Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS)

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The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) engages in research, training, policy development and advocacy in relation to land and agrarian reform, rural governance and natural resource management. It is committed to social change that empowers the poor, builds democracy and enhances sustainable livelihoods.

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Africa's land rush: rural livelihoods and agrarian change
(James Currey, 2015) Hall, Ruth; Scoones, Ian; Tsikata, Dzodzi
This book is 'the most historically grounded, lucid and nuanced understanding to date of the complex political economy of the contemporary rush for land in Africa' according to Professor Adebayo Olukoshi, Director of of the United Nations Institute for Development. Africa's Land Rush explores the processes through which land deals are being made; the implications for agrian structure, rural livelihoods and food security; and the historical context for changing land uses. The case studies reveal that these land grabs may resonate with, even resurrect, forms of production associated with the colonial and early independence eras. Based on interviews with the investors, goverment, authorities, workers, outgrowers and smallholder farmers in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and the Congo, the book depicts the striking diversity of such deals.
Agricultural investment, gender and land in Africa: Towards inclusive equitable and socially responsible investment
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2014) Hall, Ruth; Osorio, Martha
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations; the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa; the Future Agricultures Consortium (FAC); and the Land Policy Initiative (LPI) of the African Union; the African Development Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), co-hosted a multi-stakeholder conference in Cape Town, South Africa, 5–7 March 2014. The conference was attended by representatives of governments, the private sector, civil society, producer organisations, development partners, donors and academics from the following countries: Ghana, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Italy, Uganda, Canada, United States and the United Kingdom. The conference was a forum for in-depth discussions and sharing of experiences on land-related agricultural investments. Participants deliberated on which approaches to agricultural investments can benefit African states and their citizens. Presenters shared qualitative and quantitative evidence on investments, along with country-based case studies, and the conference culminated in recommendations by sectoral and multi-sectoral working groups on actions required to promote inclusive, equitable and socially responsible investments in Africa.
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA and the occupation of the Guinea Savannah
(2015) Greenberg, Stephen
The US, EU and African agricultural modernisation G8 New Alliance on Food Security and Nutrition (NAFSN), USAID and US foreign policy AGRA – Gate Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation – philanthro-capitalism Corporate drivers – Monsanto, Syngenta, Yara and many others Gates – Monsanto shares, proprietary (privately-owned) technologies Rockefeller – CGIAR institutions (2nd food regime) World Bank – Guinea Savannah – “600 million ha ripe for commercial farming”
The biofuels boom and bust in Africa: A timely lesson for the New Alliance initiative
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2015) Sulle, Emmanuel
Policies promoting biofuels development through financial incentives in Europe and in the United States of America are major drivers of the ‘land rush’ in many African countries. Yet, we know that most of the first projects have not achieved their intended objectives on the ground. Amidst these controversial and failed investments, which continue to hold large tracts of land in Africa, the G8 initiative called the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition is trying to attract substantial new private investment in agriculture in ten African countries. The New Alliance focuses on public-private investments, with host governments offering large tracts of land to investors. These land-based investments follow similar patterns to unrealised ambitions of biofuels investments. Given the evidence of negative impacts of biofuels investments on rural communities’ access to and control of land, water and forests, the New Alliance implementing partners need to consider lessons from the biofuels rush, and take different pathways to avoid such impacts.
Commercial farming and agribusiness in South Africa and their changing roles in Africa’s agro-food system
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2015) Hall, Ruth; Cousins, Ben
Our paper is on commercial farming and agribusiness in South Africa and their changing roles in Africa’s agro-food system, as a response to debates and theoretical propositions about internal agrarian change in BRICS countries and their relations with other middle-income countries and the old hubs of capital. South Africa is of course an outlier among the BRICS group of countries, given its far smaller economy, and was included only in 2010, as the only candidate that could be seen as economically and politically dominant in Africa – though by last year, Nigeria had overtaken South Africa as the largest economy in Africa.
A decade of fisheries co-management in Africa: Going back to the roots? Empowering fishing communities? Or just an illusion?
