African female scientists: where are they?

During the conference of the Association of American Geographers which took place in Los Angeles between the 9th and 13th of April I took part to a panel on Feminist Critical Participatory Methodologies. I gave a short presentation on my work in Kenya and Tanzania involving the utilization of a pamphlet in Swahili to counter check with participants and informants findings and improve reciprocal understanding.

All in all the panel was great and I got a lot of inspiration to continue my work on this topic. Listening to the struggles and challenges faced by scholar colleagues employing participatory techniques was encouraging. I was impressed by the work done by Naya Jones  at the University of Texas through the network she co-founded Food for Black Thought about the impact of gentrification of East Austin. I thought the methodology of "minga" by prof. Yvonne Riano from the University of Bern relates quite closely to my use of the pamphlet. However, while discussing after the panel two questions came up: is participatory research only for marginalized groups? And why is the majority of participatory methodology literature produced in North America, aren´t these practices accepted within the European academy?

Most importantly, these questions made me reflect on the very limited presence of African female geographers at the AAG. During the conference I focused mostly on sessions about Eastern Africa, rural and feminist geography, but I did not come across research involving participatory methods with African women farmers. The only exception was the work by Dr. Wangui from Ohio University with female pastoralist in northern Tanzania.

I am convinced these two elements are related. Participatory research, as the AAG panel shows, is in fact mostly done by "insiders". The limited number of African female scientists is confirmed by the BBC podcast Sisters in Science  which focuses on women botanists and enthomologist at the University of Dar Es Salaam. As all women scientists all over the world they report the difficulties of juggling between work and family and how the support of their parents and husband was crucial to be able to succeed in having an accademic career. However, they stress, women in science are so few because the government investment in education and university is minimal.

Girls´ drop out is massive already in secondary school and if they reach the tertiary level they are stigmatized by their colleagues when they leave work early to take care of their children. Moreover, interviewees add "of the ones that went abroad to get their PhD very few came back". Sweden has invested 2 million SEK in the education of African PhD students and, as reported in this post by the NAI, a study is undergoing to evaluate the career paths taken by these scientists. What has emerged so far is indeed the challenge faced by women in dealing with family life and a PhD programme and the lack of academic resources in their home countries when they decide to return.

Hopefully this post triggers some reflections on this topic and widens the discussion with the participation of African women scholars themselves!

The gender dimension of land grabbing in Africa

Prompted by previous posts and by the recent report by Oxfam "Promises, Power, and Poverty. Corporate land deals and rural women in Africa" I would like to focus on the consequences that land deals have on women farmers, who are the backbone of small holder farming in Africa. Private land corporations are mostly interested in the production of soya, jatropha and eucalyptus wiping out small plots used for the production of food crops, mostly in the hands of women farmers.

Women in most of the continent have no property rights and decision making is left in the hands of their husbands who could be potential beneficiaries of monetary compensations or agricultural jobs linked with these deals. Moreover, women´s ecological knowledge is denied. Nevertheless, they are still in charge of food production which means that they have to scramble for resources and eat less, compromising their health. The practice of reducing their own portions or giving up eating during times of hardships is a common practice which women reported also to me during my  fieldwork in Kenya and Tanzania. Obviously women prioritize feeding their children because they do not want to jeopardize their survival of their children. Additionally, in dire times they give more food to their husband  because of patriarcal societal norms endowing men with the role of head of family, even though he is not the main food provider. In relation to this phenomenon Kabeer (1989)  talks of "seasonality of beating" as violence against women is much more frequent during times of food scarcity.

Engaruka in Tanzania, where I carry out fieldwork for my PhD research, is a good example of how small holder agriculture can co-exist with low intensity biofuel production. There in fact, jatropha is used as a hedge bush and planted along irrigation furrows and channels. Picking seeds represent an extra cash income for farmers and a provider of fuel for local provision of electricity, as mentioned by Karin Edberg in her 2010 MA thesis and by a 2009 IIED report.

Against this backdrop women farmers in Tanzania want their sustainable agricultural practices to be acknowledged, facilitated and promoted by the government. Reading different sources one priority emerges in the context of the ongoing constitutional reform: equal property rights for men and women. Among various initiatives promoting this reform with a special focus on the rights of women farmers, my attention was drawn particularly by the Oxfam Female Food Hero Awards (check out the video!) and the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme which in 2011 organized a forum with 4000 women calling for the recognition of women´s food sovereignity in the context of an increasing number of private land acquisitions.

Doctoral positions at Stockholm University

Two doctoral positions in Human Geography at Stockholm University are now advertised. It is part of a new EU-funded ITN network on Resilience in East African Landscapes, and draws on cooperation between major European departments studying the historical and present aspects of East African farming and herding landscapes.

See advertisement here

Read more about the hosting Stockholm research environment PLATINA.

