According to estimates by the International Land Coalition based at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), 57 million hectares of land have been leased to foreign investors since 2007. Current research has focused on human rights issues related to inward investment in land but has been ignorant of water resource issues and the challenges of managing scarce water. This handbook will be the first to address inward investment in land and its impact on water resources in Africa.
The geographical scope of this
book will be the African continent, where land has attracted the attention of risk-taking investors because much land is under-utilised marginalized land, with associated water resources and rapidly growing domestic food markets. The successful implementation of investment strategies in African agriculture could determine the future of more than one billion people. An important factor to note is that Sub-Saharan Africa will, of all the continents, be hit hardest by climate change, population growth and food insecurity. Sensible investment in agriculture is therefore needed, however, at what costs and at whose expense?
The book will also address the livelihoods theme and provide a holistic analysis of land and water grabbing in Sub-Saharan Africa. Four other themes will addressed: politics, economics, environment and the history of land investments in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The editors have involved a highly diverse group of around 25 expert researchers, who will review the pro and anti-investment arguments, geopolitics, the role of capitalist investors, the environmental contexts and the political implications of, and reasons for, leasing millions of hectares in Sub-Saharan Africa. To date, there has been no attempt to review land investments through a suite of different lenses, thus this handbook will differ significantly from existing research and publication.
The editors are Tony Allan, (Professor Emeritus, Department of Geography, School of Oriental and African Studies and King’s College London); Jeroen Warner (Assistant Professor, Disaster Studies, University of Wageningen); Suvi Sojamo (PhD Researcher, Water and Development Research Group, Aalto University); and Martin Keulertz (PhD Researcher, Department of Geography, London Water Group, King’s College London).
Author(s): Allan, John Anthony; Wageningen University,; Aalto University,; Kings College London,
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Year: 2013
Language: English
Pages: 1220
Tags: Food security Africa Investments Foreign Land tenure use Natural resources Water
Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
The editors and contributors
Abbreviations
Introduction: Can improving returns to food-water in Africa meet African food needs and the needs of other consumers?
PART I The history of land grabs and the contradictions of development
1.1 Enclosure revisited: putting the global land rush in historical perspective
1.2 Land alienation under colonial and white settler governments in southern Africa: historical land ‘grabbing’
1.3 Sudan and its agricultural revival: a regional breadbasket at last or another mirage in the desert?
1.4 The contradictions of development: primitive accumulation and geopolitics in the two Sudans
1.5 The experience of land grabbing in Liberia
PART II Investors’ profiles and current investment trends
2.1 Chinese engagement in African agriculture: fiction and fact
2.2 The global food crisis and the Gulf’s quest for Africa’s agricultural potential
2.3 A global enclosure: the geo-logics of Indian agro-investments in Africa
2.4 Private investment in agriculture
2.5 Domestic land acquisition in West Africa: the rush for farmland by urban ‘businessmen’
2.6 ‘Land grabs’ and alternative modalities for agricultural investments in emerging markets
2.7 Change in trend and new types of large-scale investments in Ethiopia
2.8 Tapping into Al-Andaluz resources: opportunities and challenges for investment in Morocco
2.9 A blue revolution for Zambia? Large-scale irrigation projects and land and water ‘grabs’
PART III The political economy of land and water grabs
3.1 Claiming (back) the land: the geopolitics of Egyptian and South African land and water grabs
3.2 Land and water grabs and the green economy
3.3 The political economy of land and water grabs
3.4 Will peak oil cause a rush for land in Africa?
3.5 How to govern the global rush for land and water?
3.6 Keep calm and carry on: what we can learn from the three food price crises of the 1940s, 1970s and 2007–2008
3.7 Constructing a new water future? An analysis of Ethiopia’s current hydropower development
3.8 Inverse globalisation? The global agricultural trade system and Asian investments in African land and water resources
PART IV Environment
4.1 Green and blue water dimensions of foreign direct investment in biofuel and food production in West Africa: the case of Ghana and Mali
4.2 Green and blue water in Africa: how foreign direct investment can support sustainable intensification
4.3 Groundwater in Africa: is there sufficient water to support the intensification of agriculture from ‘land grabs’?
4.4 The water resource implications for and of FDI projects in Africa: a biophysical analysis of opportunity and risk
4.5 Analyse to optimise: sustainable intensification of agricultural production through investment in integrated land and water management in Africa
PART V Livelihoods
5.1 Expectations and implications of the rush for land: understanding the opportunities and risks at stake in Africa
5.2 China–Africa agricultural co-operation, African land tenure reform and sustainable farmland investments
5.3 Competing narratives of land reform in South Sudan
5.4 Struggles and resistance against land dispossession in Africa: an overview
Index