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2002) Hara, Mafaniso; Nielsen, Jesper R
This paper provides an overview of co-management in Africa and the historical, political and paradigmatic reasons for the shift. The historical context is important when analysing the performance of the regime. The main reasons why co-management is being increasingly adopted in Africa are explained by analysing the objectives hereof. The paper evaluates what is meant by co-management in the African context using the variety of types of user involvement in practice and the standard continuum of possible arrangements under the co-management regime. Next, it will look at how co-management is being implemented, including whether it is achieving the objectives it is supposed to achieve. The final section will discuss and draw some lessons from the co-management experience on the continent. The paper draws on experiences from southern Africa (Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe), East Africa (Lake Victoria grouping ñ Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) and West Africa (Benin, Congo, Ivory Coast, Senegal, etc.) where co-management arrangements in fisheries have been or are in the process of being implemented. In most of these countries, fisheries co-management is a relatively new approach that has only been formally introduced in the last five to eight years. The comparative analysis of the cases at this early stage could give indications of what seem to be the critical issues in the planning and implementation of fisheries co-management arrangements in Africa.
Experience of ‘hybrid organisations in promoting meaningful rural livelihoods: Lessons from Africa, India and the Americas
(2010) Scott-Goldman, Judy; Rubambey, Grace; Asiago, Joel; Kingman, Andrew; Goldman, Ian
A Ford Foundation Rural Livelihoods Learning Group carried out a study into ‘hybrid’ organisations and strategies between July 2008 and September 2009. Twenty –one case studies were completed of hybrid organisations spread over India, Africa, North, Central and Latin America. The paper describes the services offered by the eight African case studies ranging from micro-finance, business development services to value chain development, and draws out the approach and characteristics of hybrid organisations as identified in the global study. Hybrid organisations offer multiple services, either internally or through partnerships, in order to build a comprehensive systemic response to multiple needs. Success requires the ability to create access to assets, to build agency and voice of individuals and communities, to support the development of secure livelihoods through technological, business and market improvement and relevant training, and changing the rules of the game to make them work more in favour of the poor.
Exporting contradictions: the expansion of South African agrarian capital within Africa
(Taylor & Francis, 2017) Hall, Ruth; Cousins, Ben
Agrarian change in South Africa over the past two decades has seen consolidation of the hegemony of large-scale commercial farming and corporate agribusiness within agro-food systems. Constrained domestic demand and growth opportunities elsewhere have driven both farming and agribusiness capitals to move into other African countries, attempting to reproduce agro-food systems similarly centred on the dominance of large capital. This is evident in five areas: first, the financialization of agriculture and ‘farmland funds’; second, multinational and South African input supply industries; third, large-scale land deals to expand industrial farming systems; fourth, the export of South African companies’ food processing, manufacture, logistics and distribution operations; and fifth, the expanding reach of South African supermarkets and fast food chains. Regional expansion involves South African agrarian capital encountering substantial obstacles to entry, and challenges mounted by competitors in destination markets. Success as a regional hegemon in Africa’s agro-food system is thus far from assured, and even where it does appear to succeed, generates contradictions, and rising social tensions of the kinds experienced in South Africa itself.
The implications of the mobility of South African capital for rural youth in Africa: The case of Zambian sugar
(2015) Hakizimana, Cyriaque
 Developing young people as independent farmers and producers, capable to establish land-based livelihood at their own and on their own terms, seems to be the most desirable option to ensure the rural futures of rural young people in Africa.
Inclusive business models in agriculture? Learning from smallholder cane growers in Mozambique
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2014) Sulle, Emmanuel; Hall, Ruth; Paradza, Gaynor
Amidst the increasing corporate investment in African farmland the term ‘inclusive business model’ has become a catchphrase touted as an opportunity for incorporating smallholder farmers alongside large-scale commercial farming projects. Inclusive business models require an enabling institutional and regulatory framework. Such frameworks now exist at the international level: the African Union Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa and FAO Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance on the Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forest in the Context of National Food Security provide a starting point. If translated and implemented, these guidelines can help develop transparent and accountable mechanisms that enable and strengthen the participation of smallholder farmers in the process of commercialisation, such as in the sugar industry in Mozambique. To enable equitable partnerships between corporate investors and small-scale farmers, governments need to prioritise public investment in agriculture, including research and development, that helps smallholder farmers increase and diversify their agricultural produce. Smallholders’ access to, ownership of and control over land and other resources should be secured. Based on our analysis of current large-scale sugar estates and milling companies, as well as smallholder involvement as outgrowers in the Mozambican sugar industry, this policy brief interrogates policy and suggests mechanisms for enabling and strengthening smallholder farmers’ participation in and securing returns from large scale investments.
