Contents lists available at ScienceDirectGlobal Food Secur

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Global Food Security
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/gfs
Not just for the wealthy: Rethinking farmed fish consumption in
the Global
South
Ben Beltona,⁎ , Simon R. Bushb, David C. Littlec
a Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics,
Michigan State University, 446 W Circle Dr, East Lansing, MI
48824, United States
b Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University, P.O.
Box 8130, 6700 EW, The Netherlands
c Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9
4LA, UK
A R T I C L E I N F O
Keywords:
Aquaculture
Domestic consumption
Diet transformation
Food security
Fish
A B S T R A C T
Aquaculture’s contributions to food security in the Global South

are widely misunderstood. Dominant narratives
suggest that aquaculture contributes mainly to international
trade benefiting richer Northern consumers, or
provides for wealthy urban consumers in Southern markets. On
the supply side, the literature promotes an
idealized vision of ‘small-scale’, low input, semi-subsistence
farming as the primary means by which aquaculture
can contribute to food security, or emphasizes the role of
‘industrial’ export oriented aquaculture in undermining
local food security. In fact, farmed fish is produced
predominantly by a ‘missing middle’ segment of commercial
and increasingly intensive farms, and overwhelmingly remains
in Southern domestic markets for consumption
by poor and middle income consumers in both urban and rural
areas, making an important but underappreciated
contribution to global food security.
1. Introduction
Fish1 is a rich source of vitamins, minerals, fatty acids and high
quality protein, playing an essential role in the diets of billions
of
consumers, many of them poor, malnourished and living in low
and
middle income countries (Thilsted et al., 2016; HLPE, 2014;
Kawarazuka and Béné, 2011).
Fish utilized for human consumption is obtained from a
continuum
of sources running from capture fisheries (the harvest of
naturally re-
producing fish populations), to aquaculture (breeding and
farming
under controlled conditions). Global capture fisheries output
peaked in
the mid-1990s, and has plateaued or declined since (cf. FAO,

2016a;
Pauly and Zeller, 2016). In contrast, aquaculture has boomed,
growing
at an average rate of 8.2% per annum over the past three
decades. As a
result, farming now provides more than half of the fish destined
for
direct human consumption (FAO, 2016b).
The growth trajectories of capture fisheries and aquacul ture are
often juxtaposed to make the case that sustained and rapid
aquaculture
development is vital to the future food security of fish
dependent po-
pulations in Southern nations (e.g. Barange et al., 2014).
A counter-narrative (which we term ‘economic geography’),
holds
that aquaculture largely fails to meet the needs of poor and
undernourished Southern consumers. The narrative asserts that
most
farmed fish produced in Southern countries is destined for
export to
Northern markets (McIntyre et al., 2016; Ponte et al., 2014),
and that
farmed fish remaining in domestic markets is consumed
primarily by
wealthy urbanites (Beveridge et al., 2013; Bush, 2004; Ahmed
and
Lorica, 2002; Lewis, 1997). A related argument is that
aquaculture
production is concentrated in Asia and does little to address the
needs
of malnourished populations in Africa (Hall et al., 2013; Golden
et al.,

2016).
A second pair of narratives sets up contrasting visions around
aquaculture's supply side. The first emphasizes the
predominance and
desirability of low intensity ‘small-scale’ fish farming that
contributes
directly to household food security and producer incomes (e.g.
Bondad-
Reantaso and Subasinghe, 2013). The second frames
environmental
degradation and social dislocation associated with the rise of
‘in-
dustrial’ export-oriented aquaculture as compromising the food
security
of communities in Southern fish producing nations (e.g. Nayak
and
Berkes, 2011; van Mulekom et al., 2006).
We argue that despite their influence in shaping science, policy
and
popular perceptions, none of these narratives adequately
account for
the current diversity of aquaculture in the Global South, nor its
ag-
gregate ‘macro’ effects on food security. The remainder of this
paper
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2017.10.005
Received 9 March 2017; Received in revised form 2 October
2017; Accepted 27 October 2017
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (B. Belton).
1 The terms ‘fish’, ‘aquatic animals’ and ‘seafood’ are used

interchangeably as a shorthand for edible aquatic animals.
Aquatic plants, algae, non-edible aquatic animals (e.g. corals,
sponges), and aquatic mammals, are excluded all calculations in
the paper.
Global Food Security 16 (2018) 85–92
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T
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makes this case.
First we demonstrate that, contrary to the focus on international
trade, farmed fish is overwhelmingly consumed domestically in
Southern aquaculture-producing nations, and is increasingly
widely
available and readily accessible to low-income urban and rural
con-
sumers in these markets. Second, we address supply side
arguments by
challenging the dominant narratives linking aquaculture and
food se-
curity and the prescriptions for promoting aquaculture that arise
from
them. We conclude by highlighting the need for future research

and
policy to pay closer attention to existing patterns of aquaculture
de-
velopment and their contributions to Southern food security.
2. International trade vs. domestic consumption
Seafood is among the most highly internationally traded food
commodities (e.g. Asche et al., 2015; Tveterås et al., 2012).
Fish and
shellfish exports from developing countries exceed the value of
coffee,
rubber, cocoa, tea, tobacco, meat, and rice combined (Smith et
al.,
2010) and trade in fish products accounts for 10% of all
agricultural
exports (Gephart et al., 2016). In 2012, 37% of global fish
production
was exported (Kobayashi et al., 2015), with an estimated value
of $129
billion (HLPE, 2014).
The scale of the international seafood trade and its apparent ten-
dency to move large quantities of fish away from poor food
insecure
Southern nations to wealthy food surplus countries renders it
con-
troversial (HLPE, 2014). For example, Smith et al. (2010)
contrast the
status of large net exporters of seafood (e.g. China, Indonesia,
Vietnam,
Thailand, India, and Myanmar) possessing moderate to high
levels of
undernourishment, with the largest net importing markets (e.g.
the
United States and European Union), which are wealthy and

well-
nourished.
Asche et al. (2015) and Béné et al. (2015a) provide thorough sy-
nopses of the debate over whether international trade in seafood
has
positive or negative effects on fish consumption and poverty.
Our intent
in the present paper is not to contribute to the literature on
seafood
trade. Rather, we argue that an emphasis on international trade
has
obscured the contributions made by farmed fish to domestic
food se-
curity in the main Southern aquaculture producing countries.
To demonstrate this point, we estimate the volume of fish origi -
nating from aquaculture and capture fisheries that are traded
inter-
nationally, or remain in country for domestic consumption, for
the ten
largest aquaculture producing developing countries in the world
–
Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, the
Philippines,
Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam (FAO, 2016a). Together these
coun-
tries accounted for 87% of global production of farmed aquati c
animals
and 43% of global capture fisheries landings in 2013. They were
also
home to 51% of the global population, and 52% of all
malnourished
individuals (Table 1).

