Hall, Ruth. "Land grabbing in Southern Africa: the many faces of the investor rush". Review of African Political Economy, Vol.38, No.128 (2011): 193-214.

Hall, Ruth. "Land grabbing in Southern Africa: the many faces of the investor rush". Review of African Political Economy, Vol.38, No.128 (2011): 193-214.

• 'Land grabbing' in the context of contemporary Africa typically refers to the movement in the mid-2000s of foreign companies purchasing large amounts of African land for producing crops from export and biofuel. These firms, usually Chinese, Indian, South Korean, or Gulf Arab, lease large tracks of African farms to profit if global food prices increase (194).
• The dynamic of these land purchases, were foreigners acquire the rights to export food grown in Africa using African labor, has been described as neo-colonial in nature (194).
• Land use in the territories sold to foreign corporations has also been a major issue in African 'land grabbing', as much of the land sold was actually being farmed or otherwise exploited by local people who are dispossessed by the land sale. On a continent dependent on small-scale farmers for sustenance, this is a major hazard (194).
• The author draws on the work of Drs. Borras and Franco, who outline four major types of changes occurring in land usage: type A is the change from domestic food production to food export; type B is a switch from domestic food production to biofuel export; type C is cultivation of food on previously uncultivated land; type D is biofuel cultivation on that land (195).
• Empirical data from southern Africa would suggest that this framework is not sufficient, and that two additional categories of land use need to be added. A type E for biofuel production on forest land, and a type F for transfer of public land for lumbering or extractive industries (203-204).
• The first contemporary land rush in southern Africa was over land to produce biofuels, driving by EU goals on renewables consumption. Many southern African countries got on board with this idea, hoping to reduce their own dependence on foreign oil reserves. Both smallholders and large farms have grown sugar cane, jatropha, and palm oil for processing into biofuel across southern Africa (197).
• Investment in biofuel production also led to food production, as in the case of a 2009 lease by Korean firm Daewood of nearly half of Madagascar's agricultural land to meet Korea's biofuel needs and food needs (197).
• Many of the biofuel deals, particularly in Mozambique have failed actually benefit the domestic economy. Despite high hopes that jatropha production would make the country oil independent, the land deals have not resulted in substantial job creation nor domestic consumption (197).
• As oil prices underwent increases following the 2008 financial crisis, the profitability of biofuel production has been increasingly called into question. Lack of profit has resulted in diminished investment, leaving biofuel production concentrated among only a small number of large farms (197).
• Extractive industries, particularly mining or oil and gas production, make up a substantial proportion of land grabbing southern Africa; it is one of the forms most supported by governments, who profit from the exchange and are willing to deploy military force to remove people using the claimed land (198).
• "What is being grabbed is not only the land but also the water and the minerals and, I would argue, the cheap labour with which to exploit these" (207).
• A number of Chinese firms in particular have also been involved in the purchase of large amounts of forest and timber in southern Africa, exporting these resources at an unsustainable and destructive degree. The lumber industry is extremely corrupt, and the exploitation benefits both foreign companies and corrupt local officials (198-199).
• Zimbabwe has experienced two different contestations over land in recent years, first during the fast track land reform process beginning in 2000 when the landless poor occupied large estates with government support, and following that reform a backlash by the enriched Black agricultural elites attempting to expand their holdings or those of state-owned firms at the expense of smallholders (199-200).
• As the previously dominant position of White commercial farmers in South Africa has been challenged by the fall of the apartheid regime, the introduction of labor rights, increases in fuel and fertilizer prices, and redistribution of land, some farmers have moved businesses north into Zambia, Nigeria, and elsewhere (200).
• In recent years, the flight of White South African commercial farmers has become more organized and mass, being negotiated in investment deals with other African countries for the transfer of large amounts of land to the ownership of the South African farmers (201).
• Despite its prevalence globally, land grabbing in southern Africa has not been associated mainly with the production of food for export, instead focusing on the development of biofuel or the acquisition of mining or oil rights. What little food export does exist has come about from Korean or Singaporean rice production in Madagascar and Mozambique, these deals have not been fully implemented thus far (202).
• The author posits that 'land grabbing' has not been motivated by the expectation of future shortages in food supply, but rather represents a combination of highly arable land in southern Africa and the weak legal rights of many farmers in the region. Seeing the chance to profit, the state has usually been responsible for actually selling off disputed land, not foreign commercial interests (205-206).