Truck transporting sugar cane. Erin Collins/Flickr. (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Since its turn towards privatisation in the 90s, Tanzania has been adhering to the dominant narrative of international institutions and its main donors by actively seeking to attract foreign direct investments (FDI). Indeed, the Tanzanian state has bought into the presiding neoliberal rationale, which contends that welcoming investors will help modernise and increase productivity in the agricultural sector, and will thereby foster socio-economic development at the local and national levels. Yet, the extent to which such agricultural investments effectively contribute to local socio-economic development remains open for debate.
The truth is that standard and depoliticised economic development indicators – such as the creation of employment, small-scale farmers’ access to credit and technology, and the overall amount of capital invested in the sector – do not offer an adequate, or comprehensive picture of the effects of these investments at the local level. Instead, these measurement tools tend to obscure the social costs of these large-scale agricultural investments, mostly borne by the most poor and vulnerable Tanzanians.