The trade component of the FAO Fishstat J database (FAO,
2016b),
on which we base our analysis, does not specify whether
internationally
traded seafood products originate from capture fisheries or
aquaculture.
Following the methodology set out by Bush et al. (2013), we
estimated
the share of internationally traded aquatic animal products
derived
from each source, working on the assumption that the shares of
farmed
and wild fish species groups in exports from each country are
propor-
tional to the shares of farmed and wild fish of these species
groups in
national production.2
National fish production is reported by FAO in live weight
equiva-
lents (the weight of freshly harvested fish prior to any
processing). The
quantity of fish products traded internationally is reported in
nominal
terms - i.e. as the volume of fish traded post-processing (if
any). To
estimate the live weight equivalent (LWE) of each
internationally
traded product listed in Fishstat J we assigned conversion
factors for
similar categories of product, obtained from published sources
(FAO,
2015; Bush et al., 2013; European Commission, 2011; Tacon et
al.,
2006). For each country, reported aquaculture production was
divided

by the apparent LWE of aquaculture exports to estimate the
share of
farmed fish exported and the share remaining as domestic food
supply.
The same procedure was followed for capture fisheries
production and
exports.
Fig. 1, reveals the extent to which excessive focus on
international
trade in seafood has inflated perceptions of its significance. The
vast
majority of fish farmed and landed in the ten most important
Southern
aquaculture producing nations is not exported. Eighty-nine
percent of
the farmed fish produced in these countries is consumed in their
do-
mestic markets. The share of capture fisheries landings exported
is al-
most double that of farmed fish, and exceeds that of aquaculture
in
seven of the ten countries, but is still modest at 22%.
In eight of the ten countries, apparent domestic consumption of
Table 1
Population, undernourishment, and aquaculture and fisheries
production for selected countries.
Country Population
(millions)a
Prevalence of Undernourishment
(% of population)a,b

Undernourished
population (millions)c
Aquaculture
production (t)d
Capture fisheries
production (t)d
Aquaculture as a share of
fish production (%)
Bangladesh 161 16 26 1,859,808 1,550,446 55
Brazil 208 5 10 472,829 765,287 38
China 1371 9 123 42,694,335 16,274,939 72
Egypt 92 5 5 1,097,544 356,858 75
India 1311 15 197 4,549,607 4,645,182 49
Indonesia 258 8 21 3,819,517 6,103,001 38
Myanmar 54 14 8 926,175 3,786,840 20
Philippines 101 14 14 815,008 2,335,004 26
Thailand 68 7 5 1,052,701 1,843,747 36
Vietnam 92 11 10 3,203,326 2,803,800 53
Subtotal 3714 418 60,490,850 40,465,104 60
World 7347 11 808 69,296,511 93,763,656 42
Subtotal as share of
world (%)
51 n/a 52 87 43 n/a
Notes:
a World Bank (2016).
b Undernourishment refers to the percentage of the population
whose food intake is insufficient to meet dietary energy
requirements continuously.
c Calculated from data in columns 2 and 3.
d Production data for 2013 (FAO, 2016b).

2 At the country level, production data were categorized by the
“ISSCAAP species
groups” reported by FAO. Exports were categorized by
“ISSCAAP commodity divisions”.
Species divisions and commodity divisions were then combined
under five aggregate
“ISSCAAP commodity groups” (crustaceans, freshwater and
diadromous fishes, marine
fishes, miscellaneous aquatic animals, and molluscs, including
cephalopods) to enable
comparison across countries and product categories. The
complete dataset used, including
all calculations, is available for download (see Belton et al.,
2017b).
B. Belton et al. Global Food Security 16 (2018) 85–92
86
farmed fish exceeds 90% of total national aquaculture
production. Only
in Thailand and Vietnam do aquaculture exports exceed
domestic
consumption. Both these countries are also major exporters of
capture
fisheries products, and have fish supplies per capita well in
excess of the
global average of 20.1 kg, at 24.8 kg/capita/year and 32.7
kg/capita/
year, respectively (FAO, 2016a, 2016c). Their seafood exports
are
surplus to domestic consumption needs, and do not divert food
away

from consumers at home.
To address the possibility that extrapolating the proportion of
aquaculture and capture production to exports could bias
results, we
performed an alternative calculation using the most
conservative as-
sumptions possible with respect to aquaculture's contribution to
do-
mestic fish supplies. For this estimate, for each country, we
attributed
100% of exports to aquaculture in species groups where
production of
farmed fish exceeded exports. For species groups where export
volumes
exceeded farmed fish production, we assumed that 100% of
farmed fish
was exported, with capture fisheries making up the gap between
farmed
fish production and total exports. Our original and alternate
estimates
are presented together in Table 2. The alternate estimate has
little
impact on the overall results: even under the most stringent
assump-
tions, domestic consumption of farmed fish equals or exceeds
90% of
production in seven countries and stands at 84% in one more,
with only
15% of farmed fish exported overall.
These results are supported by data presented in FAO (2016a),
indicating that freshwater fish (by far the most important
category of
fish produced in the ten selected countries) account for just

4.8% of
international trade in fish by volume. Shrimp (the second most
im-
portant species group produced in the ten countries) makes up
6% of
world seafoood trade. In contrast, marine fish, which originate
over-
whelmingly from capture fisheries, account for 68.7% of global
trade.
3. New geographies of consumption
The ‘economic geography’ critique of aquaculture's contribution
to
food security is epitomized by Golden et al. (2016), who state
that fish
farmed in the Global South is, “mostly exported to the wealthy
coun-
tries of Europe and North America, or consumed by the growing
middle-classes in the megacities of these economies” (p. 318).
Beveridge et al. (2013, p. 1075) also hypothesize that
“aquaculture
producers in developing countries tend to target the production
of
larger-sized fish, aimed at middle-class urban regional and
international
markets, presumably in the expectation that the higher absolute
and
relative prices such fish command increase profits”.
Analysis presented in the previous section undermines the claim
that aquaculture is strongly export oriented. The following
subsection
provides evidence that farmed fish produced for Southern
domestic
markets is now widely accessible to low-income rural and urban

con-
sumers. The changing characteristics of urban and rural demand,
and
Fig. 1. Aquaculture and capture fisheries exports and apparent
domestic consumption in selected countries (2011). Source:
Authors’ calculations from FAO (2016b). (This analysis is
based
on data for 2011, the most recent year for which both
production
and trade data was available in the Fishstat J database).
Table 2
Estimates of aquaculture's contribution to domestic
consumption and exports in selected countries (2011).
Source: Authors’ calculations from FAO (2016b).
Item Bangladesh Brazil China Egypt India Indonesia Myanmar
Philippines Thailand Vietnam Total
Total aquaculture production (million t) 1.52 0.44 38.62 0.99
3.67 2.72 0.82 0.77 1.20 2.85 53.59
Exports (first estimate)
Total aquaculture exports (estimated LWE) (t) 60,475 2993
2,918,521 5985 193,093 231,391 36,613 19,187 935,535
1,681,781 6,085,575
Share of exports in aquaculture production
(%)
4 1 8 1 5 9 4 3 78 59 11
Share of aquaculture consumed domestically
(%)
96 99 92 99 95 91 96 97 22 41 89

Exports (second estimate)
Total aquaculture exports (estimated LWE) (t) 130,071 5782
4,005,385 10,820 361,248 429,382 66,510 40,070 837,868
1,895,821 7,782,956
Share of exports in aquaculture production
(%)
9 1 10 1 10 16 8 5 70 67 15
Share of aquaculture consumed domestically
(%)
91 99 90 99 90 84 92 95 30 33 85
87
the effects of aquaculture on fish price stability and supply are
also
examined.
3.1. Access and availability
Contrary to the prevailing view, aquaculture produces a wide
range
of species of low or moderate market value. Reports from the
early
stages of aquaculture development in Bangladesh indicated a
bias to-
ward producing high value Indian major carps that were not
accessible
to the rural poor (Lewis, 1997). However, although Lewis’

observation
accurately reflected the situation in the mid-1990s, by 2011
three low
value farmed species (pangasius, silver carp and tilapia) were
each
eaten in greater quantities in Bangladesh than rohu (the most
popular
Indian major carp) or any single species of fish originating from
capture
fisheries (Hernandez et al., 2017).
Low value farmed fish species now dominate or make large con-
tributions to domestic fish supply in most of the 10 countries
assessed
above (e.g. tilapia and walking catfish in Thailand and
Indonesia, silver
carp in China, tilapia in Egypt, pangasius in India). At the same
time,
production of more expensive carnivorous species in these
countries has
often stagnated at low levels (e.g. barramundi and grouper in
Thailand,
Indonesia and Vietnam). Given that the vast majority of
consumers in
these countries belong to low or middle income brackets, such a
pattern
is to be expected. Aquaculture could not have sustained its
extreme
growth rate over the last three decades if it catered only to
demand
from a small wealthy segment of consumers.
Aquaculture's growth has driven down the real price of most
farmed
fish species produced in large volumes, making them
increasingly ac-

