Brazilian agribusiness in Mozambique: the ProSAVANA Programme case study

This paper is about the ProSAVANA Program, a trilateral cooperation project between Japan, Brazil and, Mozambique. ProSAVANA Program goal is to develop the agriculture sector in the Nacala Corridor and it has been controversial due to conflicts among government, private corporations, and civil society organizations. Private investments were expected to occur in the Nacala Corridor, mainly from Brazilian agribusiness. However, the paper concluded that Brazilian private investments in Mozambique’s agriculture sector were a stagnant state in the analyzed period (2007-2017). The paper examines the status of the ProSAVANA Program and what are the difficulties to Brazilian agribusiness invest to Mozambique. Current challenges of the program were found as follows: (1) high risk of investment due to non-existent public subsidies to small, medium and large-scale agribusiness; (2) “land property” law bureaucracy; and (3) civil society mobilization against ProSAVANA. All they are key factors to repel Brazilian agribusinesses.


Introduction
Brazil is one of the largest food suppliers in the world and has developed technology for tropical areas in an export-led model. One important partner to achieve this result is Japan, in which the Brazilian government and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) created the Japanese-Brazilian Cooperation Program for Cerrado Development (PRODECER) 1 in the 1970s.
Brazilian economic-political power increased in Africa as a policy of the Workers' Party during former president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva mandate (2003-2010, through the promotion of international cooperation, economic-political agreements, exchange programs, open of embassies, and diplomatic missions (MRE, 2017). Mozambique is the main target of Brazilian 1 PRODECER is a partnership between Brazil and Japan to improve the Brazilian Cerrado (Brazil`s savanna area). The program developed specific technology for the Brazilian tropical area in an export-led model. According to Hosono, Magno and Hongo (2016), the Cerrado development provide a valuable model for developing countries struggling to attain nutrition and food security, to create value chains and employment, as well as, to generate social inclusiveness and to achieve sustainable development. In terms of institutional set up, the program had three important components.
First, a financial cooperation mechanism; second, the creation of Company of Agricultural Promotion (CAMPO - Brazil, Japan, and Mozambique designed a threefold program called Program for Triangulated Cooperation for Agricultural Development of the Tropical Savannahs of Mozambique (ProSAVANA) to develop the agriculture sector in the Nacala Corridor 2 . The project has four goals: to guarantee food security, to improve smallholder farms productivity, to develop rural sector competitiveness, and to promote agribusiness. ProSAVANA had alarmed civil society organizations (CSO) and academics. Some of the negative arguments are that the program's purpose is to promote the Mozambican agribusiness; or that the program only benefits the Mozambican political-economic elite (and does not consider local community and peasants), or that there is a lack of transparency and communication among all groups involved in the program.
Because of Brazilian investments in Moatize mining coal 3 and the ProSAVANA, it was expected significant private investments in the Nacala Corridor, especially from Brazilian agribusiness. However, the literature available until the date this paper was written lacked updated data about whether those investments occurred or not, and why Brazilian agribusiness does not invest in Nacala Corridor, as Cheru and Modi ed. (2013), Vaz (2015), Alden, Chichava and Alves ed. (2017), and others. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to understand the reasons for the failure to attract Brazilian agribusiness to Mozambique.
The research is based on the annual report of JICA, newspapers from Brazil, Mozambique, and Japan, and semi-structured interviews employed with key representatives in 2 "The region of Nacala Corridor, considered in ProSAVANA, is the area between the parallels 13ºS to 17ºS, covering  2017 were also considered in this paper.
The first section is a summary of Brazilian technical cooperation efforts. Next section explains about the ProSAVANA Program, in which is divided into three subsections: (1) program purpose; (2) current status; and (3) reasons for failure. Finally, there is a brief conclusion.