More info from lowe.borjeson@humangeo.su.se and mats.widgren@humangeo.su.se

Swedish land grab in Tanzania causes protests

In 2009 we, a group of researchers from Sweden and Norway, wrote an opinion piece in Dagens Nyheter against a case of Swedish landgrabbing for biofuel in Tanzania. The Swedish company SEKAB claimed that they just targeted an unutilised state ranch, but we knew that the area was actually settled and used by small-scale farmers and pastoralists. In the month before some influential Swedish environmental researchers (several from Stockholm Environment Institute)  had written an opinion piece in Göteborgsposten that was very positive about such projects in Tanzania and biofuels in Africa more generally. They took an innocently environmentally friendly perspective, without discussing existing land rights and the role for African smallholders. I also debated on Swedish Radio with one of them.

Since then biofuel projects in Africa have been more and more criticised and there are few concerned environmentalists who believe that biofuel from plantations in Africa is the solution to the energy problem. More and more people also realise that there is a conflict between food security and large biofuel plantations.

The Swedish project we crtiticised has also had its ups and downs since then. I have tried to report on it successively in my blog in Swedish: widgren.blogspot.com . The development of this project until late 2011 has also been summarised by Kjell Havnevik, who is now following the project in his research. One of the most problemtic plans was to convert larges tracts of miombo forest in Rufiji to plantations. The net less of CO2 to the athmosphere from the clearing of this forest incuding its large root system would probably easy outweigh the environmental gain from Swedish cars driving on ethanol. The project is now focussed on some 8000 hectares sugar plantation outside Bagamoyo for sugar production - no longer biofuels more than marginally.

In August last year the Resettlement Action Plan for the project disclosed a conservative estimate of the number of villages and inhabitants that would have be resettled  (=evicted).  During the last month the reports about the problems in the area have started to come out from Tanzanian media. This link in Swahili describes how the Swedish company now called  Agro Eco Energy has come in conflict with the neighbouring national park, a problem which has been taken up by the Tanzanian parliament. Other reports tell that "Villagers cry over land grabbing" .The villagers claim to have had a previous court case which shows their right to the land. Read also "Dubious land sale in Bagamoyo creates dispute between villagers and investor"

The letter of protest from the villagers of Makaani Gana, which is about to be bulldozed for the plantation(including houses and a mosque)  can be found here in Swahili.  The google translation is rather confusing so please: if anyone out there can help me with translation I would be grateful.

It would be interesting to hear the same environmental scientists that in March 2009 were so positive about biofuel in Tanzania to comment this four years later. No longer seems sugarcane converted to biofuel for Swedish cars be so hopeful. And it is no longer possible to claim that the land is unutilised. Swedish development aid, companies and innocent environmental scientists ought to study Swedish agrarian history to understand how respect for customary rights and long use of the land formed the basis for the present transparent system of land rights in Sweden.

Added March 28th:
see also "4,000 Coast villagers face land loss to investor"

Swedish Black Earth?

(originally posted March 2013, updated October 2013)

I’ve put together a table with what I think are the main Swedish land investments in Russia and Ukraine. In doing this, I ran into some of the known difficulties associated with monitoring the phenomenon of large-scale land-acquisition (as well discussed in Visser and Spoor, 2011, “Land-grabbing in post-Soviet Eurasia,” Journal of Peasant Studies). For example what can we call Swedish when shareholders come from the whole world? To make things more difficult, these companies appear to restructure and change shareholders faster than you can say “large-scale land acquisition.” Another question is how can we keep track of how large land areas the individual companies have when public promises to scale up aren’t always implemented or reported on by the company or the media? 

Take for example Redland Farming, which is listed in Grain’s recent overview as a Swedish company with up to 180 000 hectares in Russia. Concerning the size of the operation, the Redland farming web-site states the following:

“Today, Redland Farming is mainly a grain producer, but is developing quickly within the vegetable- and animal segments. The company is controlling and financing agricultural operations harvesting on around 3 000 hectares and storing 200 cows (100 milk cows), divided into two production clusters.”

Of course Redland Farming could have more land and they just have not gotten around to updating their web-site or perhaps they ran into difficulties in scaling-up. As for the ownership, Planeta Holding is listed as a majority share-holder in the operation with 64% of the shares. According to their web-site Planeta Holding is based in Singapore, but the Planeta Holding web-site states that it is copyright Lupus Holding, and Lupus is an investment company owned by a Swede (Gunnar Nilsson). Both the Lupus Holding site and the Planeta Holding site link to Redland Farming, so for the time being I will consider this “Swedish.” 

