Large investments, small farmers: A financialisation perspective on value chains in a development corridor

Abstract

Development corridors have recently gained momentum as territorial tools to attract flows of global capital into agricultural value chains. As this includes the controversial blending of public with private funding for investments into farmland, the integration of smallholders in largescale operations is increasingly promoted as legitimatory practice. With this article, we discuss the role of finance in shaping such value chain arrangements. Using a spatially sensible financialisation perspective, we present two investment cases that have touched ground as reaction to the promotion of the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT). We assess how finance unfolded along territorial (corridor region and investment origin) and relational (investment chain and value chain) spatialities, to scrutinise the tensions and fragile outcomes that were co-constituted by mixed financial and moral investment imperatives. This helps to understand whether, why, and with what consequences smallholders can benefit from corridor-related investments.

Supplying lead firms, intangible assets and power in global value chains: Explaining governance in the fertilizer chain

“…Officially launched in 2011, SAGCOT now functions as a territorial tool to attract public and private finances for integrating smallholder farmers into agro‐industrial value chains. Despite SAGCOT's generally underwhelming performance (Hartmann et al., 2021; Sulle, 2020), it created an institutional framework and geographical focal region for donor‐ and philanthropist‐led agricultural projects targeting last‐mile integration of smallholders. YARA substantially benefitted from SAGCOT, due to its prominent position in drafting the PPP.…”

Do Tar Roads Bring Tourism? Growth Corridor Policy and Tourism Development in the Zambezi region, Namibia

“…While previous development corridors were based on envisaged neoclassical infrastructure effects for development, more recent approaches are oriented towards the GVC literature and aim to create a favourable environment for economic activities alongside the infrastructure development projects (Dannenberg et al 2018). Thus, development corridors serve to connect resources in the hinterland of economic hubs to global production networks (Sen 2014) and incorporate assets into flows of global finance (Hartmann et al 2020). As Hesse (2020) states, logistics are "a vital component of the making of territories in a networked economy", as they are crucial for coordinating the flow of commodities, and a connection to or a disconnection from logistics can lead to variegated development outcomes.…”

The political rationality of state capitalism in Tanzania: Territorial transformation and the entrepreneurial individual

“…SAGCOT's development-corridor model aims to facilitate the adoption of capitalintensive production. It focuses on bringing 'synergies across the agricultural value chain' (SAGCOT, 2010, p. 17) by linking international agribusiness with smallholder farmers (see Hartmann et al, 2021). It promises to provide the latter with 'the opportunity to become profitable producers linked to markets, with affordable access to irrigation and other agricultural support services' (SAGCOT, 2010, p. 19).…”