Welcome post

In the heart of Southern Africa, Malawi is a country blessed with rich soils and a vibrant agricultural history. Yet, despite its potential, Malawi's agricultural sector has faced significant challenges—many of which are deeply rooted in its colonial past and continued by modern development strategies. But what if the key to a sustainable and prosperous future lies not in looking outward but inward, embracing the rich tapestry of Indigenous knowledge that has long been overlooked?

1.1 The Colonial Legacy: An Unfinished Chapter

For decades, Malawi's agricultural policies have been heavily influenced by colonial and post-colonial narratives. These narratives often painted a picture of modernity and progress through the lens of Western agricultural practices, sidelining traditional methods and knowledge systems. The introduction of cash crops like tobacco and tea, aimed at serving colonial markets, disrupted local food systems and led to widespread land dispossession.

This colonial mindset didn’t disappear with independence. Instead, it morphed into a new form, often characterized by large-scale, export-oriented agricultural models promoted by international development agencies. These models have continued to marginalize smallholder farmers, who make up the majority of Malawi's agricultural workforce.

1.2 The Power of Indigenous Knowledge (and Other Alternatives)

Indigenous knowledge systems in Malawi encompass a wealth of ecological insights and sustainable practices developed over generations. These include diverse crop rotation methods, organic pest control, and traditional water management systems. Unlike many modern agricultural practices, these Indigenous methods are inherently sustainable, tailored to local environmental conditions, and culturally significant.

However, despite their proven effectiveness, these knowledge systems have often been dismissed as outdated or inferior. This dismissal is not just a loss of valuable agricultural practices; it also represents a deeper epistemic injustice—where the knowledge and experiences of local communities are undervalued or ignored.

1.3 Challenging the Status Quo: A Call for Epistemic Justice

My research delves into these complex issues, using a framework informed by Achille Mbembe's concepts of fantasy, negation, and the psycho-oneiric complex. These ideas help to unpack how certain narratives about agriculture and development continue to dominate, often at the expense of more nuanced and inclusive perspectives.

For example, the fantasy of a "modernized" agricultural sector often includes images of mechanized farms and high-tech solutions, yet it ignores the realities of Malawi's smallholder farmers who work on a different scale and with different resources. The mechanisms of negation and ambiguation serve to invalidate or obscure the practical and sustainable solutions offered by Indigenous knowledge systems.

1.4 A New Vision for Malawi's Agriculture

So, what does a decolonized agricultural future look like for Malawi? It starts with recognizing and valuing the knowledge that local communities bring to the table. This means creating policies that are not just inclusive in rhetoric but genuinely participatory in practice. Smallholder farmers should not only be consulted but should play a leading role in shaping agricultural policies and initiatives.

Moreover, it's essential to address historical injustices, such as land dispossession, by implementing land reforms that secure land rights for local communities. This also involves promoting community-driven agricultural projects that prioritize local needs and sustainability over export-driven models.

1.5 A Global Conversation

While the focus of my research is on Malawi, the lessons learned have global relevance. As the world grapples with issues of food security, environmental management, and social justice, it's clear that a one-size-fits-all approach to agriculture and development is inadequate. Embracing diverse knowledge systems and promoting epistemic justice can lead to more resilient and sustainable agricultural practices worldwide.

1.6 Join the Movement

The journey toward a sustainable and equitable agricultural future for Malawi—and indeed, for many countries—requires collective effort. It calls for the involvement of policymakers, researchers, farmers, and everyday citizens. By valuing Indigenous knowledge and fostering inclusive dialogues, we can begin to reshape the narrative around agriculture and development.

As we move forward, let's remember that true progress is not measured by the abandonment of the past but by the integration of diverse knowledges and practices. Together, we can build a future where every farmer's voice is heard, every piece of land is cherished, and every community thrives.

31st July 2024

1.1   Introduction

Conducting research in today's multifaceted world requires innovative approaches that cater to diverse and complex societal issues. One such approach is mixed methods research, which integrates both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to provide a more comprehensive understanding of research problems. This blog post explores the design and execution of mixed methods research, drawing on a specific case study of agricultural practices in Malawi to highlight the nuances and challenges encountered in the field.

1.2   The Case Study: Agriculture in Malawi

For my PhD research, I employed a mixed methods approach with a predominantly qualitative focus within a grounded theory framework to explore how people experience and practice agriculture in Malawi. The research aimed to uncover the impacts of coloniality and the potential for decoloniality within agricultural sites, value chains, practices, and ideas.

1.3   Fieldwork Design

The fieldwork for this study was designed to capture a wide range of experiences and perspectives related to agriculture. This involved conducting conversational interviews with three farmers, observing and intermittently participating in their farming and non-farm activities. Additionally, I interviewed seven agricultural extension workers and four national-level stakeholders involved in agricultural education, policy formulation, execution, and monitoring, including archives management.

While I began with semi-structured interview guides, the fieldwork evolved as conversations unfolded, helping clarify the research focus and identify significant data. The recruitment and engagement of participants was guided by an ethics application approved by the University of Glasgow. The process involved identifying participants through networks in Malawi and clearly explaining the research project and informed consent process.

1.3.1  Immersion and Participant Observation

To gain a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of farmers, I immersed myself in key agricultural activities through participant observation and autoethnography. This included running my own farm, participating in a major research and development project, attending selected national, subnational, and international meetings, and drawing on recollections of experiences beyond the PhD fieldwork. These meetings varied between active participation and direct observation, supplemented by informal conversations and observations.

1.3.2  Complementary Data Collection

In addition to interviews and participant observation, I analysed key archival records from the National Archives of Malawi and my father's private archive. I also examined agricultural policy documents, reports, and quantitative data produced by the Malawian government, NGOs, and other stakeholders, supplemented with news articles and social media posts reflecting policies, practices, advocacy work, and opinions of key agricultural influencers.

1.3.3  Fieldwork Timeline and Context

Fieldwork was conducted continuously over three years, beginning in February 2020, using multiple methods and data sources. Supplementary observatory data and documents were also collected, along with an interview with an academic during a trip to Malawi in April-May 2024.

1.4   Key Fieldwork Settings and Sites

1.4.1  Positionality

I studied agribusiness management and agricultural economics at Bunda College of Agriculture, University of Malawi, and worked with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Food Programme (WFP) in Malawi. This background provided me with extensive professional networks and contextual understanding, facilitating access to research participants and enabling thorough engagement during fieldwork. However, familiarity with the field also posed challenges, including potential biases and the need to critically examine my own situatedness.

1.4.2  Agricultural Governance Framework

To situate the field sites and participants, the agricultural governance system in Malawi is briefly introduced. The government, through agricultural extension and development officers (AEDOs), plays a central role in agricultural development planning and execution. AEDOs typically oversee several villages within an agricultural section, reporting to agricultural extension and development coordinators (AEDCs) who in turn report to district agriculture development officers (DADOs). Districts are organized into agricultural development divisions (ADDs), headed by program managers (PMs) who report to the Ministry of Agriculture.

1.4.3  Fieldwork Sites: Lilongwe and Mchinji Districts

Lilongwe and Mchinji provided advantageous empirical settings due to my familiarity with these areas and my diverse networks. Both districts are key agricultural areas and food baskets of the country, sharing similar agricultural characteristics, production patterns, cultivation practices, and agroecological characteristics. My fieldwork covered key centres of agricultural education, research, policy-making, implementation, farm production, marketing, and export in these districts.

1.4.4  Ethnographic Study: Farmers and Farms

1.4.4.1   MS1's Farm

MS1's farm, part of a diversified business including real estate and maize milling, consists of two upland fields on fertile alluvial soil. The farm primarily cultivates maize, soybeans, and groundnuts, relying heavily on manual labor. MS1, a retired administrator, manages the farm as a family enterprise, with each family member responsible for their crops.

1.4.4.2   SS1's Farm

SS1's farm, located near Bunda College in Lilongwe District, operates as a subsistence-based family enterprise. The farm consists of four fields, including two wetland plots (madambo or dimbas) and two upland plots. SS1, a smallholder farmer with limited formal education, employs low-tech methods for production and transportation, receiving agricultural guidance through common channels such as radio and local government extension workers.

1.4.4.3   MS2's Farm

MS2's farm, situated on the flatland of the Central Region Plateau, spans approximately 18 acres, primarily cultivating maize, soybeans, and groundnuts. The farm employs casual labourers from surrounding villages, with MS2, a retired finance manager, overseeing operations.

1.4.4.4   My Farm

My farm comprised separate plots rented seasonally, including land in Lilongwe and Mchinji. This entrepreneurial project allowed me to engage firsthand with the colonial and decolonial realities I was studying, providing a deeper understanding of the everyday experiences of farmers.

1.4.5  State Offices and Events

1.4.5.1   District Agriculture Office, Mchinji

The Mchinji District Agriculture Office, located at the district capital, houses a team of district government agricultural officers. This office plays a central role in agricultural information dissemination, training, and development review and planning.

1.4.5.2   District Council Hall, Mchinji

The District Council Hall, capable of seating about 500 people, hosts various government-called meetings and serves as a venue for district area stakeholder panel (DASP) meetings.

1.4.5.3   Sub-District Offices

Sub-district offices at EPA level serve as localized agricultural offices for training, information dissemination, and addressing agricultural issues.

1.4.6  Online Conferences and Workshops

Attending webinars organized by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Malawi and CIFOR-ICRAF provided access to contemporary thinking and discourses on agriculture in Malawi, Africa, and globally. These platforms facilitated engagement with diverse stakeholders and enriched my understanding of agricultural policies and practices.

1.4.7  Village X, Mchinji District

Village X was an interesting research site due to its frontiers of urbanization and the presence of two elderly women who provided valuable insights into agricultural change over time.

1.4.8  Bunda Campus, Bunda College, LUANAR

The Bunda campus of LUANAR, established in 1966, serves as a major centre for agricultural education and research in Malawi. The campus comprises various faculties, support service offices, specialized project offices, a farm complex, and a forest area.

