Institutions Under Construction: Resolving Resource Conflicts in Tanzanian Irrigation Schemes

In present-day Tanzania, the increasing market penetration, the declining predictability of water availability and the intensifying institutional pluralism make small-scale irrigation schemes interesting for studying water governance institutions under construction. By documenting how conflicts over water are solved, we focus on how power enters this process. We also show that resource conflicts are not necessarily disruptive and that institutional pluralism can contribute to the development of more sophisticated resource governance institutions. But despite the potential of such processes to improve resource governance institutions, it can also reproduce deeply entrenched gender relations and hinder inclusion of less powerful resource users as they do not always have the capability to engage in conflict resolutions in a creative fashion.irrigation, power, resource governance institutions, Africa

Who Engages in Water Scarcity Conflicts? A Field Experiment with Irrigators in Semi-arid Africa

Does water scarcity induce conflict? And who would engage in a water scarcity conflict? In this paper we look for evidence of the relation between water scarcity and conflictive behavior. With a framed field experiment conducted with smallholder irrigators from semi-arid Tanzania that replicates appropriation from an occasionally scarce common water flow we assess what type of water users is more inclined to react in conflictive way to scarcity. On average, water scarcity induces selfish appropriation behavior in the experiment which is regarded as conflictive in the Tanzanian irrigator communities where strong noncompetition norms regulate irrigation water distribution. But not all react to water scarcity in the same way. Poor, marginalized, dissocialized irrigators with low human capital and with higher stakes are most likely to react with conflictive appropriation behavior to water scarcity. Viewed from a political ecology perspective we conclude that circumstances in Tanzania are conducive to resource scarcity conflicts. Water scarcity and water values are increasing, and water governance institutions entail exclusionary elements. Moreover, a higher likelihood to react in a conflictive way to water scarcity coincides with real economic and political inequalities which could form a basis for mobilization for more violent ways of competing for scarce resources

Who Engages in Water Scarcity Conflicts? A Field Experiment with Irrigators in Semi-arid Africa

Does water scarcity induce conflict? And who would engage in a water scarcity conflict? In this paper we look for evidence of the relation between water scarcity and conflictive behavior. With a framed field experiment conducted with smallholder irrigators from semi-arid Tanzania that replicates appropriation from an occasionally scarce common water flow we assess what type of water users is more inclined to react in conflictive way to scarcity. On average, water scarcity induces selfish appropriation behavior in the experiment which is regarded conflictive in the Tanzanian irrigator communities where strong noncompetition norms regulate irrigation water distribution. But not all react to water scarcity in the same way. Poor, marginalized, dissocialized irrigators with low human capital and with higher stakes are most likely to react with conflictive appropriation behavior to water scarcity. Viewed a political ecology perspective we conclude that circumstances in Tanzania are conducive to resource scarcity conflicts. Water scarcity and water values are increasing. Water governance institutions entail exclusionary elements. Moreover, a higher likelihood to react in a conflictive way to water scarcity coincides with real economic and political inequalities which could form a basis for mobilization for more violent ways of competing for scarce resources.

Inter-temporal and Spatial Price Dispersion Patterns and the Well-Being of Maize Producers in Southern Tanzania

We revisit a methodology to gauge the short-term effect of price changes on smallholder farmer's welfare that is popular amongst policy makers and academia. Realising that farmers face substantial seasonal price volatility over the course of an agricultural year, we pay particular attention to the timing of sales and purchases. In addition we depart from the implicit assumption that all farmers scattered across rural areas face the same prices when interacting with markets. Using maize marketing during the 2007–2008 agricultural season in a sample of smallholders in Tanzania as an illustration, we find that especially poor farmers face greater losses than what a standard analysis would suggest. We also relate our methodology to factors that are likely to affect potential benefits or costs from inter-temporal and spatial price dispersion, such as means of transport, access to price information and credit

Trading in turbulent times: Smallholder maize marketing in the southern highlands, Tanzania

The short-run effects of the 2007/2008 global food crisis on semisubsistence farmers' well-being in low-income countries depends on whether they are net sellers or net buyers of the affected commodities. Realizing that farmers face volatile prices over the course of an agricultural year, we analyze the timing of sales and purchases of maize. In addition, in our analysis, we depart from the oft-made assumption that farmers in rural villages are perfectly integrated within the wider economy. Comparing our results with a static analysis, we find that especially-poor farmers face greater losses from the maize food price crisis than others. The welfare impact is likely to be even more severe than previously thought, as the crisis hurts large households with relatively large numbers of children and women most. We also analyze the effects of factors that are likely to affect potential benefits from intertemporal and spatial price dispersion, such as means of transport, access to price information, and credit.Food prices, intertemporal arbitrage, Market participation, spatial price dispersion,