Transnational Land Deals Research Articles

Making concessions pay? Historical vs. potential tax revenues from Laos’s rubber sector

Under-taxation has been a prominent feature of the global land rush, figuring centrally in early concerns that transnational land deals constitute a new round of land grabbing rather than a source of productive investment. In the years since, however, under-taxation has been widely ignored in subsequent literature on state land concessions in the agri-plantation sector across the global South. To address this gap, this paper draws on ongoing research in Laos, where improved concession inventory efforts have helped stimulate a wide-ranging debate (both in and out of government) about the country’s still-opaque processes of concession taxation. We use the rubber sector to examine a pair of concession-taxation strategies that have been pursued to varying degrees both in Laos and more broadly: taxing land from the time it is alienated to a concessionaire (a land fee model), and taxing the resource itself – in this case rubber plantations – from the time they become productive (a royalty model). Using a quantitative-geographic approach enabled by Laos’s recently updated land concession inventory, we estimate potential tax revenues from rubber plantations under four taxation regimes that were deployed in various parts of the country over the last decade and a half: two of each type, with each type including higher and lower per-unit variants. Our analysis of the space of potential taxation implies significant opportunity costs inherent in the status-quo approach to taxation, which we discuss via the example of unaddressed need for concession-related compensation. Especially at the higher-end range, where taxation potentials total in the tens of millions of dollars per year, we find that Laos’s rubber-concession landscape has significant potential to help address this issue. To the degree that under-taxation is addressed in the future, however, new concession-tax revenues will increasingly be subject to spending demands from outside the rubber sector.

Strategic spatial planning in emerging land-use frontiers: evidence from Mozambique

Land-use frontiers are territories with abundant land for agriculture and forestry, availability of natural resources relative to labor or capital and predisposed to rapid land-use change, often driven by large-scale land investments and capitalized actors, producing commodities for distal markets. Strategic spatial planning (SSP) represents a consolidated long-term governance practice across high- and low-income countries. One of the objectives of SSP processes is to articulate a more coherent and future-oriented spatial logic for the sustainability of land-use patterns and typologies, natural-resources protection, and investments. SSP may thus constitute a useful approach in addressing some of the challenges affecting land governance in frontier settings; to date, its potential contribution to land-use frontiers lacks explicit exploration. In this paper, we examine how SSP can play a role in governing land-use frontiers through a case-study analysis of Mozambique as an emerging frontier, located on the southeast coast of Africa. We gathered empirical evidence by interviewing experts involved in resource management, territorial planning, and development in the country. The theoretical spine of the paper builds on the literature focusing on land-use challenges and SSP. We show that emerging land-use frontiers face several challenges, such as transnational land deals and the intensification of commercial plantations. Interview data show that several structural factors are hindering the establishment of a long-term territorial development strategy. These are, among others, the short-termism of political cycles and the absence of a long-term strategic vision. Our analysis reveals that SSP processes could contribute to addressing land-use challenges in frontier contexts, such as poverty traps and land degradation spirals, should various local and distant actors join forces and marry interests. We conclude by presenting a systematic rationale, explaining how SSP could play a role in governing land-use frontiers, with a view to promoting the well-being and sustainability of rural communities.

Claim-making in transnational land deals: Discourses of legitimation and stakeholder relations in central Uganda

Land relations and contestation over land control in Uganda are deeply embedded in socio-historical struggles for legitimacy, identity, and belonging. While contemporary processes of land governance reform attempt to address increasing pressures on land with technocratic, administrative, and legal solutions, these approaches fail to take into consideration stakeholder dynamics underlying land claims. Within the context of rising volumes of transnational land acquisitions and corresponding increase in land-related conflicts, this research investigates the processes by which various actors seek to legitimise their claims over land at the local level. Drawing on empirical research into four transnational land deals in central Uganda, we examine everyday practices of claim-making through the study of discursive legitimation and stakeholder interactions. Land deals are thus conceptualised as ‘zones of intermediality’ where various claims are mediated at the intersection between references, practices, and discourses of local and external actors. We conclude that understanding patterns of stakeholder discourses and dynamics of interaction can provide critical insights into the role of claim-making in shaping practices and outcomes of land access and control.

Accessing African Farmlands: Discourses and Practices of Transnational Land Acquisitions in Central Uganda

The surge in international interest in and acquisitions of African farmland has received considerable attention in the last decade. An equally growing body of research has attempted to explore explanatory pathways, or drivers of the phenomenon from both a local and global perspectives. But how do these land deals actually occur? There is still insufficient understanding of the strategies of access and processes of acquisition deployed by transnational actors. Using findings from five years of empirical research in central Uganda on Chinese, Indian and Norwegian owned farms, this paper analyses the discourses and practices of land acquisition deployed by transnational investors and examines how these strategies shape the process and determine the outcomes of land deals at the local level. Findings show that investors construct multiple narratives at various times and selectively deploy them in pursuit of specific interests. Careful alignment with global developmental thinking designed to attract funding and synchronizing with local policy priorities to attain access show mixed results. Cultivation of local patronage networks are predominant pathways of access, but these are fraught with risks occasioned by socio-political heterogeneity and shifting power relations across multiple levels. I argue that the identity and experiences of the investors, and their dexterity in navigating the complex diversity of local contexts are important factors that shape the processes and outcomes of transnational land deals at the local level.