1.4.9  The National Archives of Malawi, Zomba Office

The National Archives of Malawi, established in 1947, collects, organizes, preserves, and makes available information reflecting the country's historical, political, judicial, religious, economic, social, and cultural heritage. This institution plays a crucial role in managing agricultural and other records.

1.4.10               NGOs and Private Companies

1.4.10.1             Japan Tobacco International

Japan Tobacco International (JTI) is a significant player in Malawi's tobacco industry. JTI supports farmers across the country through agronomy and credit officers, enhancing agricultural production and earnings.

1.4.10.2             VisionFund

VisionFund, World Vision's microfinance services provider, empowers rural entrepreneurs with small loans and financial services, supporting the development of small businesses and improving livelihoods.

1.4.11               DDSc. Consulting

Development with Data Science (DDSc.), founded in 2018, promotes research entrepreneurship in social sciences and humanities, offering consultancy services in policy analysis, applied research, project evaluation, and data-driven decision-making support. This platform provided valuable insights into Malawi's agricultural landscape.

1.5   Methods of Data Collection

1.5.1  Recruitment and Engagement

Recruiting research participants involved leveraging networks, explaining the research project, and obtaining informed consent. Farmers were recruited through informal pre-research conversations, while key informant interviewees were identified through snowball sampling.

1.5.2  Ethnographic Study with Farmers

The ethnographic study involved following and participating in farmers' agricultural activities, making observations, and conducting casual and more structured interviews. This approach generated rich insights and a friendly atmosphere.

1.5.3  Including Perspectives of Female Farmers and the Elderly

A focus group discussion with two elderly women in Mchinji provided socially constructed knowledge from their shared experiences and memories.

1.5.4  Interviews with State Officials, Civil Society and Private Sector Representatives, and Academics

Interviews with officials at national, district, and sub-district levels, along with representatives from civil society, the private sector, and academia, captured detailed information through flexible semi-structured guides.

1.5.5  Autoethnography: Working a Farm

Autoethnography involved documenting personal experiences and reflections as a farmer, student, and agricultural professional, relating them to the key themes of the PhD.

1.5.6  Collection of Key Documents and Macroeconomic Data

Key documents and quantitative macroeconomic data were analysed to understand the movement of agricultural ideation and knowledge, sourced from online sources, university libraries, and archives.

1.5.7  Supplementing Interview and Discussion Material with Observations

Informal observations made during travel and interactions provided additional insights not captured through formal methods, enriching the research with practical aspects of agricultural practices and market dynamics.

1.6   Methods of Data Analysis

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was applied to the data, focusing on language, ideology, and power dynamics. The analysis involved identifying social wrongs, examining obstacles to change, exploring the relationship between discourse and social structures, and proposing alternative discourses. Themes and sub-themes were coded and analysed iteratively, with insights 'bubbling up' during reflective moments. NVivo software facilitated the management and analysis of large volumes of data.

1.7   Ethical Considerations

The research complied with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Framework of Research Ethics, focusing on informed consent, anonymity, data protection, and minimizing harm. Participants were informed in plain language and had the option to withdraw at any point. Pseudonyms were used to ensure anonymity, and data was securely stored. Emotional support and professional help were sought to manage the researcher's well-being during fieldwork.

1.8   Methodological Challenges

Several challenges were encountered, including managing familiarity with the field, differences in disciplinary expectations, balancing data collection and analysis, and navigating the COVID-19 context. Strategies to address these challenges included engaging in geography coursework, attending seminars, leveraging professional networks, and maintaining a support system. The grounded theory approach and the pandemic posed specific difficulties, impacting the pace and scope of the research.

1.9   Conclusion

Designing and executing mixed methods research requires careful consideration of various methodological approaches and challenges. The case study of agricultural practices in Malawi demonstrates the importance of integrating qualitative and quantitative methods to capture a comprehensive understanding of complex societal issues. By addressing ethical considerations and navigating methodological challenges, researchers can produce valuable insights and contribute to the broader field of study. I will begin discussing my empirical findings in some more detail in subsequent posts.

1.10   Bibliography (to be updated)

Books and Articles

• Campbell, J. (2014).

• Chambers, R. (2008). Revolutions in Development Inquiry. London: Earthscan.

• Cloke, P., Crang, P., & Goodwin, M. (2004). Practising Human Geography.

• Dittmer, J. (2010). Textual and Discourse Analysis. In D. DeLyser et al. (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Geography. London: SAGE Publications.

• Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. P. (2010). Autoethnography: An Overview. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1).

• Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and Power. London: Longman.

• Fairclough, N. (2010). Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. Harlow: Pearson Education.

• Flick, U. (2008). An Introduction to Qualitative Research.

• Graham, J. (2005). Ethical Considerations in Social Research. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

• Kanyama-Phiri, G. (2018). Bunda: A Historical Perspective. Zomba: University of Malawi Press.

• Kundhlande, G., Fraser, G. C. G., & Botha, J. J. (2014). A Comparison of the Agricultural Development and Extension Models Used in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa and in Malawi. South African Journal of Agricultural Extension, 42(1), 1-17.

• McCracken, J. (1982).

• McCracken, J. (1983).

• Meriel, B., & Thomas, S. (2007). Analysing Discourse. London: Routledge.

• Moffat, S. (2018).

• Muncey, T. (2010). Creating Autoethnographies. London: SAGE Publications.

• Mwaura, G. (2015).

• Potts, D. (1985).

• Potts, D. (2006).

• Yilmaz, K. (2013). Comparison of Quantitative and Qualitative Research Traditions: Epistemological, Theoretical, and Methodological Differences. European Journal of Education, 48(2), 311-325.

Online Sources

• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (n.d.). Smallholders and Family Farmers. Retrieved December 12, 2022, from https://www.fao.org/3/y4632e/y4632e0n.htm

• International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). (n.d.). Past Events. Retrieved from https://massp.ifpri.info/category/news-and-events/past-events/

• International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). (n.d.). About. Retrieved from https://massp.ifpri.info/about/

• Japan Tobacco International (JTI). (n.d.). About Us. Retrieved from https://www.jti.com/

• National Archives of Malawi. (n.d.). Overview. Retrieved from http://www.sdnp.org.mw/ruleoflaw/archives/overview.html

• VisionFund. (n.d.). About Us. Retrieved from https://www.wvi.org/visionfund

Unpublished Theses and Reports

• Bunda College of Agriculture Academic Theses.

• Malawi Folktale and Folklore Project. (2020). Review of Audiovisuals Database.

Conferences and Workshops

• International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Malawi. (2021-2022). Series of Webinars.

• CIFOR-ICRAF. (2021). Developing Smallholder Oriented IPM Strategies for FAW Management Conference.

• CIFOR-ICRAF. (2022). IPM Strategies for Fall Armyworm Management Conference.

27th July 2024

1.1 Introduction

In the complex landscape of human geography, understanding the interplay of indigeneity, decolonisation, and agriculture in the Global South is essential for advancing development practices and narratives. Chapter 2 of my PhD thesis delves into this intricate relationship, exploring how these themes converge to shape contemporary geographic and agricultural discourse. This blog post aims to distil key insights from this literature review, providing an overview of how these elements interact and influence each other.

1.2 Indigeneity and Decolonial Geographies

The concept of indigeneity has garnered significant attention in contemporary Anglophone geography. Scholars like Radcliffe (2017b) have highlighted two primary purposes for studying indigeneity: to understand non-western culture-natures and to examine the power dynamics and differences highlighted by Indigenousness. These two approaches offer distinct but interrelated perspectives on how Indigenous knowledge systems and identities are constructed and maintained.

1. Non-Western Culture-Natures

The study of non-western culture-natures focuses on the ontological diversity that Indigenous knowledge systems provide. This diversity has been instrumental in solving technological puzzles and addressing governance issues. For instance, scholars like Briggs and Sharp (2009), Eriksen (2007), and Sithole (2020) have shown how Indigenous knowledge can offer innovative solutions to environmental and agricultural challenges. This strand of scholarship underscores the richness of Indigenous practices and their potential contributions to global knowledge.

2. Power Dynamics and Indigenousness

The second strand of scholarship, which I am particularly interested in, examines the power dynamics and epistemic violence perpetuated against Indigenous peoples. This approach builds on postcolonial and settler colonial analyses to critique how colonial ontologies operate on Indigenous subjects and spaces. Radcliffe (2017b) argues that a critical geography of indigeneity should focus on how indigeneity is constructed, and the exclusions and epistemic violence that accompany this process. This entails questioning the universal (i.e., colonial) ontologies that impose power and economic structures on Indigenous populations.

Despite the growth of postcolonial literatures, voices from the Global South remain underrepresented in geography debates and research. In response to this gap, initiatives like the 2017 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) conference have sought to foreground southern perspectives. The conference theme emphasized the need to re-think scholarly epistemic and institutional forms of knowledge production that privilege predominantly western over southern knowledges. Radcliffe (2017) highlights the importance of provincialising Global North models and promoting a thinking about the world from marginalized academia in the Global South, including Indigenous places.

This critical engagement with indigeneity and decolonial geographies is crucial for understanding the complexities of power, identity, and knowledge in postcolonial contexts. It challenges dominant paradigms and highlights the need for more inclusive and diverse geographic research.

1.3 Narratives in Global South Agriculture

Agricultural narratives in the Global South often fall into two broad categories: productivist and agroecological. These narratives represent different approaches to agricultural development and have significant implications for how agricultural practices are understood and implemented.

1. Productivist Narratives

Productivism is rooted in eighteenth-century Malthusian population models, which predicted a gap between food production and population growth. This paradigm emphasizes maximizing output and yield to close the anticipated food gap. In the twentieth century, this led to the mass expansion of industrial agriculture, focusing on technological innovations like hybrid seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides (Montenegro de Wit & Canfield, 2024; Stone, 2022).

Enabling policies were developed to support these technological advancements, creating a doctrine that increased production is intrinsically socially desirable and beneficial for all parties involved (Buttel, 2005). However, critics argue that productivism has expanded rural inequalities, contributed to environmental degradation, and normalized unhealthy diets (Montenegro de Wit & Canfield, 2024).

