Land Investment Research Articles

In Search of A Just And Equitable Agricultural Land Dispute Settlement In Indonesia

Agricultural land dispute is commonly resolved by a non-judicial settlement. It however experienced silent conflict and a just and due process of law due to multiple interests involved. Responding to these salient disputes, in 2021 the International Institute for Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) established a legal guide to assist developing countries to draft a more sustainable and responsible agricultural land investment contract (ALIC). In Liew to the UN Guiding Principle on Business and Human Rights (2011), the state and enterprises shall exercise adequate oversight to protect the breach of human rights including the customary land rights. The research aims at assessing the agricultural land dispute settlement pursuant to ALIC. It was found that land dispute settlement was dependent upon the maintenance of social control consisting of a dynamic mixture of informal and formal systems. This type of social control enabled creating a balance between disputants, minimizing transactional costs and promoting effective law enforcement. The article elaborated land dispute settlement in two different cases in Indonesia and discusses non-litigation hybrid model of land dispute resolution to promote a better strategy for resolving a land dispute in Indonesia. At the same time, this model may serve as a potential method to provide a better strategy to promote private rulemaking to prevent further disputes as a transition to the application of ALIC.

Design and analysis of passively cooled floating photovoltaic systems

Floating photovoltaic systems deployable on ponds, lakes and water bodies are an attractive solution in photovoltaic cell technology with several advantages with respect to land-based installations, including a reduced expensive land investment required, reduced water evaporation, and suppression of algae growth. Moreover, the water body can be exploited as a heat sink for the thermal management of the photovoltaic cells, thereby decreasing the operating temperature and increasing efficiency. High operating temperatures are in fact one of the major problems in photovoltaic cells, which can degrade photovoltaic panels' electrical efficiency and service life. Recent research has demonstrated the potential of natural convection cooling loops for the thermal management of floating photovoltaic systems. Using numerical simulations combined with experiments, we show how sensitive is the performance of the natural convection cooling loop to the height of the coolant reservoir, which can then be used as a design parameter to maximise the cooling effectiveness of the photovoltaic module, with a consequent increase in electrical efficiency of 17.84% with respect to the base design without cooling.

Transnational large-scale land investments in developing economies: What role do formal institutions play?

This paper examines how institutions impact large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) in the peri-urban city of a developing economy. That is, by examining the documented formal rules of the Lagos market and their enforcement procedures, it identifies the specific role the institutional framework of the market plays in the distribution of the impacts of large-scale land-based investments amongst host communities. The paper proceeds by examining the spate of transnational large-scale land-based investments on a global scale. It considers the issues driving the sustained interests of international investors such as transnational corporations in acquiring large swathes of land, mostly in developing countries, alongside the apparent global patterns of these investments. The paper employs a qualitative research strategy involving in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with key stakeholders in the LSLA that is prompted by the Lekki Free Trade Zone project in Lagos, Nigeria. That is, key government representatives, international investors in the project and representatives of the host communities. Our empirical investigations and analyses show that where property rights are poorly delineated and assigned in the formal institutional prescriptions governing LSLA in a market, institutions may become an unintended means of impoverishment and exclusivity, thereby defeating the public good imperative of LSLAs in such markets. The paper further suggests some policy directions for strengthening the institutions of the Lagos market towards achieving equity, transparency and accountability in the conduct of transnational LSLAs.

Saving For The Rainy Day: Penyuluhan Pengelolaan Keuangan dan Investasi Pada Masyarakat Desa Segaran, Delanggu, Klaten, Jawa Tengah

A country's economic indicators can be seen from the level of public awareness regarding investment and saving. UNIBA Surakarta Community Service is held in Segaran Delanggu with the aim of providing literacy regarding financial management to the general public, starting from early childhood to adulthood. The method used is to approach the community through socialization and provide directions and provide examples that are easy to understand. There are three stages in community service, including the planning stage, the implementation stage, and the evaluation stage. From the activities that have been carried out by the service team, it can show results with an increase in community understanding and awareness of the importance of investment, especially gold and land investment. In addition, there is an increase in the interest of young children to save by setting aside the pocket money they have. With the education that has been given when the activities are carried out, it is hoped that the community will be able to manage their finances better.

