Resource information
New commercial pressures on land and its impact on small producers is one of the major issues being discussed in both national and international arenas. As foreign states and corporate entities continue to exert pressures on African countries to acquire land for various investment purposes, Tanzania is not exempted. The country is stereotypically perceived as having large underutilized, or rather unexploited, fertile land – the so-called ‗virgin land‘. Official, that is, conventional, statistics back up such claims and a number of leaders at the national level tend to use them to lure potential foreign investors. Similarly, investors use these statistics to justify their ventures.
Given the growing interest in African farmland and its associated impact on livelihoods of rural communities, the Land Rights Research and Resources Institute (HAKIARDHI) through the support of Oxfam‘s Pan-Africa Economic Justice Desk in Tanzania undertook this exploratory study on the current state of the so-called ‗New Land Grab‘ in Africa. To that end the research team was tasked to gather facts, trends, processes and challenges in regard to large scale land acquisitions with a view to produce this ocassional paper for awareness raising and policy engagement on land rights within the country and widely across the Horn of Africa, East and Central Africa region.
