焦点小组进行分享和协作审查。在第三阶段，通过额外的档案研究对不平等和贫穷的年际变化进行评估和支持，以便将调查结果置于坦桑尼亚殖民时期棉花生产的复杂历史中。有机农业，特别是在化学密集型棉花生产中，具有明显的生态效益。这项研究的结果将为有机农业对坦桑尼亚非洲棉农的经济影响提供独特的经验证据。鉴于政府减少农村贫困和不平等的目标，以及促进撒哈拉以南非洲有机生产的国际需求，这项研究的发现将向政策制定者通报这场最新农业革命的潜力和局限性。通过确定有机农业的推广和采用作为一项创新，研究将进一步细分这种农业增长对个体农民和整个棉花种植区村庄的经济影响。该研究项目侧重于事实上有机环境中的承包有机生产，可能会进一步对照发展中世界其他地区正在进行的类似发展努力，如西非的公平贸易棉花生产，对这种发展努力进行评估。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。

Organic agriculture is booming. Despite the recent global food and financial crisis, the production and consumption of organic goods has defied common trends. Heralded as the beginning of an Organic Revolution in sub-Saharan Africa, this development strategy holds vast promise for two interrelated reasons: First, the previous agricultural revolutions - the Green and Biotechnology Revolution - have largely sidestepped the continent, particularly small-scale farmers. Second, even in the context of a long history of failure and exploitation, agriculture-led development remains a main avenue for alleviating poverty. While organic agriculture's ecological benefits are better known, scholarship has been lacking on the socio-economic impacts of organic export production on African farmers. Socio-economic inequality especially has received little to no attention, even though the previous agricultural revolutions continue to highlight the highly uneven and unintended impacts of the diffusion of new agricultural technology across the globe. This doctoral dissertation research project addresses this critical omission by studying the growth in organic farming across six villages in Shinyanga, the leading region of organic cotton production in sub-Saharan Africa. In the first phase, 120 surveys were undertaken of both organic and conventional farmers, with a special focus on the importance of space and economies of scale. After the quantitative analysis using participatory and spatial econometrics, the research findings will be shared and collaboratively examined in a second phase via follow-up interviews and focus groups. In the third phase, inter-annual changes in inequality and poverty are assessed and supported via additional archival research to situate the findings within the complex history of colonial cotton production in Tanzania. Organic agriculture, especially in chemically-intensive cotton production, has evident ecological benefits. The results of this study will provide unique empirical evidence of the economic impact of organic agriculture on African cotton farmers from Tanzania. Given the government's goal to reduce rural poverty and inequality and the international demand to boost organic production in sub-Saharan Africa, the findings from this research will inform policymakers on the potentials and limits of this latest agricultural revolution. By locating the spread and adoption of organic agriculture as an innovation, the research will furthermore break down the economic impact of this agricultural growth on individual farmers and the villages throughout the cotton growing region. Focusing on contracted organic production in a de facto organic environment, the research project may further the evaluation of such development efforts vis-à-vis similar ones underway in other parts of the developing world, such as Fair Trade cotton production in West Africa. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award will also provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.