Outgrowers and Livelihoods: The Case of Magobbo Smallholder Block Farming in Mazabuka District in Zambia

The social construction of “shared growth”: Zambia Sugar and the uneven terrain of social benefit

“…Eighty new small‐scale growers were incorporated into irrigated sugarcane production through the Maggobo scheme, facilitating smallholder inclusion as well as technological upgrading. We also observed an initial spike in household incomes for those involved, with average increases in net income from crops estimated at around US$3,000/year, a figure further corroborated in Matenga (). As this figure does not account for the value of consumptive uses displaced during the transition to sugarcane and is derived from a multiseason growing period that will not be replicated in future years, it cannot be taken as reliable or representative.…”

“…Although some report this as a welcome change for reducing the labour burden faced by women, it has had ambiguous effects on women's status within households and communities. One study found widows to be in a unique position to benefit due to their engagement as contract farmers and involvement in decision making within the Magobbo Trust but found married women to have suffered a decline in status from the loss of income and financial independence from rain‐fed farming and the tendency to register men as scheme participants and landowners (Rocca, ; see also Matenga, ).…”

The Political Economy of Sugar in Southern Africa – Introduction

“…This model, proposed by Illovo in Tanzania and TSB in South Africa, and central to the Magobbo scheme in Zambia (see Matenga, in this issue), 87 involves employing a manager to farm small-scale holdings as a block. The individual 'outgrowers' then receive a dividend or share of the overall profit from the block, and possibly a rent or lease payment as well.…”

Neither sustainable nor inclusive: a political economy of agricultural policy and livelihoods in Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia

“…However this has created space for local elites and companies to accumulate land and prosper at the expense of vulnerable groups and small producers (Chung 2017;Rasmussen and Lund 2018;Engström and Hajdu 2019). Similar criticisms are made of large-scale land acquisitions and PPPs such as the Green Belt initiative in Malawi (Chinsinga 2017), and the farm block initiative and out-grower schemes in Zambia (Sitko and Jayne 2014;Matenga 2017). Land policy in all three cases has similarities of duality with customary or collective tenure sitting alongside more formal systems of individual ownership.…”