Opportunities and conflicts in rapid agricultural growth: creating awareness and policy engagement with contract farming in Southern Africa

撒哈拉以南非洲的农业部门历来经历了生产繁荣和加速增长时期。然而，在全球市场波动、政治或经济危机的摆布下，在快速扩张时期取得的成果也迅速丧失。对支撑农业繁荣的动力进行更仔细的研究，可以为我们提供线索，帮助我们理解在哪些条件下，生产者会找到解决制约因素的办法，否则这些限制就会阻碍他们有效地融入市场。这些瓶颈包括：缺乏为生产提供资金的农业信贷；缺乏提高生产率和可投资盈余所需的研发和技术援助；基础设施和物流服务相对不发达，无法增加国内附加值并保证商品及时和协调地运抵加工商和消费者手中。这项研究的目的是确定如何以可持续的方式将加速增长时期产生的转型转移到其他经济部门，使人口中最贫困的部分切实受益。鉴于这些考虑，作为该提案的一部分进行的基础研究考察了莫桑比克中部20年来烤烟生产的农业繁荣是如何展开的，莫桑比克中部是该国最贫困的地区之一，也是受莫桑比克内战(1977-1992年)暴力和破坏影响最严重的地区。这项研究记录了在烟草繁荣时期帮助解决约束性制约的机制和机构，并审查了扩大生产对成千上万烟农的生计产生的积极影响。然而，研究还发现，在很大程度上，莫桑比克烟草行业令人印象深刻的增长在很大程度上取决于农户成员无偿劳动的贡献，以及在许多情况下雇用的条件非常危险的移徙工人的工作。这项研究的结论是，农业增长的好处分配极为不均，国家机构和工会有必要进行具体干预，以确保经济扩张带来有效的生产率提升，而不是仅仅基于对不稳定劳动力的剥削性动员。研究中提出的见解和分析表明了这一矛盾。为了使这些研究见解接触到学术和政策制定受众，并产生变革性的影响，需要一个坚实的传播和宣传战略。拟议的研究金将侧重于编写不同的学术论文和政策简报，以适应学术和非学术交流的不同语文和要求。这些文件将有助于安排与莫桑比克国家和省级工会代表的一系列会议，并将向他们提供论点、数据和政策建议，以支持政策制定者对干预农业生产的不同社会群体的相互矛盾的需求采取更微妙的方法。该项目还将巩固建立南部非洲地区合同农业和烟草问题学者网络的工作，目的是制定一项战略，邀请各地区政府加强烟草部门管制方面的协调和交流。

Agricultural sectors in sub-Saharan Africa have historically experienced production booms and periods of accelerated growth. However, at the mercy of global market fluctuations, political or economic crises, the gains obtained during periods of rapid expansion are also rapidly lost. More attentive study of the dynamics that underpin agricultural booms gives us clues for understanding under which set of conditions do producers find solutions to the constraints that otherwise prevent their effective integration to markets. Such bottlenecks include the absence of agricultural credit to finance production; the scarce provision of research and development and technical assistance necessary to enhance both productivity and investible surpluses; and the relative underdevelopment of the infrastructure and logistical services that boost domestic value addition and that guarantee the timely and coordinated arrival of commodities to processors and consumers. This research set out to identify how the transformation produced by periods of accelerated growth can be transferred into other economic sectors in a sustainable manner that can effectively benefit the most deprived segments of the population. In light of these considerations the foundational research conducted as part of this proposal examined the way an agricultural boom in the production of cured tobacco leaf unfolded over a period of two decades in central Mozambique, one of the most deprived areas of the country and the region most harshly affected by the violence and destruction of the Mozambican civil war (1977-1992). The research documented the mechanisms and institutions that helped solve binding constraints during the tobacco boom and examined the positive impact that the expansion of production had on the livelihoods of thousands of tobacco farmers. However, the research also found that, to a great extent, the impressive growth of Mozambique's tobacco sector, now the country's foremost agricultural export, was largely predicated on the contribution of unpaid labour by members of the farming households and in many cases on the work of hired migrant workers in very precarious conditions. The research concluded that the benefits of agricultural growth are highly unevenly distributed and that specific interventions on the part of state institutions and unions are necessary in order to guarantee that economic expansion leads to effective productivity upgrading without being simply based on the exploitative mobilisation of precarious labour. Insights and analysis presented in the research demonstrate this contradiction.In order for these research insights to reach academic and policy-making audiences and for them to have a transformative impact, a solid dissemination and advocacy strategy is necessary. The proposed fellowship will focus on the preparation of different academic papers and policy briefs adjusted to the diverse languages and requirements of academic and non-academic communication. These documents will help structure a set of meetings with representatives of the Mozambican state and labour unions at national and provincial level and will furnish them with arguments, data and policy proposals in order to support policy makers in the process of adopting a more nuanced approach to the contradictory needs of different social groups intervening in agricultural production. The project will also consolidate the work of setting up a network of scholars working on contract farming and tobacco in the Southern African region with the aim of devising a strategy to invite regional governments to boost coordination and exchanges in the regulation of the tobacco sector.