Abstract
Land grabbing is a real and significant issue in the current global agenda. The topic is transversal and interdisciplinary, cutting across fields such as development, economics and security (personal, food and land). Large-scale land deals have been in the headlines of major international newspapers since the 2007–2008 global food crisis. Despite the hysteria surrounding these much-publicized deals, the subject has not attracted similar interest among academic circles, even though current global land grabs are consequential to the international political economy.
In this book, Lorenzo Cotula provides a comprehensive overview of the current land grabbing trend and sheds light on its historical roots, drivers and legal constraints, as well as on the main actors involved. Cotula challenges conventional wisdom and deconstructs the narrative embedded in media reports on land acquisition. In the first chapter, he remarks that land grabbing is not a novelty in Africa. It dates back to colonial times and, furthermore, serves to reinforce Africa’s role as a supplier of commodities and raw materials in the global economy.
In the second chapter, Cotula examines the scale, geography and drivers of the current wave of land grabs. According to the author, media reports tend to exaggerate the scale of the phenomenon, ignoring the fact that several announced deals are abandoned before implementation, or that when they materialize, they involve much smaller land surfaces. The reports also focus on investments by the Persian Gulf states and emerging economies, overlooking the role of Western countries and domestic buyers.
Indeed, Gulf states have been active players in land acquisition processes, given that they lack fertile land and need to keep food prices low to avoid popular unrest and political turmoil, both detrimental to authoritarian rule. Emerging economies, such as China and India, are also acquiring large stretches of land in sub-Saharan Africa, mostly for crop production (soy, jatropha and palm oil) and mining, although—unlike the Gulf states—they are not driven by domestic food security concerns, but rather by business promotion opportunities.
Nonetheless, Cotula stresses that Western investors have become key players in land grabbing in Africa, especially since the 2008 crisis, when they started buying shares in agribusiness companies as an alternative to risky financial assets. Western companies have also been active in land acquisition aimed at biofuel production, as a response to the European Union’s Renewable Energy Directive (2009). According to the author, this initiative reveals the interest of European societies in reducing their ‘carbon footprint without fundamentally questioning current consumption patterns’ (p. 174).
Cotula claims that land grabs are legitimized by the ‘idle land’ or ‘empty land’ narrative, which depicts Africa as a continent with plenty of fertile land at the disposal of foreign investors willing to transform the African landscape into dynamic, mechanized, large-scale monocultures. It disregards the fact that there is no such thing as empty land (especially fertile land) in Africa, since local communities occupy most of the land considered ‘empty’ for agricultural production and grazing.
In this context, international institutions and political elites in Africa are the key advocates of land grabs, which are portrayed as an opportunity for agro-industrial development, employment and economic growth. The way land is used by the local population is not regarded as dynamic or profitable for political elites, being that traditional farming is understood as synonymous with ‘backwardness’. By contrast, agribusiness development is seen as a model for developing countries.
In the third chapter, Cotula discusses how national land laws favour large-scale land acquisition, since land belongs to the state in many African countries. Customary land laws tend not to be recognized by the national law system. This undermines the rights of local landholders, who tend to be dispossessed without previous consultation or proper compensation.
In the next chapter, the author identifies the winners and losers of land grabbing. The most affected are the local landholders, who lose their land and have to start a life somewhere else, either by trading their labour for cash or working on distant, unfertile land. As a result, social and spiritual connection with the land is lost, livelihood systems are disrupted and social and cultural relations are transformed
Agricultural investment through large-scale land acquisitions has been encouraged to meet global food security needs. Following a Malthusian logic, projections of population growth and crop yields are contrasted as a way of making land grabs appear as a prerequisite for ‘feeding the world’. However, most of the land involved is being used for biofuels production, which contradicts the role of land acquisitions as a means of increasing food production.
Cotula challenges this ‘feeding the world’ discourse, claiming that
the polarized debates about the land rush ultimately reflect competing visions of the future of world agriculture, and particularly about the roles of small- and large-scale farming. They also reflect different views on how to manage the complex relationship between promoting economic development and respecting local rights. (p. 5)
Regardless of the book’s critical tone, Cotula is careful enough not to confuse land acquisition with agricultural investment. According to the author, agricultural investment is more than just the transfer of land rights and implies contributions in terms of infrastructure, capital and know-how. As far as agrarian development in Africa is concerned, what is important is not banning foreign investment from African agriculture, but rather preventing this investment from disrupting local livelihoods.