cessible to lower income consumers. The tendency for supply to
in-
crease and production to remain profitable even as prices fall, is
the
result of productivity growth arising from improvements in
efficiency
(Asche et al., 2009). This pattern has been a defining feature of
the
global aquaculture boom over the past 30 years.
Examples of declines in the real price of farmed fish are
numerous.
In Egypt, from 2000 to 2010 inflation adjusted prices fell by
46% for
catfish, 38% for tilapia, and 31% for mullet (Macfadyen et al.,
2011).
International prices for tilapia and pangasius fillets fell by
around 40%
from 1995 to 2007 and 2002 to 2007, respectively (Asche et al.,
2009).
Nominal prices received by carp farmers in India's main
producing
state, Andhra Pradesh, remained roughly constant from the mid-
1980s
to 2014, representing a huge reduction in real price (Belton et
al.,
2017a).
Depletion of wild fish stocks has been another driver of
aquacul-
ture's growth. Pervasive habitat degradation and
overexploitation of
fish stocks have caused declines in the supply per capita of fish
from
inland and marine capture fisheries in major aquaculture
producing

countries. Non-farmed fish have become increasingly expensive,
both in
real terms and relative to farmed fish, often reversing their
relative
accessibility to consumers. For example, in Myanmar the price
of sna-
kehead and hilsa (two of the most important species harvested
from
inland and marine capture fisheries, respectively) increased at
an
average rate of 2.9% and 5.5% each year from 2008 to 2014. In
con-
trast, the real price of rohu, the main species farmed, fell at an
average
rate of 0.5% per annum (Belton et al., 2015).
In Bangladesh, the average real price of fish from inland
capture
fisheries increased 4% between 2000 and 2010, while that of
marine
capture fish jumped 42%. The average price of farmed fish fell
over this
period, to become 10% cheaper than the inland capture fish that
once
dominated supply (Toufique et al., 2017). A similar pattern is
illu-
strated in Fig. 2. From January 2012 to June 2015 the nominal
price of
Bangladesh's four main farmed fish species remained fairly
constant. In
contrast, the price of two formerly cheap and abundant small
fish
species harvested from inland capture fisheries (puti and mola)
rose, to
exceed of all but one of the main farmed species by the end of
the

period. These trends are linked to a 35% reduction in the
consumption
of inland capture fish by extreme-poor households and 37%
reduction
in consumption by non-poor households in Bangladesh from
2000 to
2010. In contrast the consumption of farmed fish increased
152% and
88% for the same groups over this period (Toufique and Belton,
2014).
3.2. Urbanization and shifting patterns of demand
Contrary to assumptions implicit in the economic geography
nar-
rative, food security is no longer solely, or even predominantly,
a rural
concern. The share of urban dwellers already exceeds those in
rural
areas, and is expected to rise to 66% by 2050, fueling
unprecedented
urban demand for food (Chicago Council, 2016). Many urban
in-
habitants in Southern countries, even among the middle classes,
occupy
precarious positions. For example, sixty percent of Africa's 350
million
strong middle class is considered vulnerable to slipping back
into
poverty, and thus food insecurity (Chicago Council, 2016).
Results from
the Gallup World Poll's ‘Food Insecurity Experience Scale’
survey reflect
this urban precarity. Respondents in urban areas of Asia feel
more food
insecure than those in rural areas - a difference of about three

Fig. 2. Average monthly nominal retail prices of four farmed
and two non-farmed fish species in Bangladesh, January
2012-May 2015. Note: Non-farm species identified by dashed
line. Source: Unpublished data collected by WorldFish on a
weekly basis from 25 rural and urban retail markets in six
districts
in South, Southwest, North and Northwest Bangladesh.
88
percentage points for Asia as a whole (21% in rural areas versus
24% in
urban), and eight percentage points in South Asia (FAO,
2016b).
Demand for non-staple foods in Southern cities is growing in
line
with ‘Bennett's Law’ - that the proportion of calories derived
from
starchy staples falls with rising income as consumers diversify
the food
consumption bundle to include higher-priced calories (Timmer
et al.,
1983). As a result, the share of food expenditure allocated to
fruits,
vegetables, meat, dairy and fish rises disproportionately with
income
(Reardon et al., 2014). By virtue of higher average urban
incomes and
the increasingly large share of urban inhabitants in the
population,

demand for food is highly concentrated in urban areas, which
already
account for 65% of the value of the entire Asian food economy
(Reardon and Timmer, 2014). This means that demand for all
fish - both
farmed and wild - is greater in urban areas than rural.
However, the gap in consumption of animal proteins between
urban
and rural consumers is now smaller than is generally
understood. Cross-
country analysis of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal and Vietnam
shows
that urban dwellers in all four countries consume approximately
50%
more animal source foods (meat and fish combined) than rural
dwellers
(Reardon et al., 2014). In China, urban consumers in the poorest
wealth
quartile (i.e. the poorest 25% of the urban population) eat 40%
more
fish than the poorest quartile of rural consumers, while the
difference
between urban and rural consumers across the other quartiles
ranges
from 21% to 25% (calculated from Chui et al., 2013). In
Bangladesh,
the difference between urban and rural fish consumption is
smaller still,
with urban consumers eating 12% more farmed fish and 17%
more fish
from inland capture fisheries than those in rural areas (Toufique
et al.,
2017).
Price elasticities for fish of all types tend to be high – estimated

at
0.8 on average, with a range of 0.31–1.04 by Naylor (2016) –
and are
larger for poor consumers than for the better-off. For example,
the price
elasticity of farmed fish in Bangladesh is reported to range from
0.78 to
1.29 for non-poor and extreme-poor consumers, respectively
(Toufique
et al., 2017). The poor are therefore more responsive to
increases (or
decreases) in fish prices than the wealthy, as also demonstrated
by Dey
et al. (2008) in a cross-country analysis of fish consumption in
Ban-
gladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri
Lanka,
Thailand and Vietnam. Rural consumers (who are poorer on
average
than urban) therefore have most to lose from increases in the
price of
non-farmed fish that accompany the contraction of wild supply,
and
most to gain, proportionately, from declines in the price of
farmed fish
that accompany the expansion of aquaculture.
The income elasticity of demand for fish is also relatively high;
re-
ported as −0.64 by Naylor (2016), and ranging from −0.44 to
−0.51
for non-poor and extreme-poor consumers for farmed fish in
Bangla-
desh (Toufique et al., 2017). This tendency contributes to
increasing
demand for fish in economies where incomes are rising.

3.3. Price stability
The growth of aquaculture has stabilized fish prices. Food price
stability is particularly important for the food security of poor
con-
sumers, for whom food expenditures constitute a large share of
total
income (Troell et al., 2014). Farmed fish prices are about half
as volatile
as those of wild fish on average, reflecting the seasonally
variable and
often unpredictable nature of fisheries, and the high degree of
control
over the timing of the production process that is possible in
aquaculture
(Asche et al., 2015). This pattern is illustrated by Fig. 2, which
shows
much greater seasonal fluctuations in the price of two the non-
farmed
species than the four cultured ones.
As aggregate production from capture fisheries appears to have
reached the maximum level that can be sustained, increasing
demand
for wild fish can only increase prices further. However, because
the
supply of fish from aquaculture has kept pace with demand,
substitu-
tion has dampened price pressure on wild fish as demand has
spilled
over to farmed species, partially reigning in divergence in the
prices of
farmed and wild fish over time (Tveterås et al., 2012).
This finding has profound implications for food and nutrition