Over time, with increasing public scrutiny of industrial agriculture’s consequences, productivism has evolved into neo-productivism. This revised approach, often referred to as sustainable intensification, aims to maintain growth while using resources more efficiently (Wilson & Burton, 2015). Since the early 2000s, sustainable intensification has incorporated data-driven approaches, including precision agriculture, climate-smart agriculture, sustainable food value chains, and nutrition-sensitive agriculture (Hilbeck et al., 2022; HLPE, 2019).

Despite addressing some sustainability concerns, neo-productivist agriculture has failed to resolve issues like rising food insecurity and environmental degradation (Bernard & Lux, 2017; Loos et al., 2014; Pimbert, 2015). Intensive agricultural practices can lead to soil and water degradation, and a decline in biodiversity (Wibbelmann et al., 2013).

In the global debate on how to address these crises, digitalization and big data are often posed as solutions. However, critical agrarian scholars argue that agricultural datafication and digitalization can reproduce and entrench colonial-modern mechanisms and principles (Bronson, 2018; Hackfort, 2021; Montenegro de Wit & Canfield, 2024). Digital agriculture technologies tend to reinforce prevailing food systems and inhibit the development of alternative agricultural models (Montenegro de Wit & Canfield, 2024).

2. Agroecological Narratives

Agroecological approaches, including regenerative agriculture and food sovereignty, offer a counter-narrative and alternative to productivist narratives. These approaches prioritize local, Indigenous, and traditional knowledge systems, promoting ecological and social sustainability. The concept of food sovereignty is frequently linked with agroecology, emphasizing the economic and ecological sustainability of small-scale agriculture and addressing the unequal participation of farmers in shaping food system models (Rosset & Martínez-Torres, 2012).

Agroecology encourages farmers' independence from the agricultural input market and emphasizes the regeneration of agroecological biodiversity and soil. Regenerative agriculture prioritizes soil conservation as the initial step to support multiple ecosystem services, enhancing the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainable food production (Schreefel et al., 2020).

These practices are largely rooted in pre-colonial knowledge systems worldwide and have independently emerged across various cultures and locations. Techniques such as no-till, crop rotation, intercropping, rotational grazing, agroforestry, and soil amendment are examples of these regenerative practices (Sands et al., 2023).

Agroecological approaches remind us that alternative systems exist and are workable. However, scholars have observed that Western science is trying to co-opt these concepts, often layering regenerative practices onto resource-intensive farming while neglecting discussions about social and cultural justice (Montenegro de Wit & Canfield, 2024; Ryan, 2023).

Reports on the socio-economic performance of agroecology have been mixed, with some practices associated with higher labour requirements but also with positive outcomes in income, revenues, productivity, and efficiency (Mouratiadou et al., 2024). Nonetheless, agroecological practices are generally linked to positive socio-economic outcomes across various metrics.

1.4 The Role of Mbembe’s Critique

In the second half of Chapter 2, I engage with Achille Mbembe's work to deepen the theoretical framework. Mbembe's concepts of the postcolony, Black Reason and necropolitics offer a lens to examine agricultural systems as sites of epistemic injustice. Black Reason, characterized by forms of knowledge, extraction, exploitation, and subjugation, highlights the manipulation and dehumanization inherent in racialized systems of power.

1. Black Reason

Mbembe's concept of Black Reason encompasses several elements: forms of knowledge, a model of extraction and depredation, a paradigm of subjection, and a psycho-oneiric complex. It is a system of narratives and discourses that build on idealization and misrepresentation, often with an academic facade. Black Reason is more concerned with justifying forms of domination than finding truth.

Historically, Black Reason has produced two key narratives: Western consciousness of Blackness and Black consciousness of Blackness. The first narrative is an identity judgement imposed by colonial powers, defining the Black Man as inferior and other. The second narrative is a declaration of identity by the Black Man, asserting independence and resistance against domination. However, this refutation is often marred by traces of the original narrative, creating a complex world of subterfuge and ambiguity.

2. Fictionalization of Difference and Unity

Mbembe critiques the artificial and constructed nature of racial differences, recognizing that racial categorizations are socially and historically constructed to justify systems of power and oppression. These differences are fictional, maintained through narratives and ideologies rather than any objective reality. Conversely, the notion of fictional unity refers to the homogenized portrayal of racial identities, reducing individuals to a monolithic identity that serves the interests of dominant powers.

Both fictional difference and unity often manifest as simplistic and reductive categorizations, dehumanizing ‘Black’ individuals and reducing them to the ‘Other.’ This process legitimizes oppression and marginalization, highlighting the need for a critical examination of these constructs.

3. Implications for Global South Agriculture

Mbembe's critique can be extended to the examination of agricultural systems in the Global South. Technological advancements and datafication in agriculture often reinforce colonial-modern mechanisms and inequalities. This is evident in the dominance of productivist narratives, which prioritize technological and productivity-oriented innovations while neglecting social and cultural justice.

Mbembe's work underscores the importance of understanding the epistemic dimensions of agricultural practices. The erosion as well as persistence of Indigenous or traditional agriculture can be seen as a function of Black Reason, challenging the dominance of Eurocentric models and highlighting the resilience and adaptability of local knowledge systems.

1.5 Moving Forward

By integrating Mbembe’s insights with the study of indigeneity and decolonial geographies, my thesis aims to offer a nuanced understanding of agricultural practices in the Global South. This approach not only critiques the hegemonic narratives of productivism but also highlights the resilience, adaptability and gradual erosion of Indigenous knowledge systems.

To advance this understanding, it is crucial to foreground diverse perspectives and challenge dominant paradigms in geographic research and debates. This involves acknowledging the complexities and intersectionalities of power, identity, and knowledge in postcolonial contexts.

1. Lines of Inquiry

In my research, I pursue the following lines of inquiry to further explore these themes: 

- Individual and State Scales: Investigating how individualized capacities, such as socioeconomic attainment and technology preferences, are constructed as farmer-based problems and translated into policy measures. This examination situates Malawi’s agricultural management within a global economic order. 

- Indigenous Knowledge and Place: Examining land and agricultural management ideas and practices that exist in social-spatial relations, often in tension with post-Independence state policies. This includes moments of dislocation, disruption, and refutation between farmers and state officials, as well as within farmers' everyday practices.

2. Reconceptualizing Indigenous Agriculture

By integrating Mbembe’s conceptualization of Black Reason with the concept of indigeneity, my thesis reconceptualizes the persistence of Indigenous or traditional agriculture as a function of Blackness. This approach brings in discussions on the postcolony, necropolitics, gaslighting, and subterfuge from psychoanalytical, philosophical, and geographical perspectives.

This framework offers a complex, nuanced understanding of Indigenous knowledge systems, highlighting both their strengths and the challenges they face. It underscores the need for a critical examination of the epistemic dimensions of agricultural practices, particularly in the context of global development and sustainability.

1.6 Conclusion

In conclusion, understanding the interplay of indigeneity, decolonisation, and agriculture in the Global South is essential for advancing development practices and narratives. By engaging with Mbembe’s work and integrating it with the study of indigeneity and decolonial geographies, my thesis offers a nuanced perspective on these themes. This approach critiques hegemonic narratives, highlights the resilience of Indigenous knowledge systems, and underscores the importance of diverse perspectives in geographic research and debates.

As we continue to explore these themes, it is crucial to foreground the voices and experiences of the Global South, challenging dominant paradigms and promoting a more inclusive and equitable understanding of global development.

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22nd July 2024

The world is in urgent need of entrepreneurial and critical researchers. For instance, a vital part of the world's problems today is a mainstream message of social science and humanities research. Research conversations, commentary and publications have become complicit, knowingly and unknowingly, in a plutocratic globalist human-subjugating agenda. There is an urgent need to execute a just agenda and push back against this tide of conformist reductionist research and research practice. Yet mentorship in this direction can be difficult to find. Modelling after the work of Dumisani Z. Moyo (a critical and entrepreneurial researcher himself - see www.dumisanizmoyo.org), founder and president of the Development with Data Science (DDSc.) network of researchers (https://www.dumisanizmoyo.org/projects-page/development-with-data-science-ddsc-nor), DDSc. runs a global network of researchers and development practitioners - effectively a centre of research and development management excellence. Adjunct to this network is a mentorship scheme that seeks to draw on the experiences in the network to shape upcoming, young researchers who seek or wish to thrive as entrepreneurial and critical researchers. Mentees are directly mentored by Dumisani and network members. Concepts covered during the mentorship include social sciences and humanities research entrepreneurship in the broadest sense, and research criticality, with focus on improving lives and livelihoods. 

For the mentees, the mentorship program has proven to be a valuable introduction into a world of learning, collaboration and growth. Below are snippets of experiences of some of our current mentees:

"One of the most significant lessons I've learned is the importance of attention to detail. As a research assistant, I quickly realized that even the smallest oversight can have a significant impact on the quality and validity of the research. This attention to detail has not only improved my work in research but also spilled over into other aspects of my life, making me more organized and thorough in various endeavors. Networking and Collaboration emerged as another crucial aspect of my role. Working closely with other team members taught me how to communicate effectively, share ideas, and integrate feedback constructively... The exposure to different research methodologies was an eye-opening experience. Having the opportunity to assist in both quantitative and qualitative research projects. This has enabled me to approach research questions from various angles. This versatility will undoubtedly serve me well in my academic pursuits and beyond, as it has taught me to adapt and be resourceful when faced with unfamiliar challenges... experiences [also] taught me the significance of time management and the art of prioritization. Learning to manage my time efficiently and finding strategies to maintain a healthy work-life balance were essential takeaways from this role." RA1.

