Precarious prospects? Exploring climate resilience of agricultural commercialization pathways in Tanzania and Zimbabwe

ABSTRACTSmallholder agricultural commercialization is a central objective across Africa, one linked to poverty reduction, sectoral transformation and increasingly, climate resilience and adaptation. There is much attention given to the extent to which agricultural commercialization serves to reduce poverty, but less to the commercialization pathways that lead towards or away from that outcome. There are, likewise, many studies that project hugely adverse future impacts of climate change on commercial agricultural production, but surprisingly little empirical work on how climate impacts are affecting current agricultural commercialization prospects and pathways for smallholder farmers. This paper, therefore, offers an analysis of levels of climate vulnerability and resilience within existing commercialization pathways in Tanzania and Zimbabwe. It embeds the account within an analysis of the underlying causes of uneven distributions of vulnerability and resilience. We find that while being able to practise commercially viable agriculture can contribute to resilience, it does not do so for the people who most need commercialization to reduce poverty. It is more common for farmers to face what we term an adaptation trap. We conclude by considering what these cases add to our understanding of climate-smart agriculture (CSA).KEYWORDS: Agricultural commercializationadaptationresilienceclimate changevulnerability Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 See Newsham et al. (Citation2021) for more detailed exposition of the PAR framework, tensions and unacknowledged overlaps with relational ontological thinking.2 The empirical material in this section is drawn from the longer case studies of Mutabazi and Boniface (Citation2021) for Tanzania, and Newsham et al. (Citation2021) for Zimbabwe.3 The farmers (Nyiramba) settled first on upland as lowland plains were seen barren and vulnerable to flooding. The pastoral Sukuma arrived later and settled with their livestock on the vast the lowland floodplains. The Sukuma had experience in lowland paddy farming using the majaruba system to contain rainwater for paddy production. Over recent times, rains have been in most cases falling above long-term averages, hence supported paddy production – but occasionally falling violently causing devastating flash floods.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: [Grant Number 12345].Notes on contributorsAndrew NewshamAndrew Newsham is a senior lecturer in the department of development studies at SOAS, University of London. He works on social-environmental relations in Southern Africa and South America, specifically climate change adaptation and conservation and development. His publications are available here.Lars Otto NaessLars Otto Naess is a research fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, UK, co-leading their Resource Politics and Environmental Change Cluster. His research centres on the social and institutional dimensions of climate change, the political economy of policy processes on climate change at national and sub-national levels and the role of local knowledge in adaptation to climate change.Khamaldin MutabaziKhamaldin Mutabazi is an associate professor in the department of trade and investment under the College of Economics and Business Studies at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), Tanzania. He teaches agricultural economics and has a research interest in climate change economics, smallholder commercialization and sustainable food systems.Toendepi ShonheToendepi Shonhe is a political economist at the Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs. His research interests are in agrarian change and its intersection with economic development in the Global South. He has published extensively on land reform and agricultural commercialization in Southern Africa.Gideon BonifaceGideon Boniface is an independent researcher, programmer and data analyst. He holds a Master's degree in Agricultural Economics and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Horticulture from Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania. His areas of expertise and research interests include the production and marketing of crops and computer programming and analysis.Tsitsidzashe BvuteTsitsidzashe Bvute is a doctoral researcher at the University of Johannesburg. Her research focuses on the political economy of religion and migration and their impacts on livelihoods in economies in crisis, such as Zimbabwe.