ZINC ROOF OR MANGO TREE? TRACTORS, MODERNISATION AND AGRARIAN TRANSFORMATION IN MOZAMBIQUE Lídia Cabral1 WP 19 Working Paper February 2019 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study is part of a collection of studies on agricultural mechanisation in Africa conducted as part of the Agricultural Policy Research in Africa (APRA) programme, funded by the UK Department for International Development. The findings and conclusions contained are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the UK government or the Department for International Development. The study team comprised Kojo Amanor, Toendepi Shonhe, and Lídia Cabral. The author would like to thank all study respondents in Chókwè, Malema, Maputo, Meconta, Monapo, Nampula, Ribaué and Xai-Xai for their time and valuable insights. A special thanks to the Observatório do Meio Rural in Maputo (João Mosca, Iara Nova, Yasser Dada, Dilma Carlos, João Feijó and Margarida Martins) for intellectual and logistical support provided throughout the study. A warm thanks to Euclides Gonçalves and Ian Scoones for camaraderie during fieldwork. Thank you also to Joseph Hanlon for his thought-provoking and constructive feedback. Any errors or omissions in the paper are the author’s sole responsibility. 2 Working Paper 019 | February 2019 ACRONYMS 2WT Two-wheel tractor 4WD Four-wheel drive ADB African Development Bank ADVZ Agência de Desenvolvimento do Vale do Zambeze [Zambezi Valley Development Agency] APRA Agricultural Policy Research in Africa AU African Union CA conservation agriculture CAADP Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme CAIC Complexo Agroindustrial do Chókwè [Chókwè Agro-Industrial Complex] CGAP Consultative Group to Assist the Poor CSAs Centros de Serviços Agrários [Agrarian Service Centres] DSA Development Studies Association FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FDA Fundo Desenvolvimento Agrário [Agrarian Development Fund] FONPA National Forum of Cotton Producers GoM Government of Mozambique GRAIN Genetic Resources Action International GSSP Ghana Strategy Support Programme HICEP Hidráulica do Chókwè Empresa Pública [Chókwè Hydraulic Company] HP horse power IAPAR Institute Agronômico do Paraná [Agronomic Institute of Paraná] IESE Institute of Social and Economic Studies IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development IFPRI International Food Policy Research Institute IIAM Agricultural Research Institute of Mozambique Working Paper 019 | February 2019 3 INCRA Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária [National Institute of Colonisation and Agrarian Reform] INE Instituto Nacional de Estatística [Mozambican National Statistics Institute] MASA Ministério da Agricultura e Segurança Alimentar [Mozambican Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security] MDA Ministério do Desenvolvimento Agrário [Brazilian Ministry of Agrarian Development] MFI More Food International MINAG Ministry of Agriculture MZN Mozambican meticais NGO non-governmental organisation OMR Observatório do Meio Rural [Rural Environment Observatory] PEDSA Plano Estratégico de Desenvolvimento do Setor Agrário [Strategic Plan for the Development of the Agrarian Sector] PNMA Programa Nacional de Mecanização Agrária [National Agricultural Mechanisation Programme] PPP public–private partnership PROSUL Pro-poor Value Chain Development Project RENAMO Resistência Nacional Moçambicana [Mozambican National Resistance] SDAE Serviços Distritais de Administração Económica [District Services for Economic Administration] SSA sub-Saharan Africa ToR Terms of Reference UNAC União Nacional de Camponeses [National Union of Peasants] UNECA United Nations Economic Commission for Africa 4 Working Paper 019 | February 2019 CONTENTS Summary 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 8 2. Overview of agricultural mechanisation in Mozambique ........................................................ 10 2.1 Low levels of mechanisation ........................................................................................... 10 3. Agrarian Service Centres as the government’s new mechanisation strategy ....................... 14 3.1 Brazilian machinery and family-farming experience as initial policy drivers ....................... 14 4. CSA managers and the public–private partnership ................................................................. 20 4.1 CSAs and tractor-owning farmers in the study ................................................................ 20 4.2 What does the public–private partnership entail and how it is interpreted ........................ 22 by different actors? 5. Mechanisation as tillage ............................................................................................................. 