Focuses on the situation of farm workers after the fast-track land resettlement programme, including issues of housing and tenure security. Includes presentations from GAPWUZ, FCTZ, and some researchers, and a report of the discussions. Annexes contain full presentations. Recommendations include that under-utilised land be made available to farm workers. The Portfolio Committee on Agriculture has since asked FCTZ to facilitate public hearings on the issue in January 2006.

African agriculture is in a phase of rapid commercialisation. Planners and investors in sub-Saharan Africa urgently need to consider how the choice of business model, the local context and the political environment affect outcomes of commercial ventures. Lessons from history have contemporary relevance.

Through the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, G8 countries are seeking to mobilise the private sector and multi-national corporations to boost African agriculture. Looks at how African countries are engaging with the New Alliance. Argues that large-scale acquisitions of land for corporate agriculture, which may result from New Alliance projects, pose a serious challenge for local markets and smallholder farmers. Underlying assumptions need to be challenged.

Includes key messages; context of the voluntary guidelines and frameworks – AU Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa, World Bank Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment, FAO Voluntary Guidelines on Land, Fisheries and Forests, CFS Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems; experiences from rural Africa – Tanzania, Malawi, Namibia; implementation challenges – state sovereignty, weak state institutions, protection of the rights of marginalised groups, private sector commitment, lack of adequate resources and lead institution; policy recommend

Includes background information; government policies on agriculture and land use; challenges in land planning; landlessness, investment and market driven land planning; the Uganda Land Alliance work on natural resources and land use planning; examples of environmental and industrialization conflicts; recommendations and conclusion.

Critical reflections on the concepts, issues and methods that are important for integrating a gender perspective into mainstream research and policy-making on land and agricultural commercialisation in Africa. Informed by case studies in Kenya, Ghana and Zambia. Compares key gender issues that arise across plantation, contract farming and small- and medium-scale commercial farming. Discusses how concepts and research methods derived from the literature may be applied to mainstream research. Highlights the need for an integrated approach to researching gender and agrarian change in Africa.

One of the new government’s major policy priorities has to be to get agriculture moving as a motor of growth. The long-running issue of outstanding compensation payments has meant that international donors and financiers have not engaged with land reform areas, missing out on supporting major development opportunities. People on the resettlement farms are producing significant quantities of food and other agricultural products. Recent figures make it clear how vital they are to Zimbabwe’s struggling economy. So quick resolution of the compensation issue is essential.

Recent years have seen a new wave of large-scale acquisitions of farmland for plantation agriculture in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Less tangible changes are also taking place. In a globalised world, land governance is increasingly shaped by international law, developments in which law are shifting the balance between competing land claims and between private interests and public authority. International developments are also creating new spaces for contestation and accountability.

Drawing on 18 years of research, offers these 10 priorities for getting agriculture moving again: land tenure, finance, partnerships, government loans, access to marketing, value addition, smart support systems, irrigation, mechanisation, local economic development.

Asks are people better off in the new resettlements, a decade after they had moved, compared to the communal areas? To probe this question in more depth, in 2012 Blasio Mavedzenge, Felix Murimbarimba and Jacob Mahenehene and Ian Scoones undertook a survey in some nearby communal areas in parallel with the resurvey of the land reform sites. A complex story emerges in these 5 blogs showing that the resettlements are not simply an extension of the communal lands, but are different on a variety of fronts, with important implications for the future.

On the basis of work in Masvingo Province since 2000, and as part of an ongoing regional project on Livelihoods after Land Reform in Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, offers challenges to 5 oft-repeated myths, that: Zimbabwean land reform has been a total failure; the beneficiaries of Zimbabwean land reform have been largely political ‘cronies’; there is no investment in the new resettlements; agriculture is in complete ruins; the rural economy has collapsed.

In Mozambique, changes in land access and use are shaping new landscapes, often at the expense of the poor. Despite progressive land legislation, elite groups and vested interests are consolidating land holdings while peasant producers are being dispossessed of their land and access to fertile plots is becoming increasingly difficult. As national and foreign investors seek land for housing, real estate, agriculture, tourism, mining and forestry, what is the state’s role in responding to these increased demands?