The local impacts of large-scale land acquisitions: a review of case study evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Hufe, Paul; Heuermann, Daniel F.

doi:10.1080/02589001.2017.1307505

Cited by 39 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Our results therefore support the available scientific evidence regarding LAIs' impacts on surrounding land users in low-income countries, which paints a rather bleak picture (e.g. Li 2011;Oberlack et al 2016;Hufe and Heuermann 2017). Far from the initial promises of providing a win-win situation that promotes national economic development and rural poverty alleviation, such large-scale commercial investments in land provide at best some employment and infrastructural benefits to few.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

“…Recent research has documented adverse livelihood impacts of LAIs such as loss of housing and farmland (through forced resettlement) and loss of access to land and common-property resources like water, pasture, and non-timber forest products. These impacts increase people's food and income insecurity, reduce their capacity to cope with shocks, and widen pre-existing inequalities intensifying social conflicts (German et al 2011;Schoneveld et al 2011;Ulrich 2014;Boamah and Overå 2016;Oberlack et al 2016;Hufe and Heuermann 2017;Bottazzi et al 2018). Further, LAIs are considered to be a major driver of deforestation and environmental degradation (Rudel et al 2009;Gibbs et al 2010;Davis et al 2015;Magliocca et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many LAIs target small-scale farmers' extensively cultivated mosaic croplands or areas of great ecological significance, such as wetlands, savannahs, and dry and tropical forests (Anseeuw et al 2012;Eckert et al 2017;Schoneveld 2017;Zaehringer et al 2018a). Most LAIs are therefore environmentally unsustainable, as confirmed by a review of case studies in sub-Saharan Africa (Hufe and Heuermann 2017). Moreover, achieving a profitable and reliable production for the global market requires many LAIs to install modern irrigation schemes, adding pressure on scarce water resources especially in dryland contexts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Large-scale agricultural investments in Eastern Africa: consequences for small-scale farmers and the environment

Zaehringer

Messerli

Giger

et al. 2021

Ecosystems and People

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Available empirical evidence about the impacts of large-scale agricultural investments (LAIs) in low-income countries is skewed towards the assessment of economic benefits. How LAIs affect land use and the environment is less understood. This study assesses how small-scale farmers living close to an LAI perceive the changes LAI's inflict on land use, land management, and tree cover in Kenya, Mozambique, and Madagascar. It also investigates their perceptions regarding LAI's impacts on the general environment and people's health, as well as on employment opportunities, infrastructure, and conflicts. 271 small-scale farmers were interviewed and their perceptions supported by a remote-sensing-based analysis of land use and land cover changes. Results show that LAIs contributed both directly and indirectly to deforestation in Mozambique, triggered changes in small-scale farmers' agricultural land management in Kenya, and caused pastoralists to lose access to grazing land in Madagascar. Despite some benefits from employment opportunities and infrastructure improvement, the majority of respondents perceived the overall impacts of LAIs as negative, highlighting reduced access to land and water, pollution, health issues, and unsatisfactory working conditions. We urgently need to invest in devising concrete transformative options to improve LAIs' contribution to sustainable development in their host countries.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Large-scale agricultural investments in Eastern Africa: consequences for small-scale farmers and the environment

Zaehringer

Messerli

Giger

et al. 2021

Ecosystems and People

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“…British colonial policy outside the towns and white settler farmlands designated 'native reserves' where customary tenure was maintained, but it allowed such land to be taken (or 'set aside') without compensation if required by the state for a 'public interest', such as for mining, forestry or township creation. African states still use such inherited laws to allow large-scale land-based investments ('land grabbing'), and in 2000-2012 leased an estimated six million hectares of customary land for biofuel and food production, largely ignoring the needs for land and livelihoods of those displaced [37,38]. Survey findings on global tenure security suggest that about a fifth of households risk losing their homes within the next five years, uncertainty which holds back investment and sustainable development.…”

