The series of studies discussed in this overview pull together updated information about large-scale land acquisitions in the region, with the aim of identifying trends, common threats, divergences and possible solutions. As well as summarising trends in investment, trade, crop development and land tenure arrangements, the studies focus on the land tenure and human rights challenges.

One of the effects of the food price crisis on the world food system is the increasing acquisition of farmland in developing countries by other countries seeking to ensure their food supplies.This brief analyses the pros and cons of land acquisitions in developing countries by capital rich economies. It argues that acquisitions have the potential to inject much needed investment into agriculture and rural areas in poor developing countries resulting into creation of farm and off-farm jobs and development of rural infrastructure.

This paper reviews recent policy and practice to secure access to land for poor people. Emphasis is on Africa, Latin America and Asia, while reference also is made to Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.Despite the widely different observations from the various places, the paper identifies some general trends and challenges. These include: pressure on land is set to increase over future decades, given the impact of continued population growth, urbanisation, globalisation of markets, and climate change;

Market solutions based on the trade of carbon offset credits remain a dominant feature in international climate change negotiations. This paper undertakes a preliminary assessment of potential of climate change mitigation projects by evaluating Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects related to agriculture and land use change in Latin America. Results suggest that potential benefits of carbon markets in the agriculture and forestry sectors are often overstated, with failures in the areas of additionality, project accountability and sustainable development.

This paper examines the marginalization of women's land rights by governmental institutions and rural women's movements in Brazil.

Modeling of crop supply frequently adopts separate treatment of area and yield variables. The advantage of this approach is that it conveniently imposes the property of land being a quasi-fixed factor, at least on the aggregate. Given an agricultural land frontier, total supply of land may be fixed in the short run. Various crop multi-market models either ignore this property, thus foregoing the advantage of the area x yield formulation, or impose the aggregate land constraint in an ad hoc fashion.

Carrying capacity (CC) is a term often talked about in relation to livestock in the communal areas (CAs). It is the source of much confusion. This discussion paper will hopefully clarify some of the issues and make the implications for the policy debate clearer. It is based on the preliminary findings of field work carried out in Zvisharane District during 1986 and 1987.

This document summarises the proceedings from a conference organised by International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) , Natural Resource insitute (NRI) and the Royal African Society in November 2004.The conference brought together a wide range of interest groups including, African policy makers, academics and civil society representatives, as well as representatives of the private sector and international agencies, to debate the way ahead for land rights and land reforms in Africa.

The advance of the agricultural frontier constitutes the biggest source of deforestation in Central America today. This conversion of tropical forests into agricultural land and pasture is the direct result of individual land use decisions. This paper presents a simple analytical model of household land use, followed by an econometric analysis of household survey data from the Río San Juan region of Nicaragua in order to test for consistency with the model.

This brief explores the reform of land tenure institutions which re-emerged in the 1990s, and asks if these reforms are any more gender sensitive than those of the past?The paper highlights that a focus of the recent reforms has been on land titling, designed to promote security of tenure and stimulate land markets. The reforms have often been driven by domestic and external neoliberal coalitions, with funding from global and regional organisations which have argued that private property rights are essential for a dynamic agricultural sector.

There is a common view and belief that women are the ones that do the farming in Africa while the men do not work much. This paper seeks to find explanations to why land productivity is lower on land rented out by female landlord households than on land rented out by male landlord households in the Ethiopian highlands. The authors find that female landlords have tenants who are older, own less oxen, are more related, and under longer-term contracts.

This working paper reviews historical and current factors and patterns affecting land use, land tenure, resource access, human settlement, and conflicts over resource access and tenure in the districts around Mt. Elgon in Kenya and Uganda. The paper draws on a series of interviews conducted with government officials in the districts along with other support sources such as paper maps and existing GIS databases.Based on this approach, the common findings from this study in the current setting of land tenure and land management are: