A land grab is taking place all across Africa, a transfer of control unprecedented in the post-colonial era.

How did this country turn from being one of the poorest post colonial states in the world to one of the largest land grabbers in recent years?

The eDiscussion will take place from 13 September to 8 October and is open to all.

UNCTAD believes pension funds, with their apparent focus on reputation, accountability, and the long term, could set new best-practice standards as they join the farmland investment trend.

MCC is playing a key role in commodifying Africa’s farmlands

"We need to employ some protectionist policies to save our continent from a new form of colonization"

As interest in transnational land acquisition for food production grows, the importance of legal customary tenure recognition becomes more apparent.

Ethiopia’s strategy of leasing farmland to foreign investors is not without critics.

"This apparent rush to lease so much farmland, much or all of it to foreign interests, during a time of worsening food insecurity should raise concern within the donor community about GoE motivations and negotiating capacity," writes the US embassy in Addis Ababa in December 2009

22. Stresses that farmland acquisition by foreign investors, particularly in Africa, must not have an adverse impact on local food security or lead to unsustainable land use; points out that it may also have positive effects by bringing land into productive use; urges the FAO and the Member States to work towards common rules and legislative proposals which recognise the right of local people in every country to control farmland and other natural resources vital to their food security;

There’s a whole school of economic thought that says that Collier is wrong, that big is not necessarily better in agriculture — and that the land deals therefore might be unwise not because they’re wrong but because they’re unprofitable.

A multilateral framework would not only improve the protection of the human rights of the local population concerned; it could also avoid beggar-thy-neighbour policies, with countries competing against each other for foreign direct investment and thus lowering the requirements imposed on foreign investors.

Africa’s agrarian questions are not adequately addressed by simply asking, “What is the role of African smallholders?”

"A path to agro-investments replacing international food aid"

Somebody must have run the numbers and discovered that if it made commercial sense to practice oasis farming in the sands of Arabia, then it must make eminently more sense to invest in more fertile Sahel land for agricultural purposes.

Benue State has secured funding for a 1000-hectare fodder project which is for export to the United Arab Emirates, and they plan to increase that to 6,000 hectares within the next 2 to 3 years.

According to Cambodian media, the Ratanakiri Provincial Information Bureau recently issued a notice announcing the approval of 17 foreign-funded enterprises to obtain economic land concessions (ELC) in the province, covering agricultural planting, agro-industrial integration and beef cattle breeding. Among foreign companies that have obtained economic land concessions, Vietnamese companies dominate, followed by Chinese and Indian companies. In addition, 10 local companies have also obtained land investment with a total area of ​​146,366 hectares.

The Jah Agric Farm in Bayaba, Gambia, initiated by Jah Oil Company, is to farm rice, potato, and onion imports on 1,200 hectares, with plans to expand to 15,000 hectares nationwide.

Communities say a SOCFIN subsidiary used a $10M loan from the World Bank's IFC to turn the forests where they’d farmed and held sacred rituals into a massive rubber plantation.

For more than a decade, some Bunong villagers have been trying to reclaim and gain legal recognition for their customary land that have been acquired by Luxembourg-based Socfin Group’s subsidiaries since 2007. Some details of the settlement were released this September, in a joint statement issued by the firms and community representatives who negotiated on behalf of 210 families in five villages.

Organisations call for a halt to IFC’s financing of industrial agriculture as it undermines the diversified, agroecological food systems that support food sovereignty

The project, which is a joint venture between Northsworthy Farms, and Allied Industries Limited and Nigeria's Delta State Government had planted over 250,000 oil palm trees in over 1,400 hectares of land.

The digitalisation of information on land and natural resources is exacerbating land grabbing in the remaining agricultural frontiers of Latin America.

Many oil palm plantations’ concessions in West and Central Africa were built on lands stolen from communities during colonial occupations. This is the case in the DRC, where food company Unilever began its palm oil empire. Today, these plantations are still sites of ongoing poverty and violence.

New analysis from community exercises indicate palm oil company Golden Veroleum Liberia structurally fails to comply with obligations and commitments from the MOUs signed in 2014 with affected communities. T

Investigation into the controversial palm oil sector in Liberia, the role of Dutch finance and impacts on local communities

A new report from the Oakland Institute, reveals that several well-known pension funds, trusts and endowments are invested in a group of oil palm plantations in the Democratic Republic of Congo accused of environmental and human rights abuses.

Socfin, a Belgian holding company that operates palm oil and rubber plantations through dozens of subsidiaries across Africa and Southeast Asia, has been rebuked for alleged human rights violations at its plantations.

Alfred Brownell had to flee Liberia after challenging the powerful palm oil and other extractive industries that were clearing its forests.

Gulf agribusiness companies found their panacea in Egypt, which is prioritizing investment in large-scale, modernized farming to export crops over pursuing strategic crop cultivation and traditional farming methods in the Nile Valley and Delta.