24 5.1 Tractors and one-size-fits-all approach ........................................................................... 24 6. The inclusiveness of mechanisation services .......................................................................... 27 6.1 Proclaimed beneficiaries ................................................................................................ 27 7. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 30 References List of Tables Table 1 Percentage of farming units that have had access to tractors, water pumps, and means of transportation, 2009–2010 Table 2 Machinery and equipment purchased with the first MFI loan tranche in 2015 Table 3 Price for tractors and equipment for service centres, as stipulated by GoM Table 4 Service centres and individual farmers covered by the programme in 2018 Table 5 Machinery package for CSA-private in Malema District, Nampula Table 6 Provincial distribution of private and public CSAs and number of farming units per centre Table 7 CSAs visited by the study (September 2017–July 2018) Working Paper 019 | February 2019 5 List of Figures Figure 1 Tractor imports in Ghana, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, 1961–2007 (quantity) Figure 2 Tractor imports in Mozambique, 1961–2001 (quantity) Figure 3 Imports of tractors and other farming machinery and equipment, 2001–2017 (value in 1,000 US$) Figure 4 LS Plus tractors parked at the Sonil CSA in Malema, Nampula Province Figure 5 New seed planter wrapped in overgrown cassava leaves Figure 6 Reported maximum distances travelled from the location of centre or homestead to the client’s farm 6 Working Paper 019 | February 2019 SUMMARY In 2015, the Mozambican Ministry of Agriculture address national food security objectives by offering and Food Security (MASA) launched the National services through privately managed centres. This paper Agriculture Mechanisation Programme, as part of a analyses the design and initial implementation of this strategy to increase production and productivity and mechanisation policy, looking at the models devised for transform peasant farming into commercial agriculture. service provision, actors involved, their motivations and By 2018, the programme had established 96 Agrarian expectations, and access to machinery by the small- Service Centres across the country for the provision scale family sector. It also discusses the role played of mechanisation services and, eventually, a range by mechanisation in processes of agrarian change of complementary services to farmers. The new and social differentiation in rural Mozambique and, machinery that equipped these centres, mainly tractors specifically, its part in efforts by the state to nurture a and tillage implements, had been procured by the modern agribusiness entrepreneur. government with support from a Brazilian concessional loan. The majority of the service centres were run by Peasant farmers are largely disconnected from the policy private operators, who purchased farming machinery in place and, despite being repeatedly proclaimed by from the government, at a subsidised price and under policymakers as the chief beneficiaries of their policies, a leasing contract, and who were expected to provide they remain on the edges of the type of modernisation mechanisation services to the population on a fee-for- envisaged by the government. Yet, the Brazilian tractors service basis. are also nurturing accumulation from below, the scale and implications of which deserve further exploration. Mozambique’s predominantly small-scale peasant The latter is more progressive because of its broad- farmers, or the ‘family sector’, as it is often called, based character and its greater dynamism in developing rely on short-handed hoes for ploughing and cannot the productivity of farming, as well as its implications for afford to buy seed or fertiliser, let alone machinery. The democracy. programme pledged to target mainly these farmers and Working Paper 019 | February 2019 7 1. INTRODUCTION In 2015, the Mozambican Ministry of Agriculture and small-scale peasant farmer. It also discusses the role Food Security (MASA) launched the National Agriculture played by mechanisation in processes of accumulation Mechanisation Programme with the aim to increase and agrarian change and, specifically, in the rise and agricultural production and productivity, in line with consolidation of middle farmers and agribusiness the government’s agricultural development strategy. entrepreneurs. By 2018, the programme had established 96 Agrarian Service Centres (Centros de Serviços Agrários, CSAs) Questions guiding the research include the following: