AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	37. Political Economies of Displacement in Southern Africa
Paper ID	439
Author(s)	Bolding, Alex
Paper	No paper submitted
Abstract	In the course of the past century a dynamic indigenous furrow irrigation culture has emerged in the mountainous border region of eastern Zimbabwe and west-central Mozambique, inhabited by Shona speaking people. Its importance and existence has hitherto remained virtually unknown, despite the key role attributed to irrigation in the commercialisation of agrarian production, provision of food security, and poverty eradication. This paper demonstrates its importance in terms of irrigated area (10% of all irrigated land in both countries), contribution to food security and increased commercial production, and capacity to provide displaced people with a livelihood. Studies of the ancient terracing and irrigation cultures of the Nyanga Highlands (Zimbabwe) and Engaruka (Tanzania) suggest that furrow irrigation was not primed on the need for intensified agricultural production (Sutton 1984). Rather the Nyanga terrace people are seen as ‘losers’ who turned to irrigation to survive the harsh environment they found themselves in, whilst Engaruka became the victim of its own success (conceptualised as ‘over-specialisation’). The main question addressed in this paper is whether the spread and decline of furrow irrigation based informal economies represents a drive towards agrarian modernisation or a last resort for survival of displaced smallholders, war refugees, and expelled migrant farm workers. The paper seeks to first identify the origins and geographical spread of these furrows: are they part of a long standing indigenous irrigation culture; were they copied from white settler farmers by their African labour force; or were they spread by enterpreneurial Mission-educated agriculturists? Second, the construction, management and maintenance of these irrigation furrows is characterised and contrasted with existing literature on similar irrigation ventures in Tanzania and Kenya. Next the paper presents three contrasting case studies on irrigated valleys in the upper Revue (Manica district, Mozambique), the upper Pungwe (Báruè district, Mozambique), and the upper Nyanyadzi rivers (Chimanimani district, Zimbabwe). The case studies focus on the different, historically situated, drives behind expansion and contraction of furrow irrigation; the identity, life-histories, modes of organisation and production strategies practised by the smallholder irrigators; and the local importance and marketing linkages of the informal economies thus established. Several waves of expansion of furrow irrigation occurred, moderated by different drives, like the promotion of furrow irrigation by labour-hungry Rhodesian settler farmers (1890s onwards); Mission induced agrarian modernisation by migrating Africans looking for land (1910-30s), and the inhibitive effects of segregationist and conservationist policies in Rhodesia (1940s & 1950s). Recent waves of furrow expansion have been fed by returning Mozambican labour migrants (after 1975 Independence and 1992 Peace Deal), internally displaced war refugees (1980s), impoverished smallholders in the wake of the 1992 Drought, and Mozambican, Malawian and Zimbabwean farm labourers after the start of the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe (2000-). Whilst their importance has always lain in providing a livelihood and refuge in remote mountain valleys for people on the run, some furrow irrigation based informal economies have been able to link up with urban markets or contract crop based marketing outlets, providing the impetus for agrarian intensification and modernisation.

The dynamics of smallholder irrigation furrows in the Mozambique-Zimbabwe borderlands: A resilient force of agrarian modernisation or a last resort for marginal communities?