International and regional guidelines on land governance and land-based investments: An agenda for African states
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2014) Sulle, Emmanuel; Hall, Ruth
Global and regional guidelines have been developed in the period 2009–2014 to improve land governance in the context of large-scale land acquisitions in developing countries. These provide an opportunity for affected countries to make necessary reforms to mitigate negative impacts of such acquisitions. They also challenge governments, private companies and rural communities to know their rights and responsibilities and to act on them. Many African countries are yet to fully implement land and other natural resources policy frameworks developed by the African Union (AU) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). These require states to strengthen the rights of rural populations to access, control and own such resources and to decentralise land administration. To date, rural communities in many countries lack proper knowledge about their rights and responsibilities; the roles of public and private sector and civil society – in their national policies; and legal frameworks governing natural resources.
Making investment work for Africa: A parliamentarian response to “land grabs”
(Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2011) PLAAS
A new wave of foreign investment in Africa’s farmland and water was triggered in 2008 by the growing demand in Europe and North America for biofuels, spikes in oil prices, the global food crisis and the world financial crisis. Widespread media coverage and a series of studies by the UN, World Bank, universities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), confirmed the scale and consequences. In its report Rising Global Interest in Farmland, the World Bank reported that land deals in Africa amounted to 32 million hectares in 2009 alone, larger than the total land area of Ghana or the United Kingdom. The countries that leased the most land to investors were Sudan (4 million hectares), Mozambique (2.7 million hectares), Liberia (1.6 million hectares) and Ethiopia (between 1.3 and 3.6 million hectares). Africa’s 832 million inhabitants represent 13 per cent of the world’s population but account for only 1 per cent of global gross domestic product and 2 per cent of world trade. The prevalence of people living on less than one dollar a day still remains a serious obstacle to development. More than 70 per cent of poor people live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.
Multilateral environmental agreements and land and resource rights in Africa
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2004) Saruchera, Munyaradzi; Kameri-Mbote, Patricia
Many African countries are signatories to a number of international and regional environmental treaties. These include the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the World Heritage Convention, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Governments should meet their legal obligations under these treaties in such a way that the land and resource rights of the poor in their countries are not compromised.
Narratives of scarcity: Framing the global land rush
(Elsevier, 2019) Scoones, Ian; Smalley, Rebecca; Hall, Ruth; Tsikata, Dzodzi
Global resource scarcity has become a central policy concern, with predictions of rising populations, natural resource depletion and hunger. The narratives of scarcity that arise as a result justify actions to harness resources considered ‘underutilised’, leading to contestations over rights and entitlements and producing new scarcities. Yet scarcity is contingent, contextual, relational and above all political. We present an analysis of three framings – absolute, relative and political scarcity – associated with the intellectual traditions of Malthus, Ricardo and Marx, respectively. A review of 134 global and Africa-specific policy and related sources demonstrates how diverse framings of scarcity – what it is, its causes and what is to be done – are evident in competing narratives that animate debates about the future of food and farming in Africa and globally. We argue that current mainstream narratives emphasise absolute and relative scarcity, while ignoring political scarcity. Opening up this debate, with a more explicit focus on political scarcities is, we argue, important; emphasising how resources are distributed between different needs and uses, and so different people and social classes. For African settings, seen as both a source of abundant resources and a site where global scarcities may be resolved, as well as where local scarcities are being experienced most acutely, a political scarcity framing on the global land rush, and resource questions more broadly, is, we suggest, essential.
Narratives of scarcity: Framing the global land rush
(Elsevier, 2019) Scoones, Ian; Smalley, Rebecca; Hall, Ruth
Global resource scarcity has become a central policy concern, with predictions of rising populations, naturalresource depletion and hunger. The narratives of scarcity that arise as a result justify actions to harness resourcesconsidered‘underutilised’, leading to contestations over rights and entitlements and producing new scarcities.Yet scarcity is contingent, contextual, relational and above all political. We present an analysis of three framings–absolute, relative and political scarcity–associated with the intellectual traditions of Malthus, Ricardo andMarx, respectively. A review of 134 global and Africa-specific policy and related sources demonstrates howdiverse framings of scarcity–what it is, its causes and what is to be done–are evident in competing narrativesthat animate debates about the future of food and farming in Africa and globally. We argue that currentmainstream narratives emphasise absolute and relative scarcity, while ignoring political scarcity. Opening upthis debate, with a more explicit focus on political scarcities is, we argue, important; emphasising how resourcesare distributed between different needs and uses, and so different people and social classes. For African settings,seen as both a source of abundant resources and a site where global scarcities may be resolved, as well as wherelocal scarcities are being experienced most acutely, a political scarcity framing on the global land rush, andresource questions more broadly, is, we suggest, essential.