Large-scale agricultural land investments and food security in Nigeria

The study examines how large-scale agricultural land investments (LIs) affect household food security in Nigeria. It is one of the few studies in Nigeria that offers new empirical insights into household food security. Precisely, it unravels how LIs affect the livelihood outcomes of households in communities where LIs operate compared to households in communities without such LIs. This study engages the mixed methods of analysis involving quantitative and qualitative techniques. The quantitative data is drawn from the Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) utilising the Logistic regression technique. The qualitative aspect of this study involved fieldwork conducted in two distinct Nigerian states: Kwara State, situated in the North-Central region, and Ogun State, located in the South-West region. The qualitative findings further enrich the quantitative findings. It also helped to investigate the nature of jobs households engaged in and also the employment density of the investors’ farms which could not be done using the national representative data (LSMS). The results indicate that households in communities without land investments have 0.2% higher likelihood of being more food secure than households in communities with land investments and it is significant at 5%. The qualitative analysis reveals several key insights, including the observation that female headed households in communities with LIs are less likely to be food secure, receive less wages, and spend more time in communities with LIs. Government should put in place policies (for example, compensation policies) that will ensure that land deals are properly monitored and structured to benefit and protect the host communities. If the government fails to properly regulate land deals, rural people will always suffer. Also, they should monitor and control the activities, and the type of crops grown in investment farms so that land investments can bring about the desired benefits such as improvement in household livelihood and enhance food security in the communities where they exist.

WEG announces $40 million investment in new land in Mexico

WEG announces $40 million investment in new land in Mexico

Can urban land market reform mitigate industrial emissions? Environmental evidence from 257 prefecture-level cities in China

In the period of planned economy, China used low-cost land investment to drive economic development for a long time, which brought problems such as low efficient use of natural resources and environmental pollution. Under the dual pressure of economic development and environmental protection, Chinese government has begun to implement the urban land market reform, hoping to gradually change the extensive economic development model with high input and low output through the market mechanism. In order to investigate whether the urban land market reform can reduce industrial emissions and promote the transformation of socioeconomic, this paper constructs industrial land transactions and socioeconomic panel data of 257 prefecture-level cities in China from 2007 to 2020. The research results show that (1) The urban land market reform has reduced industrial emissions through changing the behavior of local governments in fiscal decentralization and the behavior of industrial enterprises. (2) The regional competition and cooperation brought by urban land market reform have regional heterogeneity in the emission reduction effect of industrial emissions. (3) The emission reduction effect of urban land market reform has a spatial spillover effect, which not only affects the local area, but also affects neighboring cities. We suggest that Chinese government needs to continue to carry out ULMR and increase scientific investment and technological innovation, promote the transformation of the industrial economy, and promote healthy competition among local governments. The findings not only provide valuable insights for the future reform of China's market economy, but also provide practical reference for social changes for other countries in the transition period of the world.

What were the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and the influencing factors of urban land green use efficiency? A case study of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

China's rapid urbanization has had a tremendous impact on the country's limited land resources, and one of the major issues of green development is how to utilize the limited land resources to maximize social, economic, and environmental advantages. From 2005 to 2019, the super epsilon-based measure model (EBM) was employed to assess the green land use efficiency of 108 prefecture-level and above cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB), as well as investigate its spatial and temporal evolution and influential factors. The findings demonstrate that overall, urban land green use efficiency (ULGUE) in the YREB has been ineffective; in terms of city scale, megacities have the highest efficiency, followed by large cities and small and medium-sized cities; and at the regional level, downstream efficiency does have the greatest average value, followed by upstream efficiency and middle efficiency. The results of temporal and spatial evolution reveal that the number of cities with a high ULGUE is increasing in general but that their spatial characteristics are relatively dispersed. Population density, environmental regulation, industrial structure, technology input, and the intensity of urban land investment all have major beneficial effects on ULGUE, whereas urban economic development level and urban land use scale clearly have inhibitory effects. In light of the previous conclusions, some recommendations are made to continuously improve ULGUE.

Beyond land grabbing narratives, acknowledging patterns and regimes of land control in Senegal

Land is central to addressing global development challenges, and land governance is at the heart of paradigms of democracy, justice, sustainability, and resilience. Despite the thoroughly recognized importance of land as a basis for all human-nature relations, the land sector is challenged by mechanisms of commodification and land control. The widely recognized global land rush of the late 2000 s increased the pressure on land, spotlighting in particular the rising demand for arable lands. But despite a growing awareness, the patterns and regimes of dispossession are still subject to blind spots, due in part to a recurring focus on foreign land grabbers, a lack of transparent data on land investments, and several methodological limitations. In Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the world's most targeted areas in terms of land investments, Senegal offers an interesting case study because published data on land control has been limited to foreign land investments. In this study, conducted in partnership with the technical committee of the Senegalese Land Governance Observatory, we propose another way to look at land control in agriculture by encompassing all types of investors at a national scale and focusing on the full ensemble of control processes. In our results, we describe the dynamics of land investments through time and space and identify three different types (or clusters) of investment patterns with specificities in terms of investing stakeholders, crops, and markets. While we highlight the inequality in land distribution and control, we also stress the environmental impacts of large agricultural investments that encroach on common lands and the social consequences of restricting access and use of resources, which further exacerbates the exclusion of local communities.

An Iterative Three-Stage Neighborhood Search for Solving Precedence Constrained Agricultural Land Investment Problem

The use of neighborhood search techniques to address a practical issue faced by agricultural investors is examined in this study. The problem is named as agricultural land investment problem with precedence constraints and it has an essential impact on agriculture issues. The tackled problem can be viewed as a variant of the well-known classical 0-1 knapsack problem where precedence constraints are imposed on pairs of items. Precedence constraints take into account a precedence relation between items. This paper first simulates the considered problem as precedence constraints knapsack problem and presents a mathematical representation model. Then, an iterative three-stage neighborhood search method is proposed for optimizing the problem. The proposed method consists of three stages. First stage applies a greedy procedure in order to construct a feasible solution. Second stage applies local search procedures in order to enhance the quality of the solutions at hand. Third and last, in order to broaden the search space, a random neighborhood destruction approach is introduced. Finally, the effectiveness of the suggested approach is assessed and contrasted with the outcomes obtained by greedy and local search techniques. The presented method is competitive and efficient since it produces excellent solutions in a reasonable amount of time.

Heterogeneous effects of emigration on labor market activity and investment decisions in Punjab, Pakistan.

We investigate the impacts of emigration on the labor market and investment decisions of migrant-sending households in Pakistan by constructing a large individual-level dataset, using several rounds of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey conducted between 2003 and 2014. We add to the literature by introducing a new time-varying instrumental variable to control for endogenous migration decisions, constructed as a composite of three variables that represent opportunities to work abroad: (i) the household's number of adult males, (ii) historic diaspora rates, and (iii) deviations of nighttime light intensity from its trend in migrant-receiving countries. We find a significant shift in domestic labor market activity from lower-status employment categories (not working at all, unpaid family work and manual labor) toward higher-status activities and entrepreneurship such as self-employment and becoming an employer within migrant-sending households. We also find higher investment in property, bank deposits, agricultural land, livestock, poultry and fisheries by individuals in migrant-sending households. The results are stronger for vulnerable groups, implying that migration can be a force for good for rural development, the welfare of women, and less-educated individuals.

Gendered rights and challenges of women’s ownership, access, and investment in land and shea trees in selected peri-urban communities of Ghana

ABSTRACT This study examined the gendered rights and challenges of ownership, access, and investments in land and shea trees in Ghana. It mainstreams women into policies regarding land and shea tenures. A qualitative approach through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders was used. From the study, women do not own land or shea trees, but they can exploit them. The loss of farmlands and shea trees through urbanisation worsens women's welfare, incomes, and bargaining power. To ensure the effective management of shea parklands, collaborative governance of land and shea trees between the landowners and local government is proposed.

The impact of infrastructure investments on the country’s economic growth

This study aims to assess the positive impact of infrastructure investments on the dynamics of economic growth. The sample includes ten countries (Azerbaijan, Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Georgia, Mexico, Moldova, Serbia, and Turkey) for 2011–2020 that meet the following criteria: belong to upper-middle-income economies (according to the World Bank Atlas method); the OECD statistical database contains data on investment volumes in infrastructure development of road, railway transport, inland waterways, sea, and airports (by all financing sources). The primary focus was put on the analysis of this issue in Azerbaijan. GDP per capita growth was selected as the resulting parameter; the main dependent variable was infrastructure investment volumes (total inland and infrastructure road, rail, and air investment), and additional dependent variables were a foreign direct investment (net inflows) and gross domestic investment. Shapiro-Wilk test (for checking normal data), Spearman and Pearson methods (for correlation estimation), Granger test (for detecting causal relationships), and Arellano-Bond dynamic panel-data estimation (for influence formalization) were used. As a result, the following parameters exert the greatest influence on economic growth level: value of gross domestic investment (its growth by 1% causes GDP per capita growth to increase by 0.54% without a time lag); value of infrastructure investment inland (total) (by 1.51% with a three-year lag); value of infrastructure road investment (by 0.41% with a three-year lag). These results can help future research and decision-making at different management levels to strengthen economic growth through infrastructure investment.

