Limping towards a ditch without a crutch: the Brave New World of Tanzanian Cotton Marketing Cooperatives
Gibbon, P / 1998

Describes developments in cotton marketing cooperatives in Tanzania’s major cotton growing area between 1991 and 1997. During this period cooperatives underwent voluntarisation, lost state and donor financial support and (from 1995) had to face strong competition from private cotton buyers/ginners. After summarising the history of marketing cooperatives in the country, the paper distinguishes the main dimensions of the current changes and sums up their outcomes. It then examines the latter’s main socio-economic and political dimensions before explaining current developments with reference to broader changes in ‘civil society’ and organisational life in rural Tanzania.