Rural Institutions in Flux: Lessons from Three Tanzanian Cotton‐Producing Villages

Smallholders' demand for and access to private‐sector extension services: A case study of contracted cotton producers in northern Tanzania

“…The decentralization of public extension services became a reality by the end of the 1990s, with responsibility for disseminating agricultural extension services resting with local government authorities (Friis‐Hansen, ). Furthermore, Tanzania's Department for Research and Development decentralized, leading to a reduction of public institutions working with research and crop development (Bargawi, ). Overall, public involvement in extension, input provision, and research activities, especially in the cotton sector, has declined, creating increased room for the private sector (Bargawi, ; Ponte, ).…”

From Futures Markets to the Farm Gate: A Study of Price Formation along Tanzania’s Coffee Commodity Chain

“…One can associate the price increases with changes in global prices from the mid-2000s to 2013, particularly the increase in the oil price, which has fed into the costs of production (Ghosh 2010). The rise in input prices is also a result of changes to the domestic sale and pricing, with liberalization resulting in fewer subsidized inputs available to producers (Bargawi 2015). EG_ Bargawi 33 to the local.…”

Weaving cotton‐led development? Liberalization, cotton producer organizations, and uneven development in Burkina Faso

“…At the local level, however, we find the outcomes highly differentiated. Similar to Bargawi's (2015) research in Tanzania, we illustrate how liberalization reforms produced uneven institutional structures at the local level, particularly through control of governance structures that privileged elites, shifting liability to producers, while simultaneously entrenching state power. What looks like success from a broader scale ended up producing uneven and differentiated development at the local level.…”

“…By examining mid‐level institutions that mediate access to cotton benefits, we uncover a politics of scale, in which certain actors, in this case, large‐scale farmers, Bwa cotton farmers, and state‐run cotton companies are better able to exercise their power to determine access to resources. A key finding from this research is that institutions and political economic dynamics are important in shaping the uneven nature of liberalization reforms (Bargawi, ; Kaminski & Serra, ).…”

“…Most research on scale and African cotton sectors only examines how institutional creation may address market failures, failing to examine agrarian change dynamics, namely, the power relationships and social dynamics of institutional change that determine how cotton liberalization has affected development. Bargawi's () recent study does address institutional change in cotton liberalization in Tanzania, illustrating how institutional structures are open to manipulation and exploitation by influential actors at multiple scales.…”