Land Tenure and Agricultural Investment: Do Ugandan Polygynous Households Comport with Theory?

Secure land tenure is critical in enabling farmers to make productivity-enhancing investments. While substantial research exists on the relationship between property rights and investment, this relationship is complicated in the presence of polygyny and customary law. If households are acting according to theory, we would expect households to make investments in land held under more individualized and secure tenure (non-customary). We test if this pattern holds across household types, namely monogamous vs. polygynous households in Uganda. Using five waves of the Uganda Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA), we measure the effects of parcel tenure on both fertilizer and long-term agricultural investment across different marriage structures. Our results suggest that customary land tenure in monogamous households leads to a decrease in organic and inorganic fertilizer use, and a decrease in the likelihood of erosion prevention and planting perennial crops. Contrary to expectations, polygynous households invest more in fertilizer and fallowing on customary land. Our results suggest that land privatization, without concurrent attention to customary law and marriage structure, could have a deleterious effect on investment incentive mechanisms.

Realizing Benefit Sharing through Reasonable Land Compensation in the Sustainable Development of Water Resources: Two Case Studies in China

The existence of benefit distribution unfairness may lead to problems such as resettlement conflicts, which have become the bottleneck of sustainable development of water resources in many countries. Exploring and establishing equitable benefit sharing systems are the resolving approach, but there is still the lack of quantitative analysis tools for benefit distribution. From the perspective of benefit sharing, this study designs specific quantitative methods to determine land compensation prices that migrants deserve and makes a case analysis of two projects in China. Results suggest the following: (1) Fair compensation calculated by the input dividend method is the product of the proportion of agricultural land investment and the net income of the project, while the value summation method takes the sum of the agricultural land value, social security value and average value-added distribution as the compensation price. (2) The cases demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed methods. (3) Current policy compensation is lower than the calculated compensation, and there are insufficient migrants participating in benefit sharing in China. By referring to the estimated value of the two methods, governments or development enterprises can reasonably improve the compensation standard or provide additional follow-up support to increase the welfare of migrants, which is expected to achieve a relatively balanced allocation of benefits and realize a win-win situation.

How do financialised agri-corporate investors acquire farmland? Analysing land investment in an Australian agricultural region, 2004–2019

Abstract This article uses a purpose-designed land parcels database covering all rural land transactions over 16 years (2004–2019 inclusive) to document the ways in which financialised agri-corporate investors acquired farmland in a major Australian cropping and grazing region, New England North West (NENW). Framing these investments through the lens of strategic coupling reveals a mix of land acquisition strategies. Almost 200,000 ha of farmland was acquired by financialised agri-corporate investors in NENW during the study period. Approximately one-third was acquired through takeovers of stock market listed agricultural companies or unlisted agricultural asset management companies, another third involved the purchase of farms already packaged into assetised forms by prior rounds of restructuring and the final third involved the purchase and aggregation of family farms. We interpret this mix of entry modes to indicate a flexible and opportunistic set of dynamics in how financialised agri-corporate investors amass their land assets, underlining their reach and scope in the restructuring of regional agricultures.

Variations of Customary Tenure, Chiefly Power, and Global Norms for Responsible Land Investments in Sierra Leone

Abstract In response to debates around land grabbing, the international community has increasingly developed and promoted global governance norms and guidelines for more responsible land investments. This concern on the part of the international community has particularly taken hold in Sierra Leone—in a post-war context, in which international donor agencies are already steering much of the country’s politics. Yet, despite the enormous influence of international guidelines and the actors promoting their use, there is a spatial variation in the conformity to and effectiveness of such norms in cases of land investments. While some projects seem to resemble ‘showcases’ for their exemplary use, these guidelines seem to be absent in other projects. This article analyses the political economy of customary land tenure, land investments, and international ‘soft laws’ in Sierra Leone. Based on 6 months of fieldwork in Sierra Leone in 2019, I compare several cases of large-scale land investments. I argue that there are important variations in the customary tenure system in the degree to which political authority over land is centralized in the authority of the paramount chief or is devolved to landholding families. This, I suggest, holds important implications for the uptake of global norms for ‘responsible’ investments.

