Land and agricultural commercialisation in Africa

Hall, Ruth (2017). Land and agricultural commercialisation in Africa. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-852392

Resource scarcity is at the centre of the new geopolitics of growth and development. In global markets, scarcities have been felt in the forms of food price hikes and volatile oil prices. Many investors have responded by acquiring large tracts of land in African countries in order to secure a new base from which to supply growing markets, often changing land uses and displacing existing populations in the process. This can threaten existing efforts to alleviate poverty and undermine geopolitical stability, as competition grows over access to and control of natural resources, particularly land and water on which to produce food, fuel, feed and fibre. This trend is most marked Africa, where land rights are often inadequately recognised and protected. These same countries are hungry for investment, seeing it as essential for growth, yet substantial evidence now shows that African governments are not concluding the most advantageous deals possible, leading to costs at both the local and national levels. This situation raises an urgent policy question: how can the new land investments driven by perceptions of rising global resource scarcity be used as opportunities to promote growth and reduce poverty and inequality in developing countries. We hypothesise that the impacts of such investments are contingent on their terms and the institutional arrangements that structure them. Institutional arrangements matter. The research will investigates the different institutional arrangements and associated business models for such investments, their respective impacts on livelihoods and resource utilisation, and their implications for land use planning and agrarian transformation in three countries in Africa: Ghana, Kenya and Zambia. The purpose of the research is to determine what forms of investment can promote growth and reduce poverty and inequality, while also improving the productive utilisation of natural resources for national development. Five sets of questions – see below – will frame the research. These focus on: Global drivers and resource scarcity; Mapping land deals in Africa; Historical experiences; Institutional arrangements and Livelihood impacts.

Data description (abstract)

The main objective of the survey instrument was to assess and analyze the economic impact of the three farming models – plantation/estate, commercial farming, and outgrower – on the local people’s livelihoods and local economy in general. The population of interest consist of both those who are directly involved in these models and those who live in the nearby villages but who may not necessarily engage in the models for various reasons. The survey was administered to a representative sample of the population with the aim to: 1) describe the economic impact of the farming models on the local people’s livelihoods in particular and the local economy in general; 2) undertake a cross-countries comparison of these economic impacts; and 3) enabled the researchers to look at the changes/trends in these economic impacts over time.

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