Large investments, small farmers: A financialisation perspective on value chains in a development corridor

Abstract

Development corridors have recently gained momentum as territorial tools to attract flows of global capital into agricultural value chains. As this includes the controversial blending of public with private funding for investments into farmland, the integration of smallholders in large-scale operations is increasingly promoted as legitimatory practice. With this article, we discuss the role of finance in shaping such value chain arrangements. Using a spatially sensible financialisation perspective, we present two investment cases that have touched ground as reaction to the promotion of the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT). We assess how finance unfolded along territorial (corridor region and investment origin) and relational (investment chain and value chain) spatialities, to scrutinise the tensions and fragile outcomes that were co-constituted by mixed financial and moral investment imperatives. This helps to understand whether, why, and with what consequences smallholders can benefit from corridor-related investments.