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The challenge of intermediary coordination in smallholder sugarcane production in Tanzania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2015

Donald Eliapenda Mmari
Donald Eliapenda Mmari*
Affiliation:
Senior Researcher and Director of Research on Growth and Development, REPOA, 157 Mgombani Street, Regent Estate, P.O. Box 33223, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
*
Email: mmari@repoa.or.tz; donald.mmari@gmail.com
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Abstract

Orthodox approaches to development view the market as a key institution for driving economic transformation and for fostering innovation and competitiveness. The working of markets alone, however, does not always lead to improved outcomes such as increase in productivity or production efficiency in the context of smallholders. The role of non-market institutions, therefore, remains important. This paper examines the role of intermediary coordination in addressing constraints to efficiency and productivity of smallholder sugarcane producers in Tanzania. It also makes a contrastive analysis of a different organisational arrangement for smallholder sugarcane producers in Malawi. The key proposition is that while intermediary organisations of cane outgrowers in Tanzania have played a significant role in promoting effective market linkage, an increase in productivity required for competitiveness is limited by the lack of effective horizontal coordination.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 51 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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