Does the evidence match the rhetoric? Post-formalization land investments and credit access in Zambia: Cases from informal settlements in Lusaka City region

This study investigates land investments and credit access resulting from a land rights formalization initiative in the Lusaka city region, Zambia, through 302 household interviews, key informant interviews, satellite image analysis and focus group discussions. Results reveal that no more than 27% of respondents in Bauleni and 15% in Madido had mortgaged their houses to formal institutions despite a perceived increase in house values due to the legitimization of property ownership. There was no marked increase in access to formal credit but local informal saving and credit associations, with only 30% having accessed credit. The reported and observed increase in immovable land investments such as house structure expansions, fencing of property and renovations by respondents (78% in Madido and 65% in Bauleni) was attributed to the availability of finances and not land rights formalization per se. The importance of socio-economic and local cultural norms in accruing benefits from property ownership is underplayed by land rights formalization proponents. Therefore, while land tenure reforms remain necessary, they are not sufficient conditions for the urban poor to realize the espoused benefits of formalization - induced capital formation.

Spatial disequilibrium and influencing factors of carbon emission intensity of construction land in China

Revealing the spatial disequilibrium and influencing factors of carbon emission intensity of construction land (CEICL) is of great significance for improving the sustainable utilization of urban land, and helping to achieve global green and low-carbon development. This study estimates the CEICL of 285 cities in China from 2008 to 2019. Then, this paper analyzes the spatial disequilibrium of CEICL, and discusses the spatial heterogeneity of the influencing factors at different levels of CEICL. The results show that the CEICL has an inverted “U-shape”, increasing first and decreasing later, with most cities concentrating on 0.3 million tons/km2 and some cities breaking through 3 million tons/km2. Also, the results imply a relatively large gap in CEICL among cities, despite a gradually narrowing trend of this gap. Among regions, the average annual difference of CEICL is about 0.1–0.4 million tons/km2 for cities of the same scale. Within regions, CEICL decreases with increasing city scale, and the agglomeration characteristics of high-high and low-low values within regions are significant and stable, and the spatial lock-in effect is strong. Moreover, the results infer a negative spatial spillover effect in CEICL in China, and the significant spatial heterogeneity effect of the seven factors (i.e., population agglomeration intensity, industrial structure upgrading, land development intensity, land investment intensity, economic output level, technological R&D and innovation, and ecological resource endowment) on CEICL in cities of different regions and scales. This study provides a scientific basis and empirical support for developing differentiated and feasible carbon reduction policies based on cities' own characteristics.

Smallholder Views on Chinese Agricultural Investments in Mozambique and Tanzania in the Context of VGGTs

Based on a case study in each country, this study documents the views of Mozambican and Tanzanian smallholders regarding Chinese agricultural investments and the extent to which investors abide by their legitimate land tenure rights as defined by the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Forests and Fisheries in the Context of National Food Security (VGGTs). The VGGTs offer guidelines to government on how to protect the land tenure of rural communities when land is being acquired for large-scale land investments. The study also assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on smallholders. Due to COVID-19, instead of fieldwork, we conducted telephone interviews with 20 smallholders in Mozambique and 35 in Tanzania. The Mozambican case showed that even when land set aside for investors was not in dispute, smallholders still had unmet expectations, especially regarding investors’ corporate social responsibility activities. In the Tanzanian case, even though the land leased by the Chinese investor had been designated as general land, it had laid fallow for a long period, and smallholders had moved back onto the land, only to be displaced in 2017. Although smallholders’ views on the investment were mixed, the case underscored the need for government to assess current land use before allocating it to investors—regardless of how the land is classified and especially in areas where land shortages are creating conflict. The cases show that even if communities are consulted about proposed land investments, guidelines need to include clauses that allow for ongoing communications between investors, communities and government officials such that if communities are unsatisfied with the results of the investment, renegotiation is possible. Further, in the event of crises, such as COVID-19, investors should partner with communities and government to limit the extent of harm in communities as a result of the crisis.