Section: The African Dimensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

History and Prospects for African Land Governance: Institutions, Technology and ‘Land Rights for All’

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2021

Land

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Issues relating to land are specifically referred to in five of the United Nations’ (UN) 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and UN-Habitat’s Global Land Tools Network views access to land and tenure security as key to achieving sustainable, inclusive and efficient cities. The African continent is growing in importance, with climate change and population pressure on land. This review explores an interdisciplinary approach, and identifies recent advances in geo-spatial technology relevant to land governance in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It discusses historical legacies of colonialism that affect the culture of its land administration institutions, through three levels of governance: international/regional, national and sub-national. Short narratives on land law are discussed for four Anglophone former British colonies of SSA. A wide range of sources are drawn upon: academic research across disciplines, and official publications of various actors, including land professions (particularly surveyors, lawyers and planners), government and wider society. The findings are that African countries have carried forward colonial land governance structures into the post-independence political settlement, and that a gulf exists between the institutions, language and cultures of land governance, and the mass of its peoples struggling with basic issues of survival. This gulf may be addressed by recent approaches to land administration and technological advances in geo-spatial technology, and by new knowledge networks and interactions.

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“…Empirical case studies, by contrast, point to numerous adverse impacts of LAIs. Meta-analysis of case studies show that livelihood benefits for beneficiary households can indeed occur if LAIs generate decent employment (Oberlack et al 2016, Hufe andHeuermann 2017). However, dominant narratives in Africa contend that LAIs rarely realize the employment effects initially anticipated (Li 2011, Deininger and Byerlee 2012, Palliere and Cochet, 2018.…”

Section: Socio-economic Impacts Of Large-scale Agricultural Investmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do large-scale agricultural investments induce different socio-economic, food security, and environmental impacts? Evidence from Kenya, Madagascar, and Mozambique

Oberlack¹,

Giger²,

Anseeuw³

et al. 2021

E&S

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Large-scale agricultural investments (LAIs) transform land use systems worldwide. There is, however, limited understanding about how the common global drivers of land use change induce different forms of agricultural investment and produce different impacts on the ground. This article provides a cross-country comparative analysis of how differences in business models, land use changes, and governance systems explain differences in socio-economic, food security, and environmental impacts of LAIs in Kenya, Madagascar, and Mozambique. It brings together results on these aspects generated in the AFGROLAND project that collected data in a multi-method approach via household surveys, business model surveys, semi-structured household interviews, life-cycle assessments of farm production, analysis of remote-sensing data, key informant interviews, and document analysis. For the present project synthesis, we combined a collaborative expert workshop with a comparative analysis of 16 LAIs. The results show that the LAIs follow four distinctive impact patterns, ranging from widespread adverse impacts to moderate impacts. Results demonstrate how the following conditions influence how the global drivers of land use change translate into different LAIs and different impacts on the ground: labor intensity, prior land use, utilization of land, farm size, type of production, experience in local agriculture, land tenure security, accountability of state and local elites, the mobilization capacity of civil society, expansion of resource frontiers, agricultural intensification, and indirect land use change. The results indicate that commercial agriculture can be a component in sustainable development strategies under certain conditions, but that these strategies will fail without substantial, sustained increases in the economic viability and inclusiveness of smallholder agriculture, land tenure security, agro-ecological land management, and support for broader patterns of endogenous agrarian transformation.

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The local impacts of large-scale land acquisitions: a review of case study evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Cited by 39 publications

References 18 publications

Large-scale agricultural investments in Eastern Africa: consequences for small-scale farmers and the environment

Large-scale agricultural investments in Eastern Africa: consequences for small-scale farmers and the environment

History and Prospects for African Land Governance: Institutions, Technology and ‘Land Rights for All’

Why do large-scale agricultural investments induce different socio-economic, food security, and environmental impacts? Evidence from Kenya, Madagascar, and Mozambique

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