Brokering Development?: The Private Sector and Unalleviated Poverty in Tanzania’’s Agricultural Growth Corridors

Recent portrayals of the private sector as the engine of poverty alleviation in Africa’s agricultural growth corridors have sparked critique by scholars and activists alike. Land acquisitions by investors are the most criticized, but the private sector engages in corridors in other ways, on which research remains scarce. Idil Ires provides a political economy analysis of whether smallholders prosper when they coordinate with input suppliers, banks, and crop buyers through markets and contract farming in the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania. This book will appeal to scholars and practitioners from diverse fields, offering timely insights into a critical debate.

Idil Ires is a political economist specialized in agrarian change, trade, and industrialization in East Africa. She completed a joint-Ph.D. in Political Science and Geography and currently works as a consultant at Research on Poverty Alleviation (REPOA) in Dar es Salaam.