A Case Study of Selected Agricultural Investments in Northern Tanzania (2013)

For early reports, see FAO’s Corporate Document Repository

In 2003, the Maputo Declaration of the African Union stated that, within five years, 10 per cent of budgets of member states would be dedicated to agriculture. Ten years on, despite spending increases by some countries African governments still allocate an average of only 4 per cent of their national budgets to agriculture. Only eight out of 54 countries under the African Union have consistently reached the 10 per cent target.

"For millions of people living in the world’s poorest countries, access to land is a matter not of wealth, but of survival, identity and belonging. Most of the 1.4 billion people earning less than US$1.25 a day live in rural areas and depend largely on agriculture for their livelihoods, while an estimated 2.5 billion people are involved in full- or part-time smallholder agriculture.

In line with the conventional view that customary land rights impede agricultural development, the traditional tenure system in Nigeria has been perceived to obstruct the achievement of efficient development and agricultural transformation. This led to the Land Use Act (LUA) of 1978.

Food First Backgrounder, Spring 2014, Vol. 20, No. 1

Introduction: Land, Race and the Agrarian Crisis

The disastrous effects of widespread land grabbing and land concentration sweeping the globe do not affect all farmers equally. The degree of vulnerability to these threats is highest for smallholders, women and people of color—the ones who grow, harvest, process and prepare most of the world’s food.

This Regional Law establishes cases of allotment free of charge in ownership of the plots of land pertaining to state or municipal property.

This Regional Law regulates relations concerning turnover of agricultural land and shares of agricultural land in common property. Minimum land area of consolidated agricultural land plot shall be 0.5 ha. Maximum agricultural land area within the boundaries of a single administrative-territorial unit that can be owned by a single family with close relatives or by a single legal person of which make part a single family with close relatives shall not exceed 10 percent of total agricultural land area.

This Regional Law establishes plenary powers of state bodies in the sphere of state support of gardening, horticulture, subsidiary smallholding and non-commercial associations thereof. The scope of this Regional Law shall be as follows: (a) improvement of the efficiency of land tenure; (b) promotion of gardening, horticulture and subsidiary smallholding; (c) meeting the demand of regional population in agricultural commodities, vegetables and fruits; and (d) creation of favourable conditions for collective gardening, horticulture and smallholding.

At the turn of the 21st century, farmland was still considered an investment backwater by most of the financial sector. Although some insurance companies have had farmland holdings for years, most financial investors found farmland, and agricultural investment in general, unappealing compared to the much higher returns to be made in financial markets.

Introduction: Farmland, A Safe Investment in Troubling Financial Times

28 May 2014

GRAIN | La Vía Campesina

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Article 1 shall be amended to add the following wording: “Orphaned children and children legally free shall have the right of allotment on condition of ownership free of charge of public land for individual housing construction in rural areas, gardening, horticulture and subsidiary smallholding”.

Amends: Regional Law No. 7/2008-OZ “On some issues of legal regulation of land relations”. (2009-06-04)

Friends of the Earth’s report, ‘What’s your pension funding? How UK institutional investors finance the global land grab’, highlights the investments of UK institutional investors, such as British Airways Pension Fund, Legal & General and Standard Life, in companies accused of grabbing land, destroying the environment, and undermining sustainable livelihoods.