Includes good for corporations, bad for producers; the push for corporate food systems in Africa; the UK’s role; towards food sovereignty; recommendations for the UK government. Concludes that the expansion of corporate control over African food and agriculture, under the guise of tackling hunger, is taking power and resources away from African producers and will further impoverish the continent’s people. The UK and other governments must end their support for initiatives which assist this corporate takeover.

There are gender-differentiated impacts when land is harnessed for commercial investment. Land policy needs to address the gendered nature of power relations within families and land tenure systems, and the implications of rural social relations on processes of community consultation, land management and dispute settlement. Without this, land investment policies will not reach their goals of tenure security for all, agricultural productivity and increased revenue.

Despite growing research on land deals in Ethiopia, there is still uncertainty on the real scale and features of the phenomenon, and some misperceptions continue to shape public debates. Report discusses the findings of a systematic inventory of land deals for agricultural investment in Ethiopia. It describes the scale, geography, drivers and key features of large-scale deals. It also discusses findings relating to the early outcomes of the deals.