se-
curity. Rashid et al. (2016) calculate that if aquaculture had
stopped
growing in 1980, global fish supply per capita in 2013 would
have been
about half of the actual supply in that year, and 17% less than it
was in
1980. As these authors note, “the consequences of such a
scenario are
easy to imagine: higher prices, lower consumption, and far
greater
pressure on marine and inland capture fisheries.” The adverse
con-
sequences would have been particularly severe in Asia (Rashid
et al.,
2016, p. 1). In other words, the poor in our ten countries would
eat far
less fish of any kind - wild or farmed - were it not for the
growth of
aquaculture.
4. Transforming farmed fish supply
Production of farmed fish is as subject to misinterpretation as
its
consumption. Two narratives dominate development focussed
aqua-
culture science and policy. The first extolls the benefits of low
intensity
‘small-scale’ aquaculture for promoting food security. The
second cri-
tiques ‘industrial’ forms of production, particularly shrimp
farming, for
undermining it. Reducing aquaculture to the idealized binary
categories

of ‘small-scale’ and ‘industrial’ has obscured the contributions
of a very
large intermediate segment of producers, existing along a
gradient be-
tween these two poles. This ‘missing middle’ has emerged in
response to
the changing patterns of demand and diet transformation
outlined
above, as part of a broader ‘quiet revolution’ in agri -food
supply chains
that is taking place in most of Asia and parts of Africa
(Hernandez et al.,
2017). Failure to acknowledge the role played by this set of
producers
has resulted in ineffective prescriptions for food security
focused
aquaculture development.
4.1. Polarized production narratives
Promotors of small-scale aquaculture emphasize the cumulative
impact and positive nature of the contributions such farms make
to food
security. For instance, the High Level Panel of Experts on Food
Security
and Nutrition (HLPE, 2014) asserts that 70–80% of aquaculture
pro-
duction originates from small-scale farming. Such
pronouncements are
commonplace (e.g. Tacon et al., 2010; De Silva and Davy,
2010) and
form a central tenet of the conventional wisdom on aquaculture.
But
they are also unsubstantiated - there is no global database of
fish farm
sizes and characteristics to provide an empirical basis for this

claim.
Small-scale aquaculture is generally represented in the literature
as
low intensity (utilizing limited external feed inputs), and/or
integrated
with other agricultural systems. As such, it is seen as
ecologically effi-
cient in terms of a reliance on low trophic level fish species,
limited
dependence on nutrient inputs, and integration with components
of
terrestrial farming systems (e.g. through use of crop processing
wastes
or manures available on farm as feeds or fertilizers, or the
stocking of
fish in rice fields) (Edwards et al., 2002). The contribution of
small-
scale aquaculture to food security is usually framed in terms of
meeting
the subsistence fish consumption needs of rural households, and
the
generation of supplemental incomes through sales of small
marketable
surpluses that may be spent on purchases of other food items
(e.g.
Ahmed and Lorica, 2002).
The ‘small-scale’ narrative has provided the basis for promotion
of
aquaculture by overseas development projects throughout the
tropics
for more than 30 years. The assumption that small-scale
aquaculture is
underdeveloped globally and should be supported as a key
strategy for

improving food and nutrition security in developing economies
is per-
sistent. Golden et al. (2016, p. 139) argue for instance that,
“when
explicitly planned to improve local well-being, aquaculture can
be a
crucial contribution to local diets and economies … less-
intensive and
more-diverse forms of aquaculture may have the most potential
to meet
the nutrition and food-security needs of the poor”.
Literature at the opposite end of the narrative spectrum focusses
on
89
the role of intensive, industrial aquaculture in undermining
local food
security. Work on ‘industrial aquaculture’ emphasizes in
particular the
role that export oriented shrimp aquaculture has played in
“threatening
both domestic food security and the economic opportunities of
local
communities” (van Mulekom et al., 2006, p. 546). Studies of
shrimp
farming provide evidence of a variety of social and
environmental im-
pacts on local food security, including reduced agricultural
production
arising of the salinization of rice-dominated terrestrial farming

systems
(e.g. Paprocki and Cons, 2014); displacement of small -scale
capture
fisheries from coastal lagoons (Nayak and Berkes, 2011); and,
de-
struction of mangroves (a critical nursery habitat for wild fish)
to make
way for shrimp ponds (e.g. Hamilton and Lovette, 2015). These
pro-
cesses have been a recurrent feature of shrimp farm
development in
many locations, particularly during ‘boom’ periods.
However, both small-scale and industrial narratives have a
tendency
to confuse the specific characteristics of their subject matter
with the
generalized attributes of the entire global aquaculture sector.
The
small-scale aquaculture narrative vastly overstates the
importance of
the idealized small, low input, integrated farm. Similarly, the
industrial
aquaculture narrative often extrapolates from negative food
security
impacts arising from local struggles over resources that
characterize
production of specific commodities in specific places and
specific times,
to divine the aggregate effects of global farmed fish production.
4.2. The missing middle
Contrary to the polarized narratives presented above, empirical
evidence points to most global aquaculture output originating
from a

‘missing middle’ segment of producers, characterized by five
features.
They are: (1) highly commercially oriented; (2) span a broad
spectrum
of scales of production; (3) utilize a diverse range of production
tech-
nologies (but are increasingly intensifying through use of
pelleted
feeds); (4) produce multiple, predominantly low and medium
value,
species and; (5) have emerged in an unplanned manner in
response to
opportunities created by changing patterns of demand.
For example, Chinese farms producing carps and tilapia are
almost
entirely commercial, with more than 95% using manufactured
feeds,
and produce fish in polycultures that contain an average mix of
four to
six fish species (Chiu et al., 2013). In Andhra Pradesh, India,
the lo-
cation of the largest concentration of freshwater fish farms
outside
China, aquaculture is dominated by semi-intensive carp and
pellet-fed
pangasius polycultures, oriented entirely to the market and
spanning a
spectrum of farm sizes from small to very large (Belton et al.,
2017a). In
Bangladesh, a recent survey of 2678 farms identified 14 distinct
pro-
duction technologies, all of them polycultures, producing a
combined
total of 54 different species of fish and crustaceans. Production
is

dominated by carps, tilapia and pangasius. While
overwhelmingly
below 2 ha in size, farms are strongly commercially oriented,
gen-
erating large marketed surpluses (Jahan et al., 2015). In Egypt's
Nile
Delta, the mean size of tilapia farms is 6 ha, 94% of farms use
pelleted
feeds, and 100% of farms sell their product to domestic
wholesale
markets (Eltholth et al., 2015). Aquaculture in other major
Southern
producer countries possesses similar characteristics. For
example, a
recent report synthesizing case studies from Bangladesh, Chile,
Ecuador, Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, Thailand, Viet Nam and
Zambia,
concluded that ‘small-scale’ aquaculture contributed less than
30% of
farmed fish production in these countries (Phillips et al., 2016).
The missing middle segment of fish producers represented in all
of the
cases above differs markedly from the idealized small farms
portrayed in
developmentalist narratives. Although large numbers of
households in
South and Southeast Asia have benefited from enhanced
nutrition and
supplementary incomes generated by small farms of the
traditional type,
these can no longer be considered the dominant mode of
production. For
instance, even in Bangladesh, a country with more than 4
million small
‘homestead ponds’, two thirds of farmed fish output in 2010

originated
from fully commercial farms (Belton and Azad, 2012).
Moreover, even
among the homestead pond farm segment the trend is one of
intensifica-
tion and commercialization, with 38% of farms in Bangladesh
using pel-
leted feeds in 2014 (Hernandez et al, 2017).
Attempts to establish small-scale aquaculture in the traditional
mold
have largely failed outside of Asia. For example, concerted
efforts by
external development agencies in Malawi over several decades
have
been highly constrained by poor market development and,
ultimately,
the limited purchasing power of a still largely rural population
(Brummett, 2000; Brummett et al., 2008). Even where well-
intentioned
projects have demonstrated potential for subsistence orientated
small-
scale production (e.g. Dey et al., 2010), outcomes have rarely
been
sufficiently attractive to stimulate widespread uptake. Similar
failures
to establish viable, self-sustaining small-scale aquaculture have
been
repeated throughout a succession of African and Caribbean
states
(Leschen and Little, 2014). The potential of integrated rice-fish
farming,
promoted widely as a contributor to local food security, has also
been
overstated. Less than 1% of the world's rice fields are

