Ricing Fortunes

Theories of agricultural transformation commonly focus on changes in the availability of land, and the closing of land frontiers, and on the levels and sorts of technology that the changing availability of land and labour precipitate. However these theories have to take into account changing gender relations which affect the relations of production, as well as injections of capital from outside these agricultural systems. Using the AFRINT database this chapter explores the growth and flourishing of irrigated rice farming in two villages in Kilombero, Morogoro Region. It reports considerable transformations in the productivity of small-holder rice cultivation in these sites. These have followed from technological changes (mechanization and new seed varieties) as well as improved economic returns from rice. A difference emerges from these villages of not intensification driven by land scarcity, or by mechanization, but of divergent causes behind technological change including migration and new market opportunities.