The workshop gathered over 50 participants, and presentations on issues on Large-scale Land Acquisitions in the South were given by international and Norwegian experts. Below are the presentations held at the workshop.
Derek Byerlee
Changing Roles of Foreign Investors and Smallholders in Tropical Plantation Agriculture: The Long View
Liz Alden Wily
Rights or Revenue: The Old Conundrum Revisited
Mads Asprem, Green Resources
Large-scale Land Acquisitions in the South. Plantation WIN-WIN
Stein T. Holden
New International Land Governance Responses to Rising Demand for Land in Africa
The program for the workshop is published here: http://www.umb.no/statisk/clts/workshop/workshop.pdf
The demand for agricultural land increased dramatically in 2007/2008 with the sharp increase in international food and energy prices. This effect was most dramatic in Africa where demand for new land rose 40x the average demand for new land per year in the previous 30 years. International investors were important new agents on this arena and many very large commercial farms have been established.
Is this a development opportunity for Africa and can it contribute to poverty reduction or can it lead to marginalization of the poor that risk being alienated from their land? What can we learn from history of commercial farming in the tropics? What can we learn about the status of customary land rights? How can we design land tenure reforms that achieve win-win-win benefits in form of economic growth, poverty reduction and sustainable land management?
