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“Win-win” agricultural investment projects put to the test: the case of the IDSP project as promoted by the World Bank in Zambia

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Abstract

For fear of being accused of land grabbing, investors, the governments of host countries and international donors have sought to develop jointly capitalist farming and family farming by seeking synergies from “win-win” projects. The Irrigation Development Support Project (IDSP), established under the supervision of the Zambian government and financed by the World Bank, constitutes one of the prototypes of this new generation of projects. The aim of this article is to examine the conception and implementation of this project and to question its likely impact. By relying on the professional experience of one of the authors of this article on three of the sites of the project, on the critical reading of the project’s documents put at our disposal and, finally, on qualitative surveys carried out in 2017, 2018 and 2019, we highlight the contradictions inherent to the project, implementation difficulties and the foreseeable impact of the project on family farming, as well as in terms of national benefit.

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Notes

  1. The main project documents used are as follows: World Bank (2011); IDSP/MAL/WB (2012, 2015a, 2015b).

  2. On the diversity of forms of capitalist farming development, see also Purseigle et al. (2017).

  3. We define entrepreneurial or capitalist farming as a type of agriculture characterised by a “separation between labour and capital”, where the owner of the capital invested in the productive process, takes little or no part in the “labour carried out by a labour force which is salaried or paid by the piece”, and we define family farming as a type of agriculture for which “most or all the labour is carried out by the farmer and his family who own the working capital” (Cochet 2015b).

  4. Such land availability remains controversial (Here 2013).

  5. Another example of these projects is given by the PDIDAS Project in Senegal (Comité technique Foncier & Développement 2017).

  6. On the concept of the agrarian system and the methods used to identify and characterise production systems, we refer the reader to the approach used in comparative agriculture (Cochet and Devienne 2006; Cochet 2012; Cochet 2015a).

  7. To our knowledge, “emergent” farmers will be selected on the basis of business plans. The project documents do not specify or quantify the criteria that will be used in defining farmers and qualifying them for plot allocation in “tier 2”.

  8. The total amount for the rent and water charges (including the management and maintenance service carried out by the capitalist farming company), as well as how much of the water charges the capitalist farming company will be paying for, are not specified in the publicised project documents. Nonetheless, proposals were made by one of the consulting firms contracted by the Zambian Ministry of Agriculture during the preparatory phase of the IDSP and were presented to the family farmers of the three sites targeted by the project, during various information meetings in 2014.

  9. Village chief.

  10. The type of compensation, whether monetary or in kind, was discussed between the project stakeholders during the preparatory phase. Plot proportioning was adjusted in order to recreate a semi-dispersed settlement, if the family farmers of the three sites contested the idea of a nucleated settlement.

  11. The aim of these visits and interviews was to follow up on the implementation of the project (work progress, displacement/resettlement/compensation of households, establishment/operating mode/activities of the Community Land Trust, status and redistribution of land), as well as its impact on farms (loss of land or even crops): 13 farmers were met, some during each visit, including the local IDSP representative, 8 members of the Community Land Trust and 1 village headman.

  12. In December 2017, the local representative of the project mentioned “misunderstandings” on the part of the villagers and the need to hold “sensitisation meetings” in this regard: “Why and what is the benefice has been explained”.

  13. “[…] that movement should take place after harvest of rain-fed crops and before planting, so that village headman can secure access to sufficient accessible land for each displaced household before the move.” (IDSP/MAL/WB 2015)

  14. The local representative of the project mentioned in December 2017: “The farmers were suddenly informed to stop working on the land”; “Government cannot wait, they have a time frame schedule”. The chairman of the Community Land Trust confirmed this “short notice” and mentioned: “We stood for the people”.

  15. According to the local representative of the project, in August 2018, compensation commensurate with the expenses incurred by the farmers was indeed paid. Conversely, a member of the Community Land Trust mentioned the difficulties which farmers had faced during the growing season, following their displacement, for lack of sufficient land and compensation, which questioned the food security of the families concerned: “It is a challenge for people, they have small pieces of land and need to be helped by IDSP for food”; “Compensation are not given, concerns are not attended, we are worried and not very satisfied”. One of the village headmen was also stressing these difficulties: “The only challenge we are meeting is the lack of enough land: what is remaining is too small for families.”

  16. The elements mentioned in this paragraph are based on the professional experience of one of the authors of this article, between 2012 and 2014, within the framework of the IDSP, who worked for a consulting firm that was in charge of the Community Participation and Capacity Building component (CP&CB) of the project and was contracted to that end by the Zambian Ministry of Agriculture between 2012 and 2017.

  17. In January 2014, during one of these meetings in the presence of around 50 villagers, men and women, the latter refused categorically the presence on their land of a capitalist farmer, irrespective of their state, and said that they had not been informed about the project from when it started: “According to what we know, [...] [our village] was not part of the project”; “We accept the dam, not tier 3”; “Here we do not need this project” (expressed in the local language and translated into English in the presence of one of the authors.)

  18. In June 2014, during a Public Disclosure Meeting held in Mwomboshi, the village representatives who had prepared a list of comments, demands and questions were told by a local authority representative: “Questions have already been answered; it’s not time to answer questions, and not your problem. [...] [You] should be the one answering the questions, not asking them. [...] [We] are disappointed. [...] [This questions] are based on ignorance.” (expressed in English in the presence of one of the authors, and reconstituted for this article from handwritten notes.).

  19. The Community Land Trust was re-established 9 months after it was dissolved, its members claiming to be responsible for ensuring that the RAP would indeed be adhered to during the implementation of the project in Mwomboshi. Trust members find that “things are not going according to the RAP”, and that one must “ensure the RAP is followed” and “make sure people are given what was agreed”.

  20. Those in charge of the project at the Ministry of Agriculture had justified this with the devaluation of the Kwacha since the beginning of the investment phase and, from this angle, by the increase in value (in Kwacha) of the houses being built. In December 2017, a woman farmer mentioned, for example, that the project had “paid someone who has an oxcart” to transport the wood that would be used to build a temporary external kitchen by her children, before building a permanent kitchen with bricks, once the rainy season has gone: “I did not pay anything, my children are doing it”; “After the rainy season, a big one with bricks will be built” (survey conducted in the local language interpreted into English).

  21. Two we know of, dating from 2014 and 2017, respectively.

  22. As opposed to financial analysis

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  1. Comparative Agriculture and Agricultural Development Research Unit, Prodig Joint Research Unit, AgroParisTech|, Paris, France

    Clémentine Rémy

  2. Comparative Agriculture and Agricultural Development Research Unit, Prodig Joint Research Unit, AgroParisTech–Université Paris-Saclay, Paris, France

    Hubert Cochet

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  1. Clémentine Rémy
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Rémy, C., Cochet, H. “Win-win” agricultural investment projects put to the test: the case of the IDSP project as promoted by the World Bank in Zambia. Rev Agric Food Environ Stud 101, 363–389 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41130-020-00109-9

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