Brazilian technical cooperation efforts
After the Cold War, global governance became more complex, like a "subway map", in which some actors are more relevant than others and developing countries remains unrepresented (AMORIM, 2010). In this context, mainly in the mandate of former president Luis As an important instrument for foreign policy, the Brazilian Agency for Cooperation (Agência Brasileira de Cooperação -ABC) is exclusively responsible for Brazilian programs and projects for technical cooperation (MRE, 2017). According to Zanella and de Castro (2017), ABC faces difficulties to manage and to effectively lead technical cooperation strategies, due to the structure of Brazilian bureaucratic services and the agency hierarchically subordinated position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (see Figure 1).  In Mozambique, cooperation projects are on agriculture, health, and education, respectively 22.5 percent, 19.7 percent, and 12.9 percent (see Table 1). With Brazilian expertise, agriculture projects are done as South-South cooperation or trilateral cooperation (among Brazil, Mozambique, and a traditional partner).
Despite it is important to explain how Brazil acquired knowledge in the agriculture field, and therefore, how its sector has been developed, this paper does not discuss it. Only one factor considered in the literature is the partnership between Brazil and Japan in the 1970s called PRODECER. The project main purpose was to improve the agriculture productivity in Brazilian Cerrado (Brazil`s savannahs area), mainly soybeans, in an export-led model.

The ProSAVANA Program
ProSAVANA is a program aimed to develop agriculture sector in Nacala Corridor, which would happen within 20 years. The program is divided into three projects: (1)

Program purpose
According to the governments of Brazil, Japan, and Mozambique, ProSAVANA integrates both large-scale and small-scale farmers groups. Its purpose is to guarantee food security, to improve smallholder farms productivity, to develop rural sector competitiveness, and to promote agribusiness. However, those four goals do not have the same level of importance.  The project outcomes can be seen at Table 3: -Laboratory construction plan for IIAM CZno is developed. -Reports and databases on natural resources evaluation in Nacala corridor (soil, vegetation, land use, meteorology, water resources and landscape) are accepted by IIAM.
-Reports of socio-economic assessment are accepted by IIAM.

-Soil improvement technology for Nacala
Corridor is developed.
-A soil improvement manual (including fertilization and soil conservation) is accepted by IIAM.

-Appropriate cultivation technology for Nacala
Corridor is developed.
-A cultivation manual (including crops, varieties, seed production, microorganism, access to water and cropping system) are accepted by IIAM. -A decision support model is accepted by IIAM.
-Training for extension workers to use the decision support model is taken place.

ProSAVANA-PD
The main purpose of ProSAVANA-PD is to develop a Master Plan for a regional agricultural development in Nacala Corridor. To achieve it, public consultations were held with Due to such efforts, the Master Plan initial concept was reformulated (see Table 4  Source: Mosca & Bruna (2015) The final version of Master Plan is not approved yet and without its approval, ProSAVANA is on hold. The program`s confidentiality creates a frustration and distrustfulness atmosphere among Government, peasants, CSOs, and the private sector.

ProSAVANA-PEM
The third and last project was scheduled to occur between 2013 and 2019. According to the interviews, they are in implementation, but no detailed could be shared. ProSAVANA-PEM main purpose is to increase agricultural production at each farming size by adoption of the agricultural development models. According to ProSAVANA website (2018), the project activities are: First, to comprehend current situation of social economic aspects, agriculture/farming and public/private/NGOs agriculture extension services in the target areas of ProSAVANA. Then, it will prepare an annual work plan for the project, carry out baseline survey and periodical survey, define development models and formulate reference projects to be implemented.
Second, to select target groups, areas and partners for the reference projects; implement, monitor and evaluate the reference projects, engage public/private/NGOs in the reference projects to contribute with the activity, and recommend potential agricultural development models based on the reference projects.
And third, to support implementation of the agricultural development models

Reasons for failure
Explaining why Mozambique does not attract Brazilian large-scale investors is not simple.
However, this paper points out some reasons for it. Before explaining why Brazilian agribusiness is not investing in Mozambique, it is primal to consider that ProSAVANA is not a replication of PRODECER, as stated by Ekman and Macamo (2014).

Final Consideration
Mozambique is the main target of Brazilian technical cooperation. In the period of Brazilian, Japanese and Mozambican Governments are committed to run the ProSAVANA program, and many stakeholders held a lot of expectations for Brazilian investments, however, there is no tangible outcomes so far and investments in agriculture sector has failed. This research was conducted by understanding technical cooperation, FDI and ProSAVANA Program, although it has a limitation on data.