The evolution of the land struggle for smallholder irrigated rice production in Nante, Zambezia

This article analyses an ongoing struggle around securing access to land and water between external parties and smallholders farmers in the Munda Munda irrigation system in Nante, on basis of long term and regular involvement in the area since the year 1996, The struggle was consecutively fought in four different domains, from (1) the delimitation of land, through (2) mechanization of the rice production system, (3) the design and rehabilitation of irrigation infrastructure and (4) the rice commercialization of smallholder produce. The struggle evolved as an action and reaction between outsiders trying to get a hold on the land and water resources and local communities defending them. The variety of domains over which the struggle was fought, shows that the issue is actually about the access to water and irrigation infrastructure that was fought within the domain of land and markets. Till now the smallholder users have successfully managed to avert a land and water grab, but the pressure still exists to demonstrate that smallholder irrigated production in combination with cooperative marketing is a viable rural development model for Mozambique. A positive effect of this struggle is that in the process local capacities were enhanced and ownership was created, which made the meaningful involvement of smallholder farmers in local development possible.