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What has been the reaction of the rural producers and other land holders over these demands and actual land acquisitions? What does their reactions means in relation to ongoing land grabbing? While these questions are important this study was motivated by two major concerns.
First, although some reactions of the peasants on land grabbing have been documented, nothing much is known of what happens after the initial stage of land acquisition has been carried out in a specific area. The second concern is that how do people respond to second or third incidences of land acquisitions done in the name of investment? To address these concerns the study ascribed to itself three specific objectives.First, is to show that the scramble for land by capitalist multinational corporations - which has been taking place in Africa in general and Tanzania in particular, is not an isolated affair. Neither can it be conceived as an aberration nor an accident in history. It is instead an expression in concrete terms of the laws of motion of capital. In other words, it needs to be understood as a continuation of the age-old and ongoing processes of primitive accumulation, whose present expression form is accumulation by dispossession entailing commoditisation of everything from the essential services like education, health services, including the commons like land, water ponds and bores.
Second, is to demonstrate the role the state plays in the process of accumulation under the neoliberal era. The state, it is argued, has been facilitating the process of granting agricultural land to foreign investors (the new settlers) in return for what has been dubbed “bringing new technologies, developing productive potential, facilitating infrastructure development, and creating employment and supply of food to local markets.”3 , While doing this it undermines the very conditions of existence of the peasant communities (Moyo and Yaros, 2005).
Third, the study intends to show that wherever there is oppression and exploitation, there is always resistance. The history of the colonial people has been one of continuous struggles conducted by the peasants and the working people. Whereas the Warufiji rose in their hundreds and waged the Maji Maji war against the Germans during the early phase of the last century, the peasants of to-day have never remained silent and hence acquiesced in their exploitation and oppression. Their struggle has taken different forms as outlined in the relevant section below.
In the wake of the flurry for land grabs in Tanzania, it sought to examine the extent to which both foreign and local capitalist companies have been allocated land for agricultural production in the Rufiji River Basin and to what use. More specifically, it was concerned with identifying the companies involved, whose land they had acquired and the processes and methods/approaches used in acquiring the said land and the full implications of these developments. For one thing there have been claims that foreign investments in land are beneficial to villagers as they provide employment opportunities, they employ inclusive agricultural business models which would also benefit small scale peasants and thereby raising labour productivity in agriculture. To ascertain the extent to which the concessions have gone and their socio-economic implications was the principal objective of this study.
