Can linking small- and large-scale Farmers enhance adaptive Capacity? - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 153

either accept the price that MSE offers, or convert their cane fields to other
crops - an expensive and risky undertaking, as sugarcane is a perennial crop with
high initial investment costs. According to OG farmers and key informants at
MSE and Kilombero Sugar Company Ltd (KSCL), price differences between
the two estates are due to differences in the managements' attitude towards OG
farmers, the milling efficiency of the factories, and the fact that KSCL estate
has no capability to expand in size, but must rely on increased production of
cane from smallholder OGs for profitability. In contrast, MSE has acquired a
new 30,000-hectare concession of land from the government, which it plans to
develop partially for irrigated cane production.
However, in both cases, the OG associations provide benefits to smallholders
that extend beyond their role in price negotiations with the estates. KPL has
deliberately fostered the development of farmers' organizations through
its SRI training and establishment of SRI demonstration plots and farmers'
groups down to the sub-village level. Farmers have also received training in
how to organize and register their SRI associations, and have held elections for
the village and the Apex level SRI association to represent farmers' interests
in contractual negotiations with the estate. Regular interactions with farmers
during the course of these trainings and elections indicated that they greatly
valued the group cooperation and social camaraderie fostered through the SRI
training and demonstration plots. Farmers mentioned the 'motivating' role of
these groups, the learning and sharing that they encouraged, the individual
and group pride that they instilled, and the social ties among participants. At
MSE, two different OG associations represent farmers' interests in contract
negotiations with the estate. Among OG households in Lungo, husbands and
wives commonly maintain separate memberships in these two associations, in
order to facilitate switching between them, should their performance decline
in the eyes of the farmer. These same associations are responsible for harvesting
and delivering farmers' cane crops to the factory, and delivering cane payments
from MSE to farmers. At the time of the fieldwork, the OG associations at
MSE were actively engaged in lobbying the Mvomero District Commissioner
to allow construction of a smaller cane factory that could compete with MSE,
with the goal of raising the producer price in smallholder farmers' favour.
This issue was taken all the way to the president, and discussed in the national
parliament.
These findings show that OG schemes do not operate in an institutional
vacuum. They interface with formal and informal institutions at the local
level and with market mechanisms and policies at higher levels - most notably
related to agricultural marketing but also indirectly, in the case of land-use and
agricultural investment policies. While many of the institutional dynamics that
ultimately affect OG crop prices are beyond smallholders' ability to control, OG
associations enhance the adaptive capacities of smallholder farmers by helping
to build social capital and cooperative ties among farmers, and strengthening
their ability to lobby politically for their interests and rights at higher levels.