In 2008;the world food crisis shifted agricultural investment to countries with productive land and cheap labour. The Nacala Corridor;one of the most fertile and populated areas of Mozambique;was heavily affected. At least 38 companies linked to large-scale agriculture;forestry and animal husbandry settled in the region. Thousands of peasant farmers were dispossessed of their land and are still waiting for the promises of a better life to come true. This web documentary seeks to give a voice to some of those affected by this land grab.

Indigenous and community lands, crucial for rural livelihoods, are typically held under informal customary arrangements. This can leave the land vulnerable to outside commercial interests, so communities may seek to formalize their land rights in a government registry and obtain an official land document. But this process is often time-consuming, complex and costly and, in contrast, companies can acquire land relatively quickly and find short-cuts around regulatory burdens.

GRAIN has documented at least 135 farmland deals for food crop production that have backfired between 2007 and 2017. They represent 17.5 million hectares. These are not failed land grabs, since the land almost never goes back to the communities, but failed agribusiness projects. While higher standards of due diligence and stronger forms of liability are surely needed, the real challenge is to get the land back to the communities. No one should rest until that is achieved.