deliberately
stocked with fish, principally because returns to labor are often
un-
attractive to farm households (Edwards, 2015).
As Brummett et al. (2008) outline for Africa, the types of aqua-
culture that have become most successfully established and
produce the
greatest volumes of fish for domestic consumers have rarely
received
direct support from government or donors because they are not
per-
ceived to represent the poor, nor offer the possibility of
generating
export earnings. Despite this, ‘immanent development’ (Belton
and
Little, 2011) of fish farms – the unplanned supply response of
large
numbers of producers and supporting value chain actors to
emergent
opportunities presented by rising domestic incomes and diet
transfor-
mation – is the global norm. Normative prescriptions for small-
scale
aquaculture ‘planning’ that continue to pervade the literature
(e.g.
Golden et al., 2016) are thus outdated and unlikely to be
effective
where implemented.
Aquaculture was once widely considered to have failed in Sub-
Saharan Africa (SSA), but is now expanding rapidly in Nigeria,
Uganda,
Ghana, Kenya, Zambia, and South Africa. Between 2004 and
2014 there
was a seven-fold increase in farmed fish production in SSA,

con-
centrated mainly in these countries, with an average annual
growth rate
of 21% (Satia, 2017). The growth of aquaculture in this region
parallels
the recent emergence of a substantial middle class and their
demand for
more diverse diets (Tschirley et al., 2015).
Fish production serving this market was pioneered mainly by
large
vertically integrated farms, but the value chain infrastructure
estab-
lished to facilitate these operations (e.g. hatcheries, feed mills,
cold
storage) has allowed significant numbers of medium scale
producers to
emerge in some locations (see Kassam and Dorward, 2017).
Poorly
developed supply chains and logistics, and consequent
difficulties in
accessing inputs and end markets, remain a challenge in other
areas of
SSA (Naylor, 2016). However, where these hurdles have been
over-
come, the high value urban market segments targeted by large
farms
are starting to become saturated, leading to some diversification
into
production and marketing of smaller, cheaper fish that are
accessible to
consumers in lower income brackets (see Kassam and Dorward,
2017
and Kominsky et al., In press for examples from Ghana and
Zambia,
respectively). There is also a small but growing role for

aquaculture
exports from Southern nations to SSA, which is now ranked as
China's
second most valuable tilapia market after the U.S. (Mao, 2016).
As noted above, one of the overriding trends in aquaculture for
the
past two decades has been a shift toward more intensive forms
of
production that utilize formulated pelleted feed diets to achieve
higher
levels of productivity per unit area of land. Although many
extensive
and semi-intensive production technologies are likley to remain
viable
over the medium to long term, there is no reason to expect that
the
dominant trend will reverse in favor of widespread expansion of
the less
intensive production systems advocated in the interventionist
literature
(e.g. Golden et al., 2016; Thilsted et al., 2016).
Moving beyond interventionist approaches opens up food
security
90
questions that are more relevant in the context of the
intensification
occurring with the rise of aquaculture's ‘missing middle’.
Perhaps most

important is the long running controversy over whether
utilization of
marine ‘forage fish’ in pelleted feeds diverts food that might
otherwise
be used for direct human consumption away from poorer
consumers,
thereby compromising their nutrition security (e.g. Tacon and
Metian,
2013). The extent to which use of fish for animal feeds
competes di-
rectly with the use of fish for human consumption remains
unclear,
however (Béné et al., 2015b).
Moreover, advances in the formulation of pelleted feeds mean
that
feed conversion ratios (an indicator of overall feed use
efficiency), and
fish-in fish-out ratios (a measure of the efficiency with which
fish meal
and fish oil are utilized) are improving (e.g. Sarker et al.,
2013).
Aquaculture is increasingly less dependent on marine
ingredients in
feeds, with rapid substitution for vegetable derived feed
ingredients
occurring (Roberts et al., 2015). Furthermore, an estimated 35%
of all
marine ingredients used in feeds are now sourced from fish
processing
byproducts, and aquaculture is itself becoming a major source
of fish-
meal and oil (Little et al., 2016). Partly as a result of these
changes, the
share of global fish production used as fishmeal declined from
an

average of 23% in the 1990s to 10% in 2012; a reduction of 10
million
tonnes (HLPE, 2014).
Finally, considering the sustainability of the global food system
as
whole, evidence suggests that the environmental performance of
in-
tensive aquaculture, as measured by life cycle assessment, can
be equal
to or better than other animal source foods (Béné et al., 2015b).
The
question then, is how to build further efficiencies into
aquaculture
production by working with the missing middle.
5. Conclusion
The rapid rise of aquaculture has focussed attention on the
sector's
potential to contribute to food security, as well as its perceived
failures
to do so. As demonstrated here, most science and policy in this
sphere
lags far behind current empirical realities and fails to recognize
the
scale and nature of contributions that aquaculture already makes
to
global food security. In fact, aquaculture development in the
main fish
farming countries of the Global South has already averted
severe de-
clines in food and nutrition security.
Part of the disconnect between narrative and reality stems from
an

excessive focus in the literature on the international seafood
trade, and
on farmed aquatic commodities produced for export. Export
focused
research has directed attention toward a relatively small and
unusually
problematic set of technologies and commodities, and away
from a
domestic demand led ‘quiet revolution’ in farmed fish
production, in
which huge improvements in the availability, accessibility, and
stability
of fish supply have been achieved.
Instead of emphasizing aquacultural reform based on outdated
narratives about the planned development of extensive small -
scale
aquaculture, we argue for recognition that diverse and
increasingly
intensive forms of commercial fish farming already make
important
contributions to the diets of low and middle income urban and
rural
consumers in Southern countries home to more than half the
world's
population. These latter forms of farming have the greatest
potential to
augment nutrient supplies from capture fisheries, and will
continue to
do so, whether or not much-needed improvements in capture
fisheries
governance and management are achieved. The transformation
of fish
supply, already far advanced in Asia, is now also beginning to
emerge in
nascent form in several of the more populous and rapidly

growing
countries in Africa.
Conflicts of interest
None.
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http://www.seafoodsource.com/all-commentary/inside-china-s-
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current-tilapia-trade
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narrativesThe missing middleConclusionConflicts of
interestReferences
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Rwanda: an agrarian developmental state?
Graham Harrison
To cite this article: Graham Harrison (2016) Rwanda: an
agrarian developmental state?, Third
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Rwanda: an agrarian developmental state?

Graham Harrison
Department of Politics, University of Sheffield, UK
Introduction
This article explores Rwanda’s agricultural policy within the
context of the agrarian question.
That is, it looks at Rwanda’s specific situation and the contours
of its agricultural change
and policy initiatives as a way to analyse how the Government
of Rwanda (GoR) and other
aligned agencies are responding to an ‘insistent’ question in
countries with large agricultural
sectors: how to manage the multiple forces that expand and
deepen capitalist social relations
in agriculture so that social change is tolerably stable and
maximally socially beneficial?
This particular framing to analyse Rwanda’s agricultural
dynamics has the merit of moving
away from commonly one-sided and sometimes polemic
analyses of Rwanda’s development,
because it situates policy, intervention and peasant agency
within a political economy beset
by political difficulties and material hardships of a high order.
Without this context – and a
historically informed evaluation of policy reactions to it – one
is likely to miss the distinctive
aspects of Rwanda’s agricultural transition, downplay the
straitened room for manoeuvre
for any Rwandan government, and to move rather too quickly
over the substantial achieve-
ments of the government to date. None of this, however, is to
make a totalising celebration
of Rwanda’s agricultural strategy, and far less to make claims
of an inexorable forward march

towards prosperity in the countryside.
ABSTRACT
This article investigates Rwanda’s agricultural policies and
institutions
as a historically contextualised response to exceptionally
adverse
developmental circumstances. Using the agrarian question as an
analytical point of reference, the article argues that it is
extremely
difficult to identify how increases in productivity and income in
smallholder agriculture can be achieved without forceful state
action
and a sustained injection of resources. In light of this, entirely
right-
congruent governance is caught in a dilemma about the extent to
which the government overrides peasants’ own agency and the
extent to which the agrarian strategy produces a sustained and
stable transformation in agriculture. Rather than making a
defence
or condemnation of the government’s strategy, the article argues
against pre-emptive judgements of an agrarian strategy that can
only
discernibly attain success over a long period. What the article
does do
is insist that there is development potential in the current
strategy,
not simply a disaster in the making.
© 2015 Southseries Inc., www.thirdworldquarterly.com
KEYWORDS
Rwanda
agrarian question
developmental state
governance

ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 13 February 2015
Accepted 1 June 2015
CONTACT Graham Harrison [email protected]
THiRD WoRlD QUARTeRly, 2016
Vol. 37, No. 02, 354–370
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2015.1058147
mailto:[email protected]
timay
Highlight
THIRd WoRld QUaRTeRly 355
The article introduces the agrarian question as a conceptual
framework before situating
the framework in a Rwandan context. It then maps out
Rwanda’s agricultural strategy not
only as a set of policies and objectives but also (in keeping with
the focus offered through
the agrarian question) as a state-based development project.
Through a detailing of agrarian
strategy within an agrarian-question frame of reference, we
argue that Rwanda is in a situ-
ation in which imperfect progress has been achieved. The article
concludes by considering
what this means for ongoing assessments of Rwanda’s
agricultural development, which is,
of course, in its early stages.
The agrarian question: the political economy of constraint

In its broadest formulation the agrarian question is: how to
manage capitalist transition in
agriculture? deriving from a Marxist theoretical background, the
agrarian question is about
the political economy of capitalist social relations in peasant
societies. The agrarian question
offers a ‘rigorous but flexible analytical framework to explore
the processes that contribute
to or constrain the emergence of agrarian capital and rural
capitalism’.1 empirically and the-
oretically the ‘question’ (rarely asked as single simple question
but more as a thematic2) has
concerned itself with the dynamic persistence of peasant
livelihoods as countries undergo
capitalist development. In concrete instances many social
processes are involved: the rise of
commercial farming, the concentration of land, the imposition
of privatised land tenure sys-
tems, dispossession of peasants, the expansion of state
regulation of peasant production and
exchange, processes of social differentiation within peasant
societies, the intensification of
commoditisation within peasant households as people produce
increasing amounts for mar-
ket exchange, the growth of wage labour as part of the peasant
household’s reproduction,
the introduction of contract farming, and the expansion of
capital into agricultural ‘chains’
supplying credit and technologies. In empirical instances these
process might combine and
may or may not involve actual dispossession of land. I may well
have missed something
out, but the point is illustrative: that agricultural societies are
not historic residuals in the
onward march of urban-industrial capitalism but are at the heart
of capitalist development,

manifesting a diverse set of historical processes that are not
well summarised as ‘the death
of the peasantry’. at the heart of this diversity is a core driver:
the combined and uneven
development of capitalist social relations.
The agrarian question offers a uniquely insightful way to
analyse actions of states and
other agencies in their attempts to transform agriculture.
analytically we are drawn towards
political economy: the distribution and contestation of authority
over resources, labour and
market power. epistemologically not only do we assume that
agriculture can be as ‘mod-
ern’ and dynamic as any other economic sector, we also
recognise that agrarian transitions
are determinedly troublesome transitions. Intensifying work, the
appropriation of property
and surplus, the establishing of new forms (and norms) of
accumulation, the expansion of
state power and so on do not generate the kind of freedom-
enhancing positive-sum and
incentive-rich social changes that liberal and ‘grassroots’
theories of development might
suggest. Nor do they allow policy makers, consultants and
donors to recommend policies and
programmes ex cathedra as if the minds of experts can create
linear, perfected and ordered
agricultural development on the ground. In a phrase: the
agrarian question is a troubled one,
issuing in a politics of constraint, contingency and always
(much to the chagrin of liberals)
the politically devised allocation of hardship.
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Highlight
356 G. HaRRISoN
It makes a considerable difference to talk of capitalist
development rather than simply
development. ‘development’ is used in a phenomenal way – to
discuss objectives and meas-
ure outcomes – and it is often based in some notion of an
ordered, inclusive and socially
beneficial process. This is normatively attractive and it enables
a great raft of global initiatives,
donor programmes, consultancies and government ‘visions’ of
one kind or another. ‘Capitalist
development’ is a conceptualisation that is not irretrievably
dour, but it does recognise that
agrarian change tends towards instability, involves social
hardship for some and perhaps
many, and is not easily controlled by the state or any other
single agency.
Closely related to this ‘capitalist’ sensibility is the
‘melancholic’ or ‘tragic’ approach to
development and conflict.3 ‘Tragic’ here is a stylisation of a
historical methodology in which
progress is an outcome of both processes of growth, increased
productivity and some gen-
eralised improvement in social well-being, and dispossession
and exploitation. This ‘double
helix’ of economic progress and social hardship (to adapt from
an important and related
argument4) unfolds in myriad and multi-scalar ways within

historically realised processes
of capitalist accumulation. To exclude this constitutive facet of
capitalism is to miss almost
everything that is important: the dynamism, flexibility and
exploitative nature of actually
existing development.
a cursory review of discussions about the agrarian question
readily reveals analogous
sensibilities to the melancholic nature of agrarian change.5 But,
it should be emphasised as
a final point, none of this is to assert a necessitarian historical
method in which nasty things
‘have to happen’ in order to produce development outcomes.
This kind of consequentialism
is normatively troubling. In fact, the agrarian question as
sketched here both understands
‘pain and progress’ as intertwined and interactive (hence the
dNa figurative) and it is a ques-
tion not an answer. It is a way to frame realistic assessments of
policy, state action, struggle,
resistance and the contestation of ideas. The agrarian question
is a political question set in
a robust political economy.
The agrarian question in Rwanda
Historical context
Rwanda’s agrarian question can reasonably be characterised as
an exceptionally difficult one.
This section sketches Rwanda’s agrarian history to illustrate the
specific historical legacies
and constraints that shape the present day.
The beginnings of the modern state of Rwanda in the late 19th

century derived from
the expansion of the Rwandan monarchy, the consolidation of a
system of rural authority
over land and labour, and a class system based in ownership of
cattle, claims on labour and
clientship.6 These processes were characterised by resistance,
political manoeuvre, migra-
tions and conflict within a social landscape that was not
primordially homogenous or inte-
grated into the Rwandan state.7 The Belgian colonial state
introduced ‘ossified’ and tribalised
versions of rural authority through chieftaincy that was
increasingly associated with Tutsi
social identity.8 This colonial–monarchical system imposed
regimes of unpaid work and taxes
throughout Rwanda’s countryside. In rural areas and in
manifold ways peasants experienced
colonialism as the loss of flexibility and accountability in the
decentralised clientage that
had previously defined land and livestock, and was a more
concerted conquest of the state
in what previously was a rather variegated set of alliances with
the King. Throughout this
period there were constant migrations in order to escape
monarchical power and colonial
state exactions, or to modify political allegiances.9
on the eve of independence (1959–64), Rwanda’s political
parties and related organisa-
tions struggled for access to state power, exacerbated by the
manoeuvrings of the Belgian

colonial administrators and leading to violence and a migration
of thousands from the
countryside mainly into what is now called the democratic
Republic of Congo (dRC).10
other out-migrations followed after independence in 1962,
largely of Tutsi as a result of
sporadic violence connected to President Gregoire Kayibanda’s
ideology, which conflated
social democracy with Hutu empowerment.11 There followed a
period of relative calm and
some stability from 1973, when Juvenal Habyarimana took
power through a military coup,
implementing an authoritarian and populist programme based in
an ideology that affirmed
an image of Hutu ‘peasantness’.
From the late 1970s to the late 1980s the Habyarimana regime
set out a programme of
agricultural change based on four components: a conflation
(more or less explicit) of the
Rwandan peasantry with the virtuous Hutu (akin to the english
romantic trope of a yeoman
farmer),12 the working up of good relations with donors and the
profusion of projects,13 an
emphasis on the intensification of rural labour combined with
an extension of land under
cropping,14 and a prioritisation of food security based on
sustained increases in food crop
production.
at the heart of this ethnic agrarian populism was ‘the project’:
state-aligned and often
donor-funded attempts to reorganise peasants’ livelihoods.15
This was also the period within
which both government and donors became seized of the
developmental issues posed by

high population densities on the land and a high rate of
population growth, both of which
were concerns effectively associated with agriculture and the
Malthusian concepts of car-
rying capacity, population pressure and famine.
during the late 1980s economic slowdown and a damaging
structural adjustment pro-
gramme were accompanied by Habyarimana’s refusal to address
the question of return for
over a hundred thousand Rwandan diaspora in neighbouring
countries.16 Between 1985 and
1992 the international price of the two major peasant cash crops
– coffee and tea – fell by
75% and 66%, respectively.17 The Habyarimana government
became increasingly authori-
tarian and explicit in deploying a discourse of ethnicity akin to
what lonsdale calls ‘political
tribalism’.18 during this period attacks on Tutsi
(re)commenced. In 1990 the Rwanda Patriotic
Front entered Rwanda over the Ugandan border, commencing a
civil war that led to more
mass migrations and livelihood disruption.
In 1994, over a period of 100 days, the remnants of the
incumbent government and
the militias that it had been training for two years rolled out a
genocide against the Tutsi
population after Habyarimana’s plane was shot down. during the
genocide and civil war,
tens of thousands of Hutus were also killed and perhaps as many
as a million people fled
the country. There were also large movements of people – over
one million – within the
country, leaving a profoundly uprooted and traumatised rural
society by the time the RPF

had established full control.
during the genocide militias also redistributed assets within
agrarian society, justify-
ing the killing of Tutsi in terms of their (supposed) material
wealth and their (supposed)
non-indigeneity.19 There was also destruction of rural property
and infrastructure, and what
agribusiness remained and survived stopped production and
became decrepit. The constant
labour needed to maintain waterways and terraces on the hills
also ceased. detailed research
358 G. HaRRISoN
on the genocide’s spread throughout Rwanda’s rural areas
reveals complex socio-political
dynamics that are not easily rendered into a mono-causal or
simple explanation.20 But there
is a facet of the genocide which combined a darkly ironic
repetition of the constant entreaty
to ‘work’ (now referring to killing Tutsi people in the villages,
fields and marshes) and a sense
of nihilism in which one had to obey the instructions to kill
relentlessly or face death at the
hands of the Interahamwe or (supposedly) the advancing RPF.21
Perhaps the most striking
example of this agrarian destructivism was the mass import of
machetes as weapons rather
than tools.22 The dynamics of the genocide also interacted with
struggles over land and the
emergence of large landowners in the context of increasing land
scarcity.23

This brief historical sketch illustrates the key features of
Rwanda’s agrarian question up
to 1994. In the first place, extreme flux and instability,
manifested particularly in a series
of large-scale coerced migrations. In the second place, the
underlying issue of increasing
pressure on the land. In the third place a series of (donor -
funded) state projects to expand
control over peasant societies and to intervene in the
livelihoods of peasants in more intru-
sive and detailed fashion. and, in the fourth place, the genocide,
which has left a political but
often covert legacy of anxiety about agrarian change and the
possibilities of mass violence
in the future. If the context for most african states when facing
the strategic and political
issues concerning how to manage agrarian transitions is
challenging, it seems fair to say that
Rwanda’s particular situation in 1994 was the envy of no-one.
How did the RPF-dominated
government respond in this especially austere context?
Rwanda’s agrarian strategy
It is commonplace to divide Rwanda’s post-genocide history
into phases. Having acknowl-
edged the caveat that these phases are useful interpretively but
of course blend and overlap
when looking at detailed realities, we will follow them here.
The period from 1994 to 1999 is
seen as one in which high-order issues of political order and
sovereignty were paramount;
the second period (2000–06/7) is seen as one of establishing the
conditions for economic
growth that involved increasing levels of donor development
support and a conformity to

donor orthodoxy; the third period commenced in 2007/8 and has
been characterised as
issuing in a ‘development vision’ coded into the meta-
programme of Vision 2020 and the
second economic development and Poverty Reduction
Strategy.24
The first phase was characterised by two major and closely
interrelated endeavours:
ensuring order during resettlement and consolidating state
authority throughout Rwanda’s
territory. Between 800,000 and one million refugees from pre-
1990s out-migrations aimed
to return after the RPF came to power. additionally, 1.3–2
million refugees and internally
displaced people from the civil war and genocide were moving
back to their lands and
residences;25 in all two-thirds of Rwanda’s people were
dislocated.26 This was done through
the creation of villages and a novel ‘land sharing’ arrangement
that – although by no means
perfect – was an effective means of dealing with a period of
considerable flux in rural areas.
The major emphasis during this period was the basic assurance
of nutrition for a popula-
tion traumatised and uprooted. This involved heavy donor
funding and little in the way of
strategic development thinking. The measure of considerable
success during this period
was the avoidance of famine.
The second phase was characterised by the consolidation of a
development strategy that
in many ways reflected the contours of development politics in
many other african countries.

In 2000 the war and counterinsurgency in the northwest
formally ended, a Poverty Reduction
Strategy Paper (PRSP) process commenced (leading to a PRSP
in 2004), and the government’s
Vision 2020 was launched. Rwanda appeared to have recovered
from the impact of the
genocide and to have ‘normalised’ into a broadly PRSP
framework. Supporting this, donors
increased their lending and involvement in policy making.27 all
of this was underpinned
by a ‘renaissance’ and growth narrative in which international
donors and politicians were
highly impressed with Rwanda’s recovery and growth.28
a donor-supported decentralisation was introduced in 2001 that
consolidated state power
in the districts and a highly consultative land reform
deliberation was started. By 2004/5 the
national implementation of Gacaca reconciliation courts and
further decentralisation created
a situation in which the government ‘presence’ in agrarian
societies became authoritative and
pervasive.29 at this juncture the government rolled out its first
comprehensive national agri-
cultural strategy, the Programme for the Strategic
Transformation of agriculture 1 (PSTa1).
donor agricultural projects and the PSTa1 both aimed to support
the poorest groups in
rural areas and to promote increased production. The general
prioritisation of government
was not strongly focused on agriculture at this time: there was

more of an emphasis on urban
regeneration, information technology and the service
industry.30 There was no agricultural
sector-wide group to integrate donors into a single strategic
plan. as a policy text PSTa1
focused on support for the intensified integration of smallholder
agriculture into broader
market relations but there was little sense of agricultural
development as a transformative
strategy. PSTa1 issued in only the beginnings of a
comprehensive and integrated strategy. Its
first phase was dedicated to constructing the institutions for a
sector-wide approach. Most
implementation matters were not centrally addressed. Indeed, as
the PSTa1 progressed,
many donors considered the programme to have been a failure
and some had considered
withdrawing support (author’s interviews with donors).
The third phase started in 2007, a period distinguished by a
considerable ratcheting
up of institutional and political impetus behind a national
agrarian strategy, based in a
more focused strategic objective of chain integration and
‘upgrading’. The reference to chain
upgrading has become mainstreamed within Rwanda’s
agricultural policy-making circles.
It refers to two processes that are seen as interrelated: first, the
increasing connection of
smallholder farming with upstream and downstream activities
such as seed and fertiliser
supply and the selling of crops to processors and traders;
second, efforts to improve the
quantity and quality of agricultural production (the latter not
having featured in PSTa1).