"As August unfolded, I found myself at the start of an exciting new journey as a mentee with DDSc. This was a special chance for me to evolve into a researcher who not only thinks critically but also approaches research with an entrepreneurial spirit. I was thrilled to be a part of DDSc's worldwide network, ready to connect with other researchers and mentors to shape my growth. At the beginning, I felt a mix of excitement and curiosity. I was eager to engage with accomplished mentors and researchers, but stepping into this new world also came with a bit of nervousness. Amid all these experiences, one thing that stood out was my involvement in writing proposals based on the project's specific requirements (Terms of Reference or ToRs). This process gave me a deeper understanding of how to create proposals that fit exactly what's needed... This taught me that clear communication and understanding are key. While there were exciting moments, there were also challenges... But even with these challenges, I managed to submit two proposals, which is something I'm proud of. It shows that I'm determined and able to adapt in the face of difficulties. This month changed how I see things. I developed a strong research interest, especially when it comes to social sciences and humanities. This shift in focus has sparked a real passion in me to explore these areas more deeply. Looking back, August has been a time of personal growth... I'm thankful for the opportunities that came my way in August. I appreciate the chance to work with experienced researchers, learn from valuable moments, and contribute to important projects... As I step into the future, I carry with me the lessons I've learned, the growth I've experienced, and a renewed dedication to making a positive impact through my work." RA2

Against this background, DDSc. is inviting interested persons or individuals to apply to join the mentorship program. Please visit: https://www.dumisanizmoyo.org/projects-page/ddsc-mentorship-program 

9th September 2023

This month's blog post comprises an important interlude to our series of discussions on agriculture as language, which I intend to pick up again next month. I would like to utilize the space to introduce you to two projects that are dear to me. One is the DDSc. network of researchers (see https://www.dumisanizmoyo.org/projects-page/development-with-data-science-ddsc-nor) and the other is the DDSc. young research mentorship program  (see https://www.dumisanizmoyo.org/projects-page/ddsc-mentorship-program). Please follow the provided links to avail yourselves of the details of these two projects, and do feel most welcome to send me feedback at the provided email address. These are projects that seek to extend the message of this website into more material spaces, as some might say. I trust that you will welcome the ideas and join me in building them. See you next month, as it were!

14th July 2023

In this blog, I begin to address the question of 'post-independence' agriculture planning in Malawi. In doing this, I choose to first expose my scholarly positionality, perspective and point of departure. To this end, below is an extract from the draft chapter of my PhD project that I draw upon for this discussion.

“... I am concerned with the ways in which state power (1) creates, through its administrative and bureaucratic practices, a world of meanings all its own, a master code which, in the process of becoming the society's primary central code, ends by governing-perhaps paradoxically-the various logics that underlie all other meanings within that society; (2) attempts to institutionalise its world of meanings as a 'socio-historical world' and to make that world fully real, turning it into a part of people's common sense not only by instilling it in the minds of the cibles, or 'target population', but also by integrating it into the consciousness of the period.”

Mbembe, Achille. "Provisional notes on the postcolony." Africa 62.1 (1992): 3-37.

In this chapter, I bring a broad selection of agricultural planning documents into conversation with Mbembe’s comments on state power, and the institutionalisation and impact of a ‘world of meanings’ that is intended to become the key or central code for understanding the past, present and future of people and place. Drawing on materials stored and rendered accessible in diverse ways, the project here is to deliberately ‘twist’ this archive, to read it, or rather fragments thereof, from a different place. As Mbembe notes in an interview with Goldberg, this is akin to interrogating an archive indirectly by putting it “in relation to other bodies, other fissures and other intensities, and to do this in a manner which allows it to speak out of its presumed ground. At the heart of this archive – and that of modernity at large – is slavery or, to put it differently, the question of unfreedom, of captivity, of the longing for redemption” (Goldberg 2018: 206, emphasis added by author).

Planning documents reflect the outcome of negotiations amongst key/influential development partners’ interests, and a particular set of choices around how to narrate these negotiations, and to whom. While they cannot be read as articulating the true intentions of stakeholders, these documents are nevertheless informed by an understanding of shifting power relations and real world events, and can help us to see and examine policy drifts (in this particular light) overtime as well as the potential shifting role or place of the planning documents in the policy process. By policy processes, I refer to the various inputs that are involved in policy design, planning, execution as well as monitoring and evaluation (M&E).

The documents I draw on in this chapter are summarised in Table 4.1. Notably, documents proved sparser, and somewhat more difficult to find, the further back in time I went. This is reflected in the increasing volume of sources as the timeline progresses.

Table 4.1 The Agricultural Planning Documents Drawn on.

(Year of publication/production, Publication/Document, Prepared by) 

1891-1964: Nyasaland, the protectorate

1877

Colonial Stock Act 1877

The National Archives, UK government

1900

Colonial Stock Act, 1900

Supreme Court Library Queensland

1929

Colonial Development Act 1929

The National Archives, UK government

1948

Colonial Stock Act, 1948

Supreme Court Library Queensland

1948

Public Health Act

Government of Malawi

Colonial Service Regulations (circular)

Review of Agriculture in the Colonies (a report)

Colonial government correspondence between Nyasaland and London

1953-1963: Nyasaland 'transitioning' (protectorate within the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland)

1957

Capital Development Plan 1957/61

Nyasaland Protectorate

1957

Capital Development Plan, 1957/61

Government of Nyasaland

1962

Development Plan, 1962-1965

Government of Nyasaland

1963

UK Parliament, Hansard, Commons: 17 December 1963, Commons Chamber, Bills Presented, Federation Of Rhodesia And Nyasaland (Dissolution) Volume 686: debated on Tuesday 17 December 1963

UK Parliament Hansard Archive

1964-1966: Malawi, 'independent' country under British Monarchy

1964

Constitution of the Republic of Malawi

Government of Malawi

1965

Development Plan, 1965-1969

Government of Malawi

1965

Development Policies and Plans, 1965-1969.

Ministry of Natural Resources, Government of Malawi

1966-1994: Malawi, the republic turned overt autocracy

1994

Constitution of the Republic of Malawi

Government of Malawi

1966

Malawi, Prospects for Industrial Development

Commissioner for Industrial Development, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Government of Malawi

n.d.

The Challenge Met: the Republic of Malawi, 1966-1976.

Banda, H.K.

n.d.

The investment background in Malawi

The Economic Intelligence Unit for the Government of Malawi

1967a

Development Programme, 1967

Government of Malawi

1967b

Registered Land Act, 1967

Government of Malawi

1967c

Customary Land (Development) Act, 1967

Government of Malawi

1968

Development Programme, 1968-70

Ministry of Economic Affairs, Government of Malawi

1969

Plant Protection Act

Government of Malawi

1970

CIA Weely summary report 1970

CIA

1971a

Statement of Development Policies, 1971-1980

Economic Planning Division, Office of the President and Cabinet, Government of Malawi

1971b

Developing Malawi

Economic Planning Division, Office of the President and Cabinet, Government of Malawi

1987

Statement of Development Policies, 1987–1996

Department of Economic Planning and Development, Office of the President and Cabinet, Government of Malawi

1994-present: Malawi, the 'multiparty democracy' republic

1995

Malawi Poverty Alleviation Framework

Government of Malawi

1998

Malawi Impact Evaluation Report: The World Bank and the Agricultural Sector

World Bank

2000

NATIONAL IRRIGATION POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, Government of Malawi

2002a

Irrigation Act 2002

Government of Malawi

2002b

Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper

Government of Malawi

2002

MALAWI NATIONAL LAND POLICY

Ministry of Lands, Housing and Surveys, Government of Malawi

2004

Status and Prospects of Malawi’s Tobacco Industry: A Value Chain Analysis

Koester et al for Government of Malawi

2004

Malawi Economic Growth Strategy

Government of Malawi

2006

Malawi Growth and Development Strategy

Government of Malawi

2007

THE NATIONAL FERTILISER STRATEGY

MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECURITY, Government of Malawi

2010

The Agriculture Sector Wide Approach (ASWAp): Malawi’s prioritised and harmonised Agricultural Development Agenda: 2010-2014

MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECURITY, GOVERNMENT OF MALAWI

2011

Greenbelt Initiative Program Document

Government of Malawi

2012

Malawi Growth and Development Stratgy II

Government of Malawi

2013

Country Cooperation Framework to support the New Alliance for Food Security & Nutrition in Malawi

Government of Malawi

2014a

Public Health Act

Government of Malawi

2014

FOOD AND NUTRITION BILL

Department of Nutrition, HIV and AIDS, Government of Malawi

2014b

Seed Act 2014

Government of Malawi

2015

Study, New Alliance for Food Security & Nutrition

Olivier DE SCHUTTER for the European Parliament's Committee on Development

2015

National Seed Policy

Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, Government of Malawi

2015

Irrigation Master Plan and Investment Framework

SMEC Group for Department of Irrigation, Ministry of Water Development and Irrigation

2016a

Land Act, 2016

Government of Malawi

2016b

CUSTOMARY LAND ACT 2016

Government of Malawi

2016

National Agriculture Policy

Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, Government of Malawi

2016

ANNUAL ECONOMIC REPORT 2016

Department of Economic Planning and Development, Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development, Government of Malawi

2016

National Irrigation Policy

Department of Irrigation, Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, Government of Malawi

2017

Malawi Growth and Development Strategy III

Government of Malawi

2018a

CUSTOMARY LAND REGULATIONS, 2018

Government of Malawi

2018b

Plant Breeders Rights Act

Government of Malawi

2018c

Plant Protection Act

Government of Malawi

2018a

National Multi-Sector Nutrition Policy 2018-2022

Department of Nutrition, HIV and AIDS, Government of Malawi

2018b

National Multi-Sector Nutrition Strategic Plan 2018-2022

Department of Nutrition, HIV and AIDS, Government of Malawi

2018

Malawi National Social Support Programme II (MNSSP II)

Government of Malawi

2018

National Resilience Strategy (2018 – 2030): Breaking the Cycle of Food Insecurity in Malawi

DEPARTMENT OF DISASTER MANAGEMENT AFFAIRS, Government of Malawi

2018

National Seed Policy

Department of Agricultural Research Services,MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, IRRIGATION AND WATER DEVELOPMENT,

2018

National Agricultural Investment Plan (NAIP)

Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, Government of Malawi

2021

MANA news on fertilizer policy

Malawi News Agency

2022

REVIEW OF THE NATIONAL AGRICULTURE POLICY 2016

Ronald Mangani, Charles Jumbe, Joseph Dzanja, MacDonald Mwinjilo, Stephen Nanthambwe, Sloans Chimatiro, Numeri Geresomo, Abel Sefasi, Elita Chayala, Daniel Chiumia for Government of Malawi

2023

National macroeconomic data series

World Bank

2023

National macroeconomic data series

Microdata

2023

National Agriculture Policy Review

Government of Malawi

For Mbembe, planning in the colonial context is majorly about instituting and institutionalizing a particular form or formulation of order. And its key parameters for a decolonial engagement seem to be Black reason (eg see Mbembe, 2017) and necropolitics (eg see Mbembe, 2019) in the postcolony (eg see Mbembe 2001), and decolonization (eg see Mbembe, 2021). Modernity and capitalism, rooted in racial slavery, are at the heart of the planning cycle. From this understanding, Mbembe can be readily understood to be leading us to reconsider and reframe black or blackness as a matter beyond sheer ontology, being a matter of historicity and contingency. In doing this, capitalism becomes “an economic system, an apparatus of capture, a regime of signs.” (Goldberg, 2018: 206).

