A recent visit to the district of Salima uncovered how a senior chief displaced poor families when she made shabby land deals with the Dutch company Malawi Mangoes Limited, which is backed by the World Bank and the FMO of the Netherlands.

The financing from the UK's development finance institution will help Jacoma expand its farming operations at its Tropha Estates in Northern Malawi, where it produces high value macadamia nuts, chilli and paprika.

Petition calls for Malawi government to withdraw court case against the People's Land Organisation, which is claiming reparations from the tea estates in Thyolo and Mulanje for the forced labour that their fore parents were subjected to in the estates by the colonial settlers.

The land rush in southern Africa is often a sugar rush, with the ‘white gold’ promising riches to governments, local elites and large corporates alike.

The Peoples Land Organisation seeks the local people’s occupation of all idle tea estates land, as well as reparations for the years since 1914 that estates owners occupied the lands and engaged in bonded labour practices. The organisation has also been demanding from the estates owners a wage rate of £6.13 per hour (about K5 000) per individual for those who were involved in Thangata (bonded labour) between 1914 and 1963.

Malawi government tells Chinese investors it is halfway through a process to identify 10,000 estates lying idle that can be opened up for commercial farming.

India’s plan to lease farm land in Mozambique, Tanzania and Malawi to grow pulses for domestic consumers is not the first such project

"We are willing to offer 10,000-15,000 hectare on lease for 99 years," Zambia Agriculture Minister Given Lubinda said.

"Imagine, they started demarcating the land earmarked for selling without our knowledge. Our chiefs jumped the gun because we were supposed to be consulted from the word go other than seeing our land being demarcated"

Based on new field research the report expands on working conditions and land conflict in Malawi’s sugar industry where Illovo Sugar (Malawi) Limited, a subsidiary of Associated British Foods is the country’s only producer

“Grabbed by multinationals? Who is grabbing? Well, I just don’t think that’s true. Some of these civil society organisations should be questioned on how they analyse issues," says Malawi's President to BBC.

This study investigates the processes and impact of commercialisation of land in Malawi – specifically the acquisition of huge tracts of communal lands by foreign companies and local elites for sugarcane production.