Corporate-Led Financialization on the Farmland, Land Crisis, and Farmers’ Experience in the Sugar Industry in Dwangwa, Malawi

This study explored the experiences of independent sugar cane farmers, families, and communities in the corporate-led sugar industry in Dwangwa, Malawi. I collected data from 50–60-minute semi-structured interviews, observations, and interactions from 30 independent cane growers, families, and communities in Dwangwa, the study findings were also based on textual data about local and national business and political elites and corporate investors in Malawi’s sugar industry. Data collection occurred from May to August 2023 in Malawi. The study found that independent cane growers and families identified job creation and access to the sugar market as their topmost positive experiences due to corporate-led sugar production and processing in Dwangwa. However, study participants lamented the lack of transparency during their market and social transactions with Illovo Sugar Group, Illovo Sugar Malawi Limited (ISML), and their partners like Illovo Accredited Cane Growers Associations (IACGAs). For example, participants reported that IACGAs did not disburse proceeds from participants’ sugar sales and deliver farm services to farmers on time. Also, respondents blamed IACGAs for using poor farmers as loan collateral at the bank, overrating and overvaluing farm inputs they rented to independent cane farmers. The study participants also reported that ISML did not allow farmers to be present at the market physically and that (out of their sugar cane), farmers were paid for sugar only by the ISML. So, the lack of transparency by foreign investors appears to reinforce class and racial inequalities, while maximizing their profits by exploiting the labor of the poor independent cane farmers, families, and communities in Dwangwa. Ultimately, this paper does not view the financialization of farmland as a rural development opportunity nor the neocolonialism of the Global South. But rather as an intensification of capitalist globalization by neoliberal agriculture.