“But it must also be understood as a certain kind of compulsion, that is, a certain mode of organization and redistribution of power: the compulsion to put things in order as a precondition for extracting their inner value. It is the compulsion to categorize, to separate, to measure and to name, to classify and to establish equivalences between things and between things and persons, persons and animals, animals and the so-called natural, mineral, and organic world.” (Goldberg, 2018: 206-207, emphasis in bold added by author)

In this order, after extraction, the source of the extract becomes valueless and redundant – be it people or things (even knowledge, as I show in this chapter); “a history of desiccation” that churns out waste, “the detritus”! “The body that is supposed to work is the same body that is continually under attack or made redundant. Ropes are drawn tight. Ribs are shattered. Victims are mercilessly sodomized.” As lines are blurred between the human and the nonhuman, or the human, the commodity and the object. (Goldberg, 2018: 207; also see van Eekelen, 2014).

As Mbembe writes,

“In its avid need for myths through which to justify its power, the Western world considered itself the center of the earth and the birthplace of reason, universal life, and the truth of humanity. The most “civilized” region of the world, the West alone had invented the ‘rights of the people.’ It alone had succeeded in constituting a civil society of nations understood as a public space of legal reciprocity. It alone was at the origin of the idea that to be human was to possess civil and political rights that allowed individuals to develop private and public powers as citizens of the human race who, as such, were shaped by all that was human. And it alone had codified a range of customs accepted by different peoples that included diplomatic rituals, the rules of engagement, the right of conquest, public morality and polite behavior, and practices of business, religion, and government.” (Mbembe, 2017: 11, emphasis added by author).

Mbembe’s arguments thus also inspire, as it were, the important question of whether ‘colonization’ and ‘Indigeneity’ are themselves colonial concepts. Moreover, and more specifically, Mbembe’s arguments help unpack the work of key development imperatives such as the ‘war on poverty’. Poverty is fundamentally an incapacitation, something the colonist links to animism, or the lack or absence of Reason.  

We, however, must also be apt to pay attention to “the endless labour of restoring that which has been destroyed … Many have been defeated in this peculiar struggle. But sewing up the holes, preventing the destroyed body from being completely torn apart, reconnecting the tissues, unblocking the points of blockage, getting out of the hole, breaking through the wall – this has been a key part … [that has] prevented many from drowning in the ocean of pessimism, despair and nihilism. (Goldberg, 2018: 207, square brackets added by author)

Against this background, in this chapter I trace shifting representations of agricultural policy in planning documents, situating these amidst changing political administrations, and the changing geopolitics of colonialism, Independence and postcolonialism. I pay particular attention to geopolitical identities and narratives/narrativizations, and what appears to be the interaction of the two in planning documents. And, I focus on the questions of ‘whose voice counts’ in determining how broad scale processes such as ‘planning’, and ‘agriculture’ are framed, and to whose benefit, but also more specific constructs such as ‘Indigenous Knowledge’. I am concerned with the textual content of these documents, but also their intended audience, forms of argument, and the deployment of categories, graphs and other visuals as a means of cohering a particular ‘world of meaning’. In doing this, I also respond to some key currents in scholarly descriptions of the political economy of agricultural development in Malawi.

12th June 2023

“The emergence of new imperial practices is then tied to the tendency to universalize the Black condition. Such practices borrow as much from the slaving logic of capture and predation as from the colonial logic of occupation and extraction, as well as from the civil wars and raiding of earlier epochs … a model of extraction and depredation; a paradigm of subjection ...” Mbembe 2017: 4, 10

In this month’s post, I share key nuggets from the policy analysis of my PhD project. Read against Achille Mbembe’s 2017 book, Critique of Black Reason, my analysis of the evidence is hinged on the concept of ‘appearances, truth and simulacrum’ (Mbembe, 2017: 31). Admittedly, I lay emphasis on the international political economy. Indigenous knowledge (IK) is my unit of analysis. Next month, I will extend this analysis to the ‘Post-Independence’ era.

1. Traditional livelihood systems, sometimes alluded to as Indigenous knowledges, embodied in the ‘peasant’, represented a significant factor of independence from colonial control and power, and evidently remained the most alien, deplorable and detested; the prime focus of a ‘civilizing’ agenda.

2. Pre-colonial ‘era’ is characterized by what seen from today, looks like a peculiar form or system of agriculture. This is what I consider to be IK. An important key and caveat here is that IK-based agriculture evidently served the purpose of food security, and was evolving overtime; it was in this sense, a living knowledge whose traces should be identifiable today.

3. Caveat: “… almost everything written on the agrarian history of Malawi focuses on the Southern Region and to some extent the Central Region”, leaving more limited accounts of precolonial and colonial agriculture in the Central and Northern regions (Green 2007:125).

4. Precolonial IK was evidently so secure that Indigenes, or peasants, had to be coerced into estate labour and colonial market participation by a mix of tax, price, conservationist, legal and religious incentives and propaganda.

5. In a system evidently rested in utility; precolonial chiefs were evidently ‘ceremonial owners’ of the land, responsible for communal land administration including the moderation of opening new lands for cultivation, as well as guiding responses to ‘ecological and environmental concerns’. Importantly, I have not found evidence of precolonial ‘tenure’ security challenges, nor chiefs selling land.

6. IK plant and diet changes can be traced as far back as 1500s owing to circulation that occurred as part of Iberian trans-Atlantic trade as well as the slave trade. By 1800s, the land called present-day Malawi had multiple food crops, all-year agriculture, ‘conservation agriculture’, remarkable gender equity and striking evidence of food security and abundance, with surpluses sold. This includes evidence that IK-based agriculture was adaptable to varying population densities.

7. There is also evidence of a precolonial diversified economy with barter, or a commercial life eg trading in gold, cloth, guns, surplus food, etc.

8. Then we begin to see evidence of a European deliberate effort to incorporate Malawi into the global economy or market system their way, with the aid of religion. As remarked by some scholars, “The missionaries sought to bring free trade and incorporate present-day Malawi into the global economy as a ‘necessary precondition for the spread of Christianity’”.

9. Following this is evidence of linkages among European influence, hampered agricultural production and hunger/famine. As some have observed, “In the mid-1850s, European influence hampered agricultural production. A drought in 1862-63 in Central and Southern Africa precipitated a famine in present-day Malawi in combination with the British anti-slave trade campaign, ivory traders, and Portuguese-led slave raiders. Increased slave raiding and conflict limited farmers and communities’ ability to cope with the drought as many were captured or fled to poor agricultural land, mobility was restricted to find food, and political instability increased”.

10. By end of the precolonial era, we see a generally thriving agricultural economy that has made contact with Europe, to its benefit in certain regards (eg trade opportunities, at least ostensibly so) and to its detriment in others (eg the famine of mid-1850s). Europe is already showing evidence of lack of understanding of local systems, appearing sometimes as narrow/inadequate understanding coupled with negligent behaviour precipitated by an eccentric predisposition that ignores the plight of locals – typical of the slave trade era. This is evidently the foundation on which colonial Malawi came to be.

11. Then the colonial government ‘formalized’ agriculture as the backbone of the national economy, and a narrower economic base was evidently emphasized – evidently to suit a specific Western power, control and market system, not to create an (economically) independent state/nation. An economically dependent economy was thus institutionalized in a peculiar host-parasite relationship where the host came to be dependent on the parasite for her own survival despite the harm effected by the parasite.

12. IK became known as ‘peasant agriculture’, branded as ‘primitive’ and fit for subjugation. With reference to the etymology of the word ‘peasant’, I submit that this was a subliminal reference to feudalism.

13. There is strong evidence of the colonial state’s misunderstanding of the IK system, on the one hand, and emotional issues of jealousy, envy, insecurity, on the other hand. Reports indicate that British colonial ideals of science, empire, and development consolidated the extractivist agenda and position. This is reflected in the state and elite’s rampant abuse of law, development policy, extension and research, school curriculum, and the market; as well as abuse of religion. To sum it up in Oyakhilome's language, an abuse of government, economy and religion that precipitated subjugation and killings facilitated via (1) taxation, (2) dispossession of private property, and (3) dispossession of personal liberties.

14. Reports have it that in the 1880s, a small community of British settlers and the British African Lakes Company questionably purchased almost a million acres of ostensibly uninhabited land from local chiefs in order to push the British government to annex the Shire Highlands region before the Portuguese. It would be interesting to know the price paid, and how customary law provided for such a transaction.

15. Reports have it that colonial rule began after the British and Portuguese governments reached a final agreement on June 11, 1891, defining the boundaries of British and Portuguese territories in the region. There is no mention of local chiefs having been privy to this agreement. Had they now become irrelevant?

16. As Conrad aptly remarks: “In 1902, the government began the dual land tenure system by declaring that all land belonged to the Crown except portions previously claimed by European settlers, which was private land under colonial law (Ng"ong'ola 1990:31). Estates pushed smallholders off the most fertile land, particularly in the south (Green 2007:118). Land regulations evolved with colonial economic interests. Land laws initially concentrated on British land ownership and later incorporated some peasant rights under African trust land after the mid-1930s, which expanded government control over land use (Ng"ong'ola 1990:45, 53).”