Nepad, land and resource rights
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2004) Saruchera, Munyaradzi; Omoweh, Daniel A
The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) is an overarching programme for revitalising Africa’s fortunes. It has a visionary tone, yet the way that it proposes to overcome Africa’s underdevelopment uncritically adopts neo-liberal policy prescriptions that have repeatedly been shown not to work in Africa. Because it has been designed around promoting international foreign investment and attracting Western donors, Nepad may not address the real needs of the African rural poor or deal with the core problems hindering Africa’s development. By supporting the interests of multinational corporations, Nepad risks opening the continent up to further exploitation and degradation. Other problems that have been identified include the lack of civil society participation in its formulation. In spite of all of the problems associated with the programme, it is incumbent upon civil society to engage with Nepad and influence its development and ensure that land and resource rights for the poor are enhanced.
The new alliance on food security and nutrition: what are the implications for Africa’s youth?
(Future Agricultures Consortium, 2016) Hakizimana, Cyriaque
Young people are a growing proportion of Africa’s population and most live in poverty in rural areas. Despite urbanisation, in absolute numbers the rural youth are growing and agricultural development needs to prioritise opportunities for them to create land-based livelihoods. Large-scale land-based investments that allocate land and water to private companies are often justified with the promise of job creation, but typically create fewer jobs than the land-based livelihoods that they displace. Private investments in agriculture need to be designed to create opportunities for young people to create livelihoods for themselves and their families, both in primary production and also in upstream and downstream enterprises. Implementation of the New Alliance on Food Security and Nutrition needs to avoid large-scale land-based investments and facilitate the process of developing young people as independent farmers and producers capable of establishing landbased and rural non-farm livelihoods on their own, and on their own terms.
The New Alliance on food security and nutrition: What are the implications for Africa’s youth?
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2016) Hakizimana, Cyriaque
The ‘New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition’ (hereafter the ‘New Alliance’) is a partnership which was established between selected African countries, G8 members, and the private sector to ‘work together to accelerate investments in agriculture to improve productivity, livelihoods and food security for smallholder farmers.’ Announced by President Obama at the 2012 G8 Summit, the initiative aims at the fundamental transformation of Africa’s agriculture through market mechanisms based on large-scale land-based investments. Its pioneers anticipated that the initiative would simultaneously increase food production/ availability and food accessibility/affordability through market conduits, thereby lifting millions of rural Africans out of poverty.
Plantations, outgrowers and commercial farming in Africa: agricultural commercialisation and implications for agrarian change
(Taylor & Francis OA, 2017) Hall, Ruth; Scoones, Ian; Tsikata, Dzodzi
Whether or not investments in African agriculture can generate quality employment at scale, avoid dispossessing local people of their land, promote diversified and sustainable livelihoods, and catalyse more vibrant local economies depends on what farming model is pursued. In this Forum, we build on recent scholarship by discussing the key findings of our recent studies in Ghana, Kenya and Zambia. We examined cases of three models of agricultural commercialisation, characterised by different sets of institutional arrangements that link land, labour and capital. The three models are: plantations or estates with on-farm processing; contract farming and outgrower schemes; and medium-scale commercial farming areas. Building on core debates in the critical agrarian studies literature, we identify commercial farming areas and contract farming as producing the most local economic linkages, and plantations/estates as producing more jobs, although these are of low quality and mostly casual. We point to the gender and generational dynamics emerging in the three models, which reflect the changing demand for family and wage labour. Models of agricultural commercialisation do not always deliver what is expected of them in part because local conditions play a critical role in the unfolding outcomes for land relations, labour regimes, livelihoods and local economies.
Regional fish trade in Africa: Potential for food security, reducing poverty and fisheries management
(2015) Hara, Mafaniso
Sub-Saharan Africa: context • One of the regions in the world suffering from high rates of hunger and poverty. • 26% of the world’s hungry people were located in sub-Saharan Africa in 2010 (FAO and WFP,2010) • Chronic hunger (malnutrition) is rising in absolute and relative terms, while access to adequate food is a challenge to large populations • While there are increasing efforts to increase production and access of staple cereals, there is limited attention to improved availability and access to fish and fish products

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