The role of rural producers' associations in development processes. An introduction to the case of Morrumbala, Mozambique

This paper presents the preliminary results of a research on the producers’ cooperative associations in the rural district of Morrumbala (Zambezia, Mozambique). The research has been started and lead by Prof. Enrico Luzzati, who died in November 2008. Our research group decided to continue this work, starting from his notes and documents. An important research topic emerges from his observation: the role of the associations in the introduction and diffusion of innovations. In this paper we set the research background on this issue, starting from an analysis of the rural cooperative promotion interventions in the area. After the civil war, Morrumbala district has been the target of some projects, that, according to a nowadays evaluation, seem to show very poor results. The first part of our work is devoted to the analysis of this failure. In 2006, an Italian NGO started a new project to strengthen rural producers’ organizations in the same area. This new project represents the focus of the research. We adopt an interdisciplinary approach, combining together the economical and the anthropological point of view and using both qualitative and quantitative methods.