17. By the end of the 1800s to 1930s: Alongside growing food insecurity, land shortages and lower soil fertility, White Maize emerged as a leading staple among ‘peasants’, replacing traditional staples including millet and sorghum.

18. The market effectively served to channel ‘peasant rents’ into ‘state’ and elite economic purses at extractive or exploitative prices; in a loan- and aid-financed agricultural economy context. Peasant maize production and sales increased to meet cash needs by the late 1940s.

19. Back-to-back famines in 1922-23 and 1924-25, plus seasonal ndiwo shortages and annual maize shortages in 1930s; revealed detrimental effects of the political economic overhaul. This was replicated in the Great Famine of 1949-50. However, the British government remained oblivious, ignorant or stubborn and dismissive; negligent, in sum. The form and prevalence of food insecurity and malnutrition has remained fairly consistent since the 1930s (Mandala 2005; OPC 2009).

20. 1929: Colonial Development Act of 1929 developed, providing for the governance of colony public loan stocks stemming from or governed by the Colonial Stock Acts of 1877 and 1900; exposing a particular form of the private-public partnership (PPP) modality.

21. 1948: Colonial Development Corporation founded, amid declining British power, which funds “infrastructure and economic development projects in Malawi and other colonies with the stated intention of improving colonial economies and commerce with Britain”.

22. 1963: Federation is dissolved, and colonial loans transferred to Indigenous Nyasaland government. The loans include an unspecified proportion of £90 million of “certain territorial loans”, plus about £13mn “of general funded debt”; approximately 19% of Malawi’s 1963 GDP (vs 19% of GDP was total External debt stocks (public sector) in 2021!). External debt stock in 2021 was 25.7% of GNI.

23. Important parameters for characterizing a Post-independence agricultural planning timeline thus include:

a. Taxation

b.   Land ownership and management

c. Labour ownership and management

d.   Capital and technology ownership and management

e.   Whose voice counts, including marketing/propaganda practices

f. Food security & human nutrition outcomes and shifts overtime

g. Market structure, conduct and performance

h.   The macroeconomic vs the microeconomic; the mainstream vs the periphery; and national elitism vs imperial elitism.

i.     Concepts of narratives, gas-lighting, smoke screens, subtlety, subterfuge, and subliminal messages.

24. The colonial planning system, as an aggregate, alienates the so-called smallholder farmer or peasant, and replaces the smallholder farmer’s self-sufficient systems with systems dependent on, and existing for global metropoles – which apparently have largely been ‘London’ and ‘Washington’ (so far) – all building on a narrative claiming to help the ‘smallholder’. An entire nation, or colony, is built but never stands alone; is never self-sufficient – always at the behest of the master.

25. A subjugated spirit, or Africa – the “amputated member of humanity” (Mbembe, 2017: 26), enters the global market this way, exposing him in this rather unprepared state to the vulgaries and abuses of exploitative extractivist capitalism. The burden of maximising profits is transferred downwards rather mercilessly.

26. Malawi’s post-Independence agricultural planning could be reasonably considered a continuation of the colonial agenda; more likely a continuation based on a mix of careful orchestration and opportunism, than chance.

27. In all this, the evolving nature of IK precludes and defies its dismissal. It has been strikingly adaptive and, many times found more resilient than conventional or modern agriculture. The attention to its methods, approaches, seeds, breeds, and so on, speaks volumes.

6th May 2023

Revised 11th May 2023

This week, I share a copy of my PhD research project proposal. I must add that I am largely, if not wholly, on the same path that was proposed, now in my 4th year!

Introduction:

Despite the emergence of a series of ‘postcolonial’ literatures on the relationship between ‘world-explaining’ knowledges, the economic and geopolitical articulation of power relations across space as well as time, and the bodily traumas of coloniality, voices from the global South remain seldom heard in Geography debates and Geographic research. In 2017, the RGS-IBG conference theme hinged on the challenge of acknowledging and attending to such voices – “to re-think scholarly epistemic and institutional forms of knowledge production that privilege predominantly western over ‘southern’ knowledges and ways of seeing” (http://www.pgf.rgs.org/rgs-ibg-annual-international-conference-2017/). For Radcliffe, it is imperative for Geographers to provincialise Global North models, debates and axioms that claim a universal scope and relevance; it is also necessary, however, to foreground a thinking about the world “from the marginalised academia in the Global South” including “from Indigenous places” (2017: 329, original emphasis). It is not unusual, certainly, for the so-called ‘developing world’ to still be presented in academic research as being particularly at risk and vulnerable for a range of reasons that include the perceived/portrayed poverty levels, and the ‘backwardness’ of their technologies and development systems. Postcolonial literatures have emphasized the manner in which ‘Indigenous Knowledges that characterize much of the Global South have been marginalized, even while programmes such as the Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF) have sought to depict the same as a site for resilience in the face of climate change, epidemic disease, extreme poverty and so on. Yet, while the GCRF has largely vaunted the strengths of Indigenous knowledges, there has been a simultaneous glossing of the subject of the erosion or dilution of these, insofar as their weakness is posited as an intrinsic feature (in need of capacity-building) of a monolithic, static, place-based set of ideas and practices rather than a dynamic living with the world that is continually subject to categorization, assessment and correction, certainly, but that also entangles all manner of imaginative inputs, including Western social and environmental science, and material prompts, including climate change, in the quest to live on the land.

Aims and Objectives:

How can we gain a more complex, nuanced understanding of ‘Indigenous Knowledges’ that undercuts as well as underscores the Eurocentrism of Geography, and that maps out a capacious space of diverse activity, but can also revisit the tired politics and duality of modernity versus Indigeneity reiterated in programmes such as the GCRF? Grounding this question in the substantive area of land management in Malawi, I propose the following lines of inquiry:

1. Two constructed scales have been key to the continued discursive power and operation of coloniality, the ‘individual’ and the ‘state’. At one level, I want to track how individualized capacities such as self-confidence, ambition, drive, and entrepreneurship have been constructed as farmer-based problems to be addressed, translated into policy measures and protocols that frame everyday soil fertility, pasture and fisheries/aquaculture management, and have then been ‘found’ (or not) in bodies working on the land. At another level, I want to interrogate how tonnes, the international dollar and wheat units have been used as forms of aggregating different agricultural products into total agricultural output for a nation, not only defining Malawian land management and agriculture in the process, but also situating Malawi as a farming state within a global economic order. 

2. In unpacking not only ‘Indigenous Knowledges’ but the relationship between Indigeneity and place, I want to examine land management ideas and practices that exist in social‐spatial relations that stand in tense relationship with a post-Independence Malawi state, or that have not been entirely defined by Eurocentric notions of territory, development and science. I am interested in moments of dislocation, disruption, repurposing and refutation not only between farmers and state officials’ understandings of appropriate land management, but also in the midst of farmers’ everyday working with soil and pasture.

Research Context:

Broadly, this research seeks to make a substantive contribution towards the ‘decolonial turn’ in Geography, asking why, after so many efforts to decolonize knowledge spaces and geographic territories, results seem grossly absent or missing, such that these efforts appear metaphorical, cursory, flirting or gloss-overs (McKittrick 2014). Postcolonial geography has done much to provinvialise so-called Western ways of knowing, or ‘modernization’ (Briggs & Sharp 2009; Howitt et al. 2012), while defining the epistemic (and ontological) changes that need to take place for the development and institutionalization of a capacious space of diverse, eclectic knowledge production (e.g., Chambers 2008). As Radcliffe (2017) indicates, this much anticipated space remains elusive; or, as Escobar (2016: 15) puts it, actively absenced. Yet, there are debates from sub-Saharan Africa that, while not necessarily branded as ‘decolonial geography’ per se, nevertheless hinge on a strong challenge to both scholarly epistemic and institutional forms of knowledge production about this extensive region. For example, a burgeoning literature contests the ‘given’ understanding of ‘resilience’ and ‘capacity building’ in Western ways of knowing, contrasting these with understandings of people and place that circulate through what have been termed Indigenous Knowledges. In Malawi, certainly, formal education has been structured to effectively preclude Indigenous-knowledge-based learning as these pertain to land use, while modernized systems of development practice have effectively eroded communally-centered social capital, both facilitating an ongoing coloniality (see Moyo & Moyo 2017). 

To look at capitalism from continental African is to understand it as an economic system of extraction, and the unleashing of new forms of voracity and greed, but also a categorical compulsion; that is, “the compulsion to put things in order as a precondition for extracting their inner value… the compulsion to categorize, to separate, to measure and to name, to classify and to establish equivalences between things and between things and persons, persons and animals, animals and the so-called natural, mineral, and organic world” (Mbembe in Goldberg 2018: 206-7). The Euro-American colonization project has been founded on the ‘universalising’ of Western ideals, and tenets and forms of conceptualization, analysis, and representation, such that identities are expected to be grounded in particular categorizations such as ‘citizen’ or ‘farmer’, while simultaneously dehumanising those absent of such qualities. Recent research has addressed how identities have been complicated by neoliberal rhetorics that distinguish ‘progressive’ and ‘entrepreneurial’ farmers from their ‘traditional’ counterparts embodying Indigenous Knowledges (e.g., Mwaura 2017; Harrison & MDee 2018). Similarly, data-sets continue to underpin the analysis and representation of international agricultural data; and thus the resulting representation of appropriate and inappropriate ‘territories’. As part of my MSc thesis I reviewed the ‘work’ of agricultural productivity statistics, coupled with seeming/ostensible covariates of those statistics. Virtually all concerned programmes and projects in Malawi measure, analyze, categorize and represent yield in tonnes regardless of scale or sector (Moyo et al. 2016). Though critical accounts of such international indicators and standards have become standard (e.g., Block 2010; Craig et al. 1997), there is no work to date that engages with this economic discourse on agricultural data, and its intersection with identity construction, from a sub-Saharan, decolonial perspective that takes seriously the ways in which such Western framings feed into and rub up against other forms of knowledge. 

Research Methodology:

My PhD will utilise a critical discourse analysis of Programme and Project documents, and implementation/progress reports, produced by government, NGOs and development partner and donor institutions (such as the National Environmental Policy, the National Land Resources Management Policy and Strategy, the Policy Document on Livestock in Malawi and the National Agriculture Policy). I aim to track the translation (chain) of this paperwork (as it draws on prior texts/data sets and supranational documentation) by interviewing selected development actors/participators at various levels/scales, including departments responsible for the production, oversight and implementation of these documents. I will also interview policy makers and implementers at different scales of ‘the state’, upstream to downstream, seeking to capture a sense of how such policies are realised in the actions of people.  

I will ground my research into the everyday practice of working on the land by using interviews, focus groups, and participant observation in the Salima and Balaika Districts, which features the ‘Indigenous’ use of Msangu trees for soil fertilization, and the Karonga and Rumphi Districts, which feature non-conventional pasture and fisheries management. Working with four households in each district, I will focus on how farming and fishing are undertaken; will talk with household members as to  how they understand their environments, and notions of ‘improvement’; will map out the material impacts of the environment on how households practice land management; and will track the circulation of texts and practices that proffer an ‘expert’ assessment of households’ working on the land. Finally, I will critically examine the resources brought to bear for conceptualization, observation and analysis in the research process itself. With an eye on auto-ethnographic methods, I intend to detail, document and analyze how my place as an ‘Indigene’ in Malawi (including family concerns for living on the land) impacts (on) the research process.

Fit with HGRG:

The proposed project speaks to the HGRG’s focus on ‘stressed environments,’ which asks, “How are dramatic changes in global political ecologies, economies and climates being experienced by local communities comprised of humans and other living beings?” and “What kinds of adaptive recombining allow for what is broken to be remade?” It will draw on the geopolitical and environmental expertise of key UoG staff, as well as the staff’s research into the science-society-environment nexus, as well as their combined research experience in the Global South, and sub-Saharan Africa.

References:

Block, S. (2010). The Decline and Rise of Agricultural Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa since 1961. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 16481. 

Briggs, J., & Sharp, J. (2009). One Hundred Years Researching Egypt: From the Rule of Experts to Bedouin Voices? Scottish Geographical Journal 125.3: 256-272.

Chambers, R. (2008). Revolutions in Development Enquiry. Earthscan, London.

Craig, B.J., Pardey, P.G., & Roseboom, J. (1997). International Productivity  Patterns: Accounting for Input Quality, Infrastructure, and Research. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 79: 1064-1076.

Escobar, A. (2016). Thinking-Feeling with the Earth: Territorial Struggles and the Ontological Dimensions of the Epistemologies of the South. Revisita de Anthropologia Iberoamericana 11/1: 11-36

Goldberg, D. T. (2018). ‘The Reason of Unreason’: Achille Mbembe and David Theo Goldberg in conversation about Critique of Black Reason. Theory, Culture & Society 35: 205–227. 

Harrison, E. & Mdee, A. (2018). Entrepreneurs, investors and the state: the public and the private in sub-Saharan African irrigation development. Third World Quarterly: 1-16.

Howitt, R. et al. (2012). Natural and Unnatural Disasters: Responding with Respect for Indigenous Rights and Knowledges. Geographical Research 50.1: 47-59.

McKittrick, K. (2014). Mathematics black life. The Black Scholar: Journal of Black Studies and Research 44: 16-28.

Moyo, B.H.Z. (2009). Indigenous Knowledge-Based Farming Practices: A Setting for the Contestation of Modernity, Development and Progress. Scottish Geographical Journal 125 (3-4), 353-360.

Moyo, D. et al. (2016). Agricultural Output Aggregation at a Crossroads: Insights from the Interface of Quantitative Analysis, Agricultural Modernization and Indigenous Knowledge, 1961-2005. In A.K. Edriss (Ed.), Improving Rural Livelihoods: Case Studies from Malawi. CCABMAC, LUANAR and Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

Moyo, B.H.Z. & Moyo, D. (2017). Indigenous knowledge perceptions and development practice in northern Malawi: Lessons from Small-Scale Farmers' Agricultural Practices. In P. Ngulube (Editor), Handbook of Research on Social, Cultural, and Educational Considerations of Indigenous Knowledge in Developing Countries. IGI Global. 

Muthoni, G. (2017). Just Farming? Neoliberal Subjectivities and Agricultural Livelihoods among Educated Youth in Kenya." Development and Change 48.6: 1310-1335.

Radcliffe, S. A. (2017). Decolonising geographical knowledges. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 42.3: 329-333.

5th April 2023

Revised 11th May 2023

For this month's blog, I reminisce on and share my early thoughts interfacing mathematics, my positionality and Indigenous knowledges. I hope it makes sense and is useful to you. Here with an excerpt from a book draft I was working on in 2017:

The foregoing title, “Decoding Mathematics”, may be interpreted as meaning deciphering the meaning or working of mathematics; unravelling its spirit (and sensibility/ies) as it were. We would agree with that definition. However, let us draw your attention to an associated truth. The two words, ‘decoding’ and ‘mathematics’ are really actually collections of symbols to which we have attached meaning. To one uneducated in this direction, these would be meaningless, and we would be barbarian to have ‘scribbled’ this down in the name or way or manner of communication. Now, not only have we attached meaning to the English alphabet and words; but we have gone further to give it a structure. That is why we also spend time to teach and learn the rules of correct grammar, type-setting and so on. It is precisely the same thing with mathematics. Mathematics may be viewed as beginning from symbols given meaning, in the name of numbers; a structure around them, in the form of the different rules and regulations in mathematics; plus an administrative system in the name of the processes and procedures by which new findings and innovations are formally added to the subject. 

English words have power. Among other things, with words, we are able to give structure to our thoughts, and align them in a particular direction for specific purposes.

Through thoughts, aided by the power of words, a lot of great ideas and material manifestations have been birthed and brought into the physical world; from the realm of thoughts. As the world has grown increasingly aware over the years, always, these great ideas were held in the spirits, and then minds – in sum, in the inner man - of the innovators before they became manifested in the physical world. That is the ‘science and art’ of creation, as it were, and it has been well covered in other reference materials; for example, see Oyakhilome (2000, 2016).

For this book, the point at hand is that the great thoughts were aided by great words. In other words, the innovators used language to collect (and[/or] bring) in certain things from the spirit realm, or the super-terrestrial realm, where ideas are birthed – life, indeed, does occur in planes. Therein is the connection between faith and mathematics, and class consciousness. (Faith or one’s belief[s], and consciousness, can find suitable language and expression in the form of mathematics). Indeed, mathematics as a language clearly has its peculiarities; peculiarities that we believe ought to be harnessed. People ought to view it as a structured language, and endeavour to learn and apply it in the same way necessity has led them to do a lot to learn Chinese in today’s world. There is a lot to be gained from a more mathematically aware and astute/erudite world. And an important starting point is to realize that mathematics is not as difficult nor esoteric as it appears to be (or has been presented to be). It is the cousin to English, French, Chichewa, Russian, and so on, as it were. With a strong enough will and some patience, anyone can and ought to speak mathematics!

This book, however, does not dwell on teaching how to “speak”mathematics i.e. how to learn, study, read and use mathematics i.e. exposing the reader to the spirit of mathematics (as a basic exposition, as it were). Rather, the book seeks to demonstrate the power of mathematics, and overtly discusses this; and in so doing, reignites widespread interest in the study and use of mathematics. It seeks to generate/create a more mathematics-aware society. We all count in mathematics, as it were; why not take fuller advantage of the subject/language?

These are the thoughts that have developed in us, been revealed to us really, and become ever clearer, as we have studied, and engaged mathematics and in mathematics, over several years of our schooling and work life.

In this book, we therefore demonstrate by way of example, the application of a renewed class consciousness, based on truth, and faith in it (that is, trusting and having confidence in the renewed class consciousness ); and how that translates by way of mathematics into a renewed set of understanding and confessions.We demonstrate the practical application of the above-discussed understanding of mathematics in a real-life situation of contemporary (present-hour) relevance.

9 March 2023

Revised 2 May 2023

Today, I would like to share a profound research experience that surprised me; and marked the course of my current and future research direction. Academically, I had been raised to challenge white supremacy. Fathered by Dr Boyson Henry Zondiwe Moyo, I was introduced early to, if you like, the postcolonial challenge to white supremacy, and quite richly so from the perspective of agriculture. I had reviewed his PhD thesis (Moyo, 2010) during my BSc second or third year, had read Robert Chamber’s (2008) Revolutions in Development Enquiry in my BSc third year (2009), Escobar’s (1995) Encountering Development by 2012. Yes, during the course of my MSc in agricultural and applied economics (2010-2012), I had looked at such works as those of Richard Howitt, Walter Rodney, Saverio Krätli (e.g. Krätli 2008 ), John Briggs, Piers Blaikie and Chistine Eriksen. I thus approached my MSc thesis with a rich quantitative background (something integral to my MSc degree) and a rich understanding of key critical discourses.

Against this background, I framed my central research question thus: relative to apparently pro-modernization international production studies, which element of pro-indigenous-knowledge case studies is atypical: the micro-environments studied or the methodologies deployed? For an introduction to the topic, the reader may look at my previous post at https://www.dumisanizmoyo.org/blog#h.eip289fa7e0y. For further details, a copy of the thesis is available from: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/157594.

