Abstract
Land grabs has been a tendy phenomena in the last decade across the grobe with Africa and Asia being the hard hit regions. There has been many drivers that fueled land grabs including the crisses in the food, fuel and finance sector. Attempts has been made by scholars, activists and international communities to define what consitute “land grab” in the contenporay period. Informed by the framework definition of land grabs provided by International Land Coalition’s Tirana Declaration of 2012, this paper uses two cases of foreign land-based agricutural investments to prove the existence of land grabs in Tanzania. Broadly, the two cases are evidence of the global energy and food crises shaping the national and local politics of land governance. These national and local politics are manifested into land grabs dispossesing communities of their land. The paper urgues that there is direct link between the global and the national politics of land grabs. If further shows the role played and approaches used by social movements to resist land grabs.
Highlights
Contemporary waves of large scale land acquisitions for commercial production in developing countries in Africa and other parts of the world have been branded as ‘land grabs’ by many scholars, media and activists
Informed by the framework definition of land grabs provided by International Land Coalition’s Tirana Declaration of 2012, this paper uses two cases of foreign land-based agricultural investments to prove the existence of land grabs in Tanzania
The two cases are evidence of the global energy and food crises shaping the national and local politics of land governance. These national and local politics are manifested into land grabs dispossessing communities of their land
Summary
Contemporary waves of large scale land acquisitions for commercial production in developing countries in Africa and other parts of the world have been branded as ‘land grabs’ by many scholars, media and activists. Like many other countries in the Africa and other parts of the world has responded to the global rhythms and forces by allocating land for agricultural and energy production through both foreign and domestic direct investments and by reforming policies, legal and institutional frameworks to suit the changing dynamics of international trade and commerce. Godfrey Eliseus Energy and food demands, drivers of land grab; a case of Rufiji River Basin in Tanzania foreign investments in land are beneficial to villages as they provide employment opportunities and employ inclusive agricultural business models which would benefit small scale peasants and are thereby raising labor productivity in agriculture (KAMATA et al, 2012). Two case studies fitting in the description of land grab will be presented and discussed at length
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