ABSTRACT
The chapter suggests that the production and perception of trust are important for coordination between farmers and buyers, as well as for the territoriality of the value chain, that is, the locations in which sunflower contracts unfold. It argues that the global value chain (GVC) approach looks too much at the material characteristics of the transaction in order to determine the characteristics of GVC governance and too little on the non- economic aspects of relations between buyer and seller, no matter how simple the transaction may be. As C. Oya outlines contract farming (CF) in developing countries has been studied from a variety of perspectives since the 1980s. As an analytical concept, however, trust has only attracted modest attention in studies on CF. Through CF, companies and farmers alike produce or reproduce geographical inequalities in rural Tanzania through an experimental form of economic relation- building.