The map and graph below are a pictorial summary of my findings which demonstrated that among 124 sample countries, the growth of the MPP/MVP of land had been greatest in the intermediate zone, followed by the LI zone and then, lastly, the HI zone. “The patterns of the MPP of land depict remarkable congruence with the real world, being able to depict the effect of SAPs on agricultural resilience (or representation) for example. This reinforces the study’s assumption that the MPP of land obtained from the metaproduction function is a useful indicator of the resilience or sustainability of an agricultural system. Based on this assumption, the fore-going order has thus been adopted as the relevant order of the resilience or sustainability of the broad agricultural systems involved. This is considered to be an evidence-based generalization of the narratives of micro-level case studies that posit similar arguments.” (Moyo, 2012: 133). This is quant code for: measured over the 1980s and 1990s, on a key human development indicator, Malawi, a “least developed country”, scored more highly than the UK, a “developed country”! My point? Both quantitative and qualitative research now clearly point to the futility of the eugunicist nihilism of globalism; or shall I call it “necropolitics” (Mbembe 2019)? As Mbembe (2019) puts it, 

The ill human was the human with no family, no love, no human relations, and no communion with a community. It was the person deprived of the possibility of an authentic encounter with other humans, others with whom there were a priori no shared bonds of descent or of origin (chapter 3). This world of people without bonds (or of people who aspire only to take their leave of others) is still with us, albeit in ever shifting configurations … It inhabits the desire for apartheid and endogamy that harry our epoch and engulf us in the hallucinatory dream of a “community without strangers.” … The hitherto more or less hidden violence of democracies is rising to the surface, producing a lethal circle that grips the imagination and is increasingly difficult to escape. Nearly everywhere the political order is reconstituting itself as a form of organization for death. Little by little, a terror that is molecular in essence and allegedly defensive is seeking legitimation by blurring the relations between violence, murder, and the law, faith, commandment, and obedience, the norm and the exception, and even freedom, tracking, and security. No longer is the concern to eliminate, via the law and justice, murder from the books of life in common. Every occasion is now one in which the supreme stake is to be risked. Neither the human-of-terror nor the terrorized human—both of them new substitutes for the citizen—foreswear murder. On the contrary, when they do not purely and simply believe in death (given or received), they take it as the ultimate guarantee of a history tempered in iron and steel—the history of Being.

pp 6-7

In agriculture, the murders of chemical fertilizers, inorganic pesticides, the killing of clan-based group farming (see Moyo 2012; Moyo, 2010), and so on; bear, for me, the feel of what Mbembe (2019) calls “necropolitics”. It seems to me that we are presented here with the challenge to carefully and critically review indigenous knowledges, both past and present, for important and useful heritages – heritages for humanity as a whole really – so that we will not lose what we should not lose. Interestingly, I find that efforts seemingly in this direction, such as the UNESCO-supported Malawi Folklore Project, are not critical enough. Even more concerning for me is that the archive seems biased, being not rich enough to support the requisite level of criticality (See Moyo and Dixon, 2023). This, by the way, is a good summary of my current PhD interests; but more on that later perhaps!

Can we begin by sharing experiences of similar nihilisms i.e. ignored but useful or even superior local or indigenous knowledges? I would like to hear from you. Please get in touch, say, via email or the comment section below. Please share your experiences and thoughts.

Bibliography:

(To be populated further)

Krätli, S. (2008 ). "What Do Breeders Breed? On Pastoralists, Cattle and Unpredictability." Journal of Agriculture and Environment for International Development 102: 123-139.

6 February 2023

Revised 7 February 2023

I would like to begin this blog by sharing a central thought: my view of what agricultural development boils down to – words or language – and the need this places on agricultural research and education. Words are central to education. All that happens in school, both formal and informal, is mediated through words, both the spoken and the unspoken, the written and the unwritten. In this vein, I submit that mathematics or "quants" is a language, providing us a framework with which we communicate and process thoughts. I will take off from there.

To this end, let me begin by referencing the impactful Achille Mbembe whose ideas on coloniality and decoloniality, I have respect for. For space, the reader will find a lot of Mbembe’s publications with a simple internet search. A compelling problematic emerges from his 2017 work, Critique of Black Reason: “The critique of life as a critique of language is, then, precisely what the term ‘Africa’ invites us to undertake.” (p. 53). This presents a substantially uncharted yet very practicable way of studying the geographies of agricultural subjectivities. In this post, I would like to begin unpacking my experience with "evidences" of coloniality and decoloniality in agricultural mathematical economics, and the attendant challenge for education and research presented.

My focus on agricultural economics sits well with its centrality and performativity in agricultural development, being a field drawn upon by many agricultural disciplines and practitioners to mediate the interaction of the academy and society at large, and farmers in particular. As early as 1995, Escobar (1995) detailed how development had, for many economists, metamorphosed overtime from the pursuit of progress to what was really a colonizing discourse or industry. I exploit my peculiar positionality as a graduate of Malawi’s agricultural economics education; who has served as a researcher and academic in the same, and as an agricultural development practitioner and farmer in the country.

I will zero in on economic quantitative international production studies – a subject I studied extensively for my thesis research project whilst studying for my MSc in Agricultural and Applied Economics. The bulk of this post is an excerpt from my MSc thesis which is available from https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/157594. My experience with these studies has been that they are largely pro-modernization. Economic quantitative international productivity studies ostensibly represent an exemplar of the global project referred to by authors like Escobar (1995) and Blaikie (2000). Indeed, the results of these productivity and other similar studies largely, if not wholly, depict the “poorer” parts of the world as having agricultural systems that are less resilient and sustainable than those of “richer” countries. Fischer et al. (2002: 1), for example, assert that “[m]any of the most degraded lands are found in the world’s poorest countries, in densely populated, rain-fed farming areas, where overgrazing, deforestation, and inappropriate use compound problems.” This observation would seem to be supported by the findings of authors like Hayami and Ruttan (1971), Craig et al. (1994, 1997), Vollrath (2007) and Block (2010) who have shown, inter alia, that the productivity of land and labour have for the past few decades constantly been much lower among such poorer countries than among their richer counterparts. Indeed, in a synthesis of most, if not all, such studies prior to 2001, Wiebe et al. (2001) attempt to explain such findings, in part, with an indication that soil productivity loss is particularly problematic for most of sub-Saharan Africa where it explains food insecurity.

Moreover, findings from such studies to the effect that variables such as literacy ratio, school enrolment ratio, technical education (Hayami & Ruttan, 1971), percent irrigated land, agricultural research and development expenditure (Vollrath, 2007; Block, 2010) and average years schooling (Block, 2010), have a positive and statistically significant relationship with agricultural productivity support Escobar’s (1995) “problematization of poverty” hypothesis alluded to above.

As if this is not enough, the culture of referring to previous regression estimates, which were also based on the evidently inadequate theoretical model, as part of model adequacy checks neatly fits what Escobar (1995) identifies as a problematic characteristic of the development discourse, that Briggs and Sharp (2004:662) couch as “an arrogant confidence”, and to which Howitt and Suchet (2004) attach Rose’s (1999, cited in Howitt & Suchet, 2004) metaphor of a hall of mirrors. Escobar (1995: 42) demonstrates that “although the discourse has gone through a series of structural changes, the architecture of the discursive formation laid down in the period 1945-1955 has remained unchanged thereby allowing the discourse to adapt to new conditions.”

Thus, one finds that there have developed two wings of evidence on the sustainability of modernist agriculture. On one hand, there have been a lot of case studies which effectively demonstrate the superiority of indigenous-knowledge-based farming/livelihood systems over their modernist counterparts (for example, Briggs et al., 1999; Beckford, 2002; Eriksen, 2007; Briggs and Sharp; 2009; Moyo, 2009, 2010). Paradoxically, on the other hand, economic quantitative international productivity studies effectively, generally suggest the opposite order of superiority. Note that indigenous knowledge, here, is a somewhat relative – and location- and time-specific term – used to define knowledges generated by the locals of different areas (often from multiple sources of knowing) through their lived experiences (Briggs et al., 1999; Moyo, 2008; Briggs & Moyo, 2012). Contrast this with exogenously developed knowledges, in the sense of in situ or ex situ top-down development in which the local person is effectively devoiced.

Case studies are important and instructive in the generation of narratives and theory of limited application (Tellis, 1997). They usually fall short of generating scientifically acceptable generalizations, especially for blanket policies at national and international levels (ibid.). Therefore, the information generating process can be significantly enhanced through an international-level study that adopts the top-down quantitative approach. In fact, the use of so much qualitative analysis may indeed explain the alienation of indigenous knowledges by scientists for whom rigorous and acceptable science continues to be identified with the quantitative, top-down approach. Quantitative analysis thus adds value to the qualitative approach merely as a means for effective and efficient communication with a group that holds considerable influence over the sustainability of agricultural production. It contributes significantly to responding to Briggs et al.’s (1999) and Rigby and Caceres’ (1997) call for balancing theory generation with empirical evidence which remains, to a significant extent, unheeded. Thus, my MSc thesis research approach or position engaged with spatiotemporal dynamism and the vagueness of meaning in the assessment of agricultural sustainability, which constitute key issues identified by Rigby and Caceres’s (1997) representative and insightful review of the literature.

My MSc study thus essentially sought to assess the reconcilability of two themes of sustainable agriculture as a means to attenuating the sustainable agriculture impasse. It responded to the following question: relative to apparently pro-modernization international production studies, which element of pro-indigenous-knowledge case studies is atypical: the micro-environments studied or the methodologies deployed? 

In terms of methodology, the study applied the method of seemingly unrelated regression to a panel dataset of 124 countries mainly over the period 1981-2005 to estimate meta-production functions. The estimated coefficients were then used to evaluate series of values of the marginal physical/value productivity of agricultural land for each country. These values were used as indicators of agricultural resilience.

The results of the analysis, which proved to be robust to the measure of agricultural output among other things, suggest that the resilience of national agricultural systems falls with increasing use of external inputs including inorganic fertilisers and tractors. It was demonstrated that this finding implies that agricultural resilience is eroded when Western science and technology is introduced from the angle of trying to replace rather than foster indigenous knowledge based systems.

In conclusion, I find that the contribution of this work has several implications for development and research policy. In general, economic analysis may need to (more fully) embrace the challenge of reworking its methods and approaches of research not least by opening up to alternative realities. In terms of development policy, the study unsettles the primacy of Western development, and reinforces evidence to the effect that sustainable agriculture might require enhancing, rather than nihilistically replacing, indigenous knowledges.

Finally, I ask: Is there more corroborating or contravening work out there? What more need we do or see? Any comments, questions and indeed queries are most welcome.

References to be populated.

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7 January 2023