Another example is Trigon Agri, which is listed on the Nasdaq OMX Nordic Stock exchange. Grain calls Trigon Agri a Danish company because it is based in Denmark. However shareholders from the US and Sweden appear to have a plurality, with the Swedish shareholders slightly edging out the Americans (I’m including Nordea Finland as Swedish, since the Nordea Finland web-site states that it is wholly owned by Nordea which is, of course, the largest bank in Sweden). Swedish entities similarly appear to own a plurality of shares in Swedish-based Alpcot Agro (Agrokultura). Black Earth Farming does not list its shareholders on its web-site, but Swedish Kinnevik is one of the major shareholders. Grain Alliance AB with 40 000 hectares in Ukraine, is listed as an American investment in the Grain report, but the company was bought out by Swedish Claesson Anderzen, a private Swedish property company based in Kalmar. Raw Agro was listed in the Grain report as being 30% owned by Swedish Kinnevik, but the Raw Agro web-site states that the Swedish investors were bought out in 2011. 

The point of all this is not to argue that Grain has got it all wrong. I rather want to illustrate how difficult the task is to monitor these investments, and make an argument that scholars in source countries can make a contribution by keeping track of locally available details. Plus, I wanted to highlight the difficulty of talking about national origins of land investments in a globalized economy. What makes something Swedish? Being listed on the Swedish stock exchange, majority or a plurality Swedish ownership, being based in Sweden, Swedish management? 

Anyway, if you add up the total hectarage of the seven companies with links to Sweden that are investing in land in the former Soviet Union, you get a total of 924300 ha. Sweden itself, according to the Statistics Sweden, possesses 3431336 million ha of agricultural land, so these four companies alone have a land bank that is 27% of the Swedish cultivated area. This, I think, puts into perspective how this type of farming is really a fundamentally different business model compared to farming in Sweden. 

Am I missing something? Let me know. 

Company		country of investment		year of start up or Swedish involvement	Specialization			size of land holding ha
Black Earth Farming	Russia		2005			grains, oilseeds	318000
Alpcot Agro / Agrokulura	Russia and Ukraine		2006			grains, oilseeds, and dairy	281300
Trigon Agri / Trigon Dairy	Russia and Ukraine		2006			grains and dairy	180000
Claesson & Anderzen AB / Grain Alliance AB	Ukraine		2008			grains, oilseeds	40000
Volga Farming	Russia		2007			grains, oilseeds	67000
Redland Farming	Russia		2010			grains, vegetables, milk	3000
AgroRegion	Ukraine		2007			grains, milk, pork	35000
						Total:	924300

Through Maasailand by Joseph Thomson: a modern reiterpretation

Joseph Thomson was a British explorer commissioned by the Royal Geographical Society to travel from Mombasa to Lake Victoria. The aim of his expedition was ultimately to open a new commercial route for the British Empire. He was the one naming the Thomson´s fall and the Thomson´s gazelle.

I came across Thomson´s book Through Maasailand because he was the first to report on the irrigation system of Sibou in the Keryo Valley of Kenya, which is the focus of my PhD research. According to his writings, when he woke up one morning he realized that his camp was surrounded by several small furrows. Even though he didn´t provide an extensive description, it is believed that during his expedition in 1883 he was the first one to see and write on the irrigated landscape of Keryo Valley.

Most recently the British photographer Mike Hacker produced a documentary on his trip following the footsteps of Thomson´s exploration. His project focused mostly on so-called Maasailand, so it doesn´t cover the totality of Thomson´s expedition.

This documentary should be watched with a critical eye. Hacker celebrates the greatness of the British Empire and the solo male geographical expedition of Thomson. Because his work is directed towards the general public he also tends to portray a stereotypical image of Eastern Africa: a harsh, unsafe place whose people maintain the same rhytm and style of living of 130 years ago. Nevertheless, the 46 minutes documentary is worth watching to understand the background of this quest for a new trade route to Lake Victoria and the complex 2500 miles route walked by Thomson and his porters.

Watch the Global outlook symposium in Stockholm

As a part of the The Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry's bicentennial anniversery there was a two-day symposium in Stockholm. It was organized in four sessions:

1. Agricultural policies over the past 40 years – three cases (session 1, Tues 29 Jan AM)

Speakers: Professor Alan Swinbank, UK; Professor Bill Winders, USA; Dr. Philipp Aerni, Switzerland.

2. Opportunities and challenges for farmers, researchers and business in the agricultural sector (session 2, Tues 29 Jan PM) Speakers: Professor Robert Thompson, USA; Professor John Pickett, UK; EU parliamentarian Marit Paulsen, Sweden; Dairy farmer Elisabeth Gauffin, Sweden.

3. Opportunities and challenges in the forestry sector (session 3, Wed 30 Jan AM) Speakers: Professor Sten Nilsson, Sweden; Professor August Temu, Kenya; Professor Jintao Xu, China; Professor Jan-Erik Nylund, Sweden.

4. From knowing to acting – paths to a sustainable future (session 4, Wed 30 Jan PM)

H.E. Dr. Jacques Diouf, Senegal; Professor Paul Alan Cox, USA; Professor Susan Baker, UK.

It is now possible to see all the filmed presentations at this website:
http://www.ksla.se/senaste-nytt/nyheter/global-outlook-online/