This study assesses changes over the past decade in the farm size distributions of Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. Among all farms below 100 hectares in size, the share of land on small-scale holdings under five hectares has declined except in Kenya. Medium-scale farms (defined here as farm holdings between five and 100 hectares) account for a rising share of total farmland, especially in the 10 to 100 hectare range where the number of these farms is growing especially rapidly. Medium-scale farms control roughly 20% of total farmland in Kenya, 32% in Ghana, 39% in Tanzania, and over 50% in Zambia. The rapid rise of medium-scale holdings in most cases reflects increased interest in land by urban-based professionals or influential rural people. About half of these farmers obtained their land later in life, financed by non-farm income. The rise of medium-scale farms is affecting the region in diverse ways that are difficult to generalize. Many such farms are a source of dynamism, technical change and commercialization of African agriculture. However, medium-scale land acquisitions may exacerbate land scarcity in rural areas, which could have important effects given the projected 60% increase in rural Africa's population between 2015 and 2050. Medium-scale farmers tend to dominate farm lobby groups and influence agricultural policies and public expenditures to agriculture in their favor. Nationally representative Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from six countries (Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia) show that urban households own 5% to 35% of total agricultural land and that this share is rising in all countries where DHS surveys were repeated. This suggests a new and hitherto unrecognized channel by which medium-scale farmers may be altering the strength and location of agricultural growth and employment multipliers between rural and urban areas. Given current trends, medium-scale farms are likely to soon become the dominant scale of farming in many African countries.

To understand how the unfolding diet transformation in East and Southern Africa is likely to influence the evolution of employment within its agrifood system and between that system and the rest of the economy. To briefly consider implications for education and skill acquisition. Design/methodology/approach: We link changing diets to employment structure. We then use alternative projections of diet change over 15-and 30-year intervals to develop scenarios on changes in employment structure. Findings: As long as incomes in ESA continue to rise at levels near those of the past decade, the transformation of their economies is likely to advance dramatically. Key features will be: sharp decline in the share of the workforce engaged in farming even as absolute numbers rise modestly, sharp increase in the share engaged in non-farm segments of the agrifood system, and an even sharper increase in the share engaged outside the agrifood system. Within the agrifood system, food preparation away from home is likely to grow most rapidly, followed by food manufacturing, and finally by marketing, transport, and other agrifood system services. Resource booms in Mozambique and (potentially) Tanzania are the main factor that may change this pattern. Research Implications: Clarifying policy implications requires renewed research given the rapid changes in Africa over the past 15 years. Program Implications: Improved quality of education at primary and secondary levels must be the main focus of efforts to build the skills needed to facilitate transformation.

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