The Global Land Rush and Agricultural Investment in Ghana: Existing Knowledge, Gaps, and Future Directions | Land Portal

Información del recurso

Date of publication: 
Enero 2023
Resource Language: 
ISBN / Resource ID: 
LP-midp003011
Copyright details: 
© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article

The large-scale acquisition of land by investors intensified following the 2007/2008 triple crises of food, energy, and finance. In the years that followed, tens of millions of hectares of land were leased or sold for agricultural investment. This phenomenon has resulted in a growing body of scholarship that seeks to explain trends, institutional regimes, impacts, and the variety of actors involved, among other subtopics, such as impacts on food security and livelihoods. Focusing on the case study of Ghana, this paper presents a review that uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to critically assess the state of large-scale land acquisitions for agricultural development in Ghana. Our objective in this review is to provide an overview of what we know about such acquisitions in Ghana while pointing to gaps and directions for future research. Contrary to the perception of large-scale land acquisitions being undertaken by foreign investors, the review shows there is a significant role of Ghanaian investors. Additionally, we found the negative impact of these acquisitions, specifically biofuel projects, which featured predominantly in the literature captured in this study. In addition, the role of traditional authorities (chiefs) was a central focus of studies dedicated to land acquisitions in Ghana. Areas that are either understudied or missing from the literature include conflicts, climate change, biodiversity, corporate social responsibility, gendered social differentiation, ethnicity, and the role of diaspora. These gaps call for future research that examines the land question from a multidimensional and multidisciplinary perspective.

Autores y editores

Author(s), editor(s), contributor(s): 

Anku, JohnAndrews, NathanCochrane, Logan

Corporate Author(s): 
Publisher(s): 

MDPI AG, a publisher of open-access scientific journals, was spun off from the Molecular Diversity Preservation International organization. It was formally registered by Shu-Kun Lin and Dietrich Rordorf in May 2010 in Basel, Switzerland, and maintains editorial offices in China, Spain and Serbia. MDPI relies primarily on article processing charges to cover the costs of editorial quality control and production of articles. Over 280 universities and institutes have joined the MDPI Institutional Open Access Program; authors from these organizations pay reduced article processing charges.

Proveedor de datos

MDPI AG, a publisher of open-access scientific journals, was spun off from the Molecular Diversity Preservation International organization. It was formally registered by Shu-Kun Lin and Dietrich Rordorf in May 2010 in Basel, Switzerland, and maintains editorial offices in China, Spain and Serbia. MDPI relies primarily on article processing charges to cover the costs of editorial quality control and production of articles. Over 280 universities and institutes have joined the MDPI Institutional Open Access Program; authors from these organizations pay reduced article processing charges.

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