This was first embodied in the Crop Intensification Programme
(CIP 2007). CIP introduced
the major strategic decision to create macro-zones for cropping
in an attempt to generate
regional crop specialisms and to promote a scaling-up in
agriculture. The CIP’s core objec-
tive is to promote increased agricultural productivity through
the application of chemical
fertilisers, the use of improved seeds and the provision of
extension services. CIP has been
operationalised through the creation of government agencies:
the Rwanda Cooperative
agency (RCa, 2008), Rwanda agricultural Board (RaB, 2010)
and the National agricultural
export Board (NaeB, 2011). The RCa, NaeB, and RaB all supply
subsidised or free inputs:
fertilisers, seeds and seedlings for example. and CIP was
integrated into the broader strategy
of the PSTa2 in 2009, a programme that attained renewed donor
support (partly on the back
of changed leadership within the Ministry of agriculture), met
its declared targets early and
led to a PSTa3 in 2012. This triggered increased commitments
from some donors (particularly
the World Bank, dFId, the eU, the Belgian BTC and the dutch)
and a broader governmental
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360 G. HaRRISoN

refocusing on agriculture as the source of growth and
development, articulated in the second
economic development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (2013).
We shall say more about
the specifics of this phase in the next section.
Assessing Rwanda’s agricultural strategy
The prioritisation of agriculture
We have identified a ‘Rwandan agrarian question’ in four
themes: high population density on
the land; high levels of migration within and out of the country;
high levels of state presence
in peasant societies; and the extreme and exceptional impact of
the genocide. We have also
sketched a post-genocide agricultural strategy that has moved
through three phases to
bring Rwanda into a situation in which basic concerns with
order and authority have been
addressed, some conformity with global agendas of development
and agrarian change have
been affirmed, and the beginnings of an ambitious, holistic and
more ‘Rwandan’ programme
have been introduced. This section will explore the nature of the
third phase in more detail.
We should start by recognising the remarkable success Rwanda
has achieved in terms
of increased output. ‘The total production of maize, wheat and
cassava tripled from 2007
to 2011, the production of beans doubled, and that of rice and
Irish potato increased by
30 per cent’.31 There has also been a fall in the prevalence of
poverty in rural areas and in

malnutrition,32 although it is fair to say that these falls look
moderate in comparison with
the increase in outputs.33 and inequality remains a major
problem: the Gini coefficient has
improved but not at a rate that reflects the high levels of
economic growth.34 There are,
of course, important arguments about the political dynamics that
underlie these positive
figures; all sorts of hardship and poverty remain, and there is no
easy to clear prognosis that
Rwanda’s agrarian society will continue to develop. These kinds
of issue will be dealt with
in the next section. In this section it is worth noting what
appear to be distinctive features
in Rwanda’s agrarian strategy.
The concerted focus on agriculture from about 2007 is not
insignificant. It has been under-
pinned by a steady increase in the proportion of the
government’s budget dedicated to agri-
culture,35 rising by roughly 10% per year.36 It has been
realised through considerable resource
input and institutional innovation. It has also involved a
substantial reorganisation of rural
settlement and agricultural production. There has been a push to
gather smallholders into
aggregated settlements – imidugudu – although this is not a
programme of villagisation in
a way that one would recognise from that which took place in
1970s Mozambique, Tanzania
or ethiopia.37 Production has been synchronised rather than
collectivised and there has not
been a large-scale movement of people into communal villages.
The RCa has registered nearly 5000 cooperatives,38 each of
which has a ‘business plan’ to

increase productivity, value added and integrated agricultural
activities. Indeed, the coop-
erative has been the basic unit for the bulk of agricultural
strategic planning. The form of
cooperative can vary from 20 or 30 households to thousands,
and it may involve smallholders
simply selling collectively, the creation of blocs of individual
farming units that coordinate
production, the creation of small agricultural enterprises (for
example a coffee washing
station or a mill), or the creation of cooperatives for workers on
agricultural plantations.39
Cooperatives are created by local initiative or through
government fiat. each of these kinds
of cooperative receives support from the GoR.
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The GoR has developed a set of interconnected agencies that
promote aspects of the
PSTa3. NaeB promotes the development of higher-grade
exports. This involves the provi-
sion of subsidised inputs, creating branding and quality
assurance, and investing in larger
and higher-specification crop processing. The RaB intervenes in

similar ways for a broader
range of crops which are produced for food and domestic sale.
The Ministry of agriculture
works with these agencies and more intensively with the
agricultural donor group, which
funds aspects of the PSTa3 as well as national programmes such
as the Rural Sector Support
Programme and the land Husbandry, Water Harvesting and
Hillside Irrigation Project (RSSP/
lWH).40 The Ministry of agriculture also has various specific
projects funded by donors in
fertiliser provision, land management and irrigation.
In addition, the Ministry of agriculture has also provided
resources to support the intro-
duction of new crops, irrigation techniques, terracing and
chemical fertiliser. Paralleling the
‘core’ agricultural support strategy, the GoR has supported the
development of Savings and
Credit Cooperatives (SaCCos) and other small-scale credit
facilities, as well as Girinka (again
with strong donor support), a programme which provides free
livestock for the poorest
households as a form of basic economic security. all these
initiatives are, characteristically for
Rwandan governance generally, articulated within specific
targets and auditing procedures
under the neo-traditional rubric of imihigo.41
From growth to transformation: agricultural chains
The point here is that agricultural development is underpinned
by a substantial state effort
to promote increased productivity within agriculture, largely
through the agency of the
agricultural cooperative. This support is, furthermore, oriented

towards an ambitious trans-
formation within Rwanda’s agricultural areas. The
transformation can be characterised as one
in which peasant farmers move away from the diverse patterns
of production and market
integration based on the dispersed and small plots of land that
pervade Rwanda’s rural
spaces towards an aggregated and more specific mode of
articulation, which brings us back
to the ‘chain’ metaphor again.
The GoR has established a coherent and integrated strategy of
chain integration and
upgrading that one can identify in most policy documents,
associated donor funding doc-
uments, public statements, and also within interviews. The
premise is that Rwanda’s agri-
cultural sector is limited by severe land constraints and that
therefore extensive forms of
agricultural development are impossible. There are forests in
the north and east but these
are largely subjected to restrictions as a result of tourism and
conservation. Studies also
suggest that these lands would not be good for agriculture in
any case. There are some drier
areas in the south which are not intensively used. But, beyond
these, Rwanda has reached
its ‘land frontier’.42 as a result, promoting increased incomes
and the value of production
within agriculture can only take place through improvements in
value added. The immediate
way to achieve this is through the production of either higher
quality, more standardised
or more highly branded crops.
The GoR has made considerable efforts to promote this kind of

integration and upgrading.
NaeB has introduced standard setting, the promotion of
certification and some branding for
original-source tea and coffee. The RCa has provided support to
cooperatives to establish
supply contracts with ‘downstream’ agencies. The NaeB and
RCa oversee contract making
between cooperatives and agricultural processors and retailers,
pushing for businesses to
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362 G. HaRRISoN
provide support to farmers in attaining the requisite levels of
quality and quantity. The seed
and fertiliser programmes have been implemented through a
strong extension project in
which extension officers (agronomes) work in villages,
cooperatives are supported in cre-
ating demonstration fields and ‘farmer fields’ (which attempt to
roll out changes in crop
practices), and district government – through various devices
such as imihigo performance
contracts and the management of centrally disbursed resources –
promotes investment and
innovations within cooperatives.
The Government also exercises political influence on processors
and purchasers to pro-

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