Author: WHES

Sub-Saharan Africa has become one of the most significant targets for large-scale farmland acquisitions for plantation agriculture and forestry in recent years. While much has been written as to the opportunities and risks of this trend, scant empirical evidence is available as to its magnitude, distribution and underlying drivers.

At the age of four, Henintsoa Rakotoarimanana weighs just 10kg and, at a height of 84cm, is not much larger than a baby. Fed on rice and cassava since he was born, he is now receiving treatment for malnutrition at Maharodaza Nutrition Centre in Manjakandriana, about 30km from Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo.

Today GRAIN is making available a new data set documenting 416 recent, large-scale land grabs by foreign investors for the production of food crops. The cases cover nearly 35 million hectares of land in 66 countries.

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With land central to the livelihoods of millions of people in Africa, Lorenzo Cotula of the International Institute for Environment and Development examines the impact of large-scale land acquisitions on the continent’s farmers.

TSHIKOTA, South Africa — When she moved from a cramped room in a boardinghouse to her very own bungalow on a speck of land here last year, Jeanette Munyai became one of the millions of South Africans given a decent home by an ambitious government program inaugurated at the end of apartheid.

Almost all Kenyans eat maize – an average of almost 100kg each a year – but they pay a lot more for the staple than many of their regional neighbours. The poorest Kenyans now spend over a quarter of their income on the cereal.