Dynamics of the North–South Capital Flows or Rise of South–South Land Deals? Features of Land Acquisition in Ethiopia

AbstractTransnational land deals are among the most contested but inadequately understood topics. In this paper, we focus on the features of large‐scale transnational land deals (LSTLDs) in the Global South through an examination of Ethiopia. We apply a mixed method (qualitative and quantitative) research design.Results indicate that in 2005–2015, the government leased nearly 2·47 million ha of the country's approximate total 114 million ha area and offered 11·5 million ha of cultivable land to domestic and transnational investors. We explore the prevalence of LSTLDs deals by companies of the Global South, particularly entrepreneurs from India. Ethiopia's example validates emerging arguments on the rise of South–South investment deals rather than the established explanation of North–South capital flows. However, 75% of the land deals show poor performance. The study shows that LSTLDs have contributed to raising domestic agricultural production but have resulted in non‐performing loans of the banks of the host country. In sum, the land deals have resulted in financial grabbing, where Ethiopian banks end up with non‐performing loans and then must chase investors to settle the approximate €791 million in loans that investors borrowed for their projects. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The long land grab: market-assisted enclosure on the China-Lao rubber frontier

ABSTRACTThe rise in transnational land deals has brought nationally inflected concerns about foreign land acquisition into uneasy tension with longstanding scholarly and popular concerns about dispossession. Using the case of Chinese rubber plantation promotion projects in northern Laos, we examine the intersection of these two processes during the boom decade of the 2000s, as well as the aftermath during the 2010s, when global rubber prices have fallen. We describe a ‘long’ land grab from upland communities in northern Laos that cannot be blamed on either ‘the Chinese’ (whether private, state or both) or Lao government policy, which has long mobilized political and legal authority to enclose smallholder lands for national development. Rather, what is significant is the interaction of regulatory politics and market dynamics under conditions of both unequal international relations and internally competing policy agendas on both sides of the border. Examining a case where the initial regulatory impulse from the host government was for the protection of smallholder land tenure, the paper demonstrates the need to examine the interaction of local land governance and international relations in a way that treats the latter as the product of internal struggles rather than coherent national strategy.

Commercial land deals and the interactions between investors and local people: Evidence from western Ethiopia

The current study explores transnational land deals from a regional perspective and investigates investor-local people interactions and the factors that underpin them. Empirical analysis utilizes survey data from the Benishangul-Gumuz region, a topographically low-lying region of Ethiopia. Descriptive statistics and ordinal regression model (ORM) was used to analyze data. We explored the factors that determine investor-local people interactions (ILPI) with possible dyadic outcomes which range from confrontation to collaboration. Notwithstanding the conventional centre-periphery discourses on availability of ‘unutilized’ cultivable lands, findings show that land is already under the pressure of competing demands in the region for transnational and local, private and government, small-scale and agro-industrial purposes. We have observed that the investor-local people interaction is a complex construct influenced by multiple socioeconomic, managerial, and governance-related factors. While community consultation, land use class, local employment, and investors’ role in developing an own water source have a significant effect upon ILPI, the influence of other factors such as compensation for expropriated property and farm distance from a community village is observable but insignificant. Though consideration of those factors which underpin investor-local people collaborative interaction is important, synchronizing existing land uses and prioritizing competing demands for land is equally important. Building regional capacity with an inclusive local development outlook is essential.

Biofuels and the hazards of land grabbing: Tenure (in)security and indigenous farmers’ investment decisions in Ghana

The past decade has witnessed a renewed interest in transnational land deals in the developing land-abundant countries of Sub Sahara Africa (SSA), Asia and Latin America following the convergence of the global financial, food and energy crises in the mid 2000s. In much of SSA, these deals occur on customary lands which are managed by traditional authorities on behalf of and in trust for the entire local community and are thus occupied by indigenous farmers. The traditional authorities have, for diverse reasons, become much interested in alienating large tracts of customary lands to foreign investors for biofuel and food crop plantations. In this paper, we examine the effects of the current mode of communal land acquisition for Jatropha cultivation in Ghana on the security of indigenous farmers’ land rights and their decisions to invest in their farms. Empirical evidence is based on primary data collected from field surveys conducted in two districts in Ghana; Yeji and Ejura in the Brong Ahafo and Ashanti regions respectively. We observed that the increasing appropriation of communal lands for biofuel plantations without consultation, fair and adequate compensation to the indigenous land holders has resulted in uncertainty and tenure insecurity among farmers in affected communities. Consequently, such farmers have become relatively disinterested in farming, cultivating smaller farm sizes and thereby showing low investments in their farms. These findings provide a new perspective for considering the relationship between increasing biofuel cultivation and food security in developing Africa.

Transnational land deals: Towards an inclusive land governance framework

The literature on global land deals or land acquisition has extensively described the possible drivers, trajectories, and their impacts. In addition, the concept of a ‘land grab’ per se is heavily contested and viewed as a work in progress. Many have argued on the topic of inclusive land deals without addressing which groups of stakeholders are vested with particular powers and interests in the deals. After reviewing this phenomena in contemporary global land deals and the stakeholder theory of management developed in the 1980s, this paper proposes a conceptual land deal framework. Accordingly, the actors in land deals are characterised and disaggregated into seven generic groups, i.e., “inactive”, “discretionary”, “exigent”, “dominant”, “dangerous”, “dependent”, and “definitive”. The paper concluded that to address the governance challenges in land deals, a need exists to resolve conceptualisation deficiencies related to inclusive land deal frameworks. Thus, this work suggests that extending the stakeholder theory of management to the global governance of transnational land acquisition can significantly aid in resolving conceptualisation limitations for inclusive transnational land deals. Hence, a new inclusive land deal framework was developed that attempts to integrate the biophysical environment, stakeholders, governance, and institutions. Furthermore, this paper recommends that contextualisation of the suggested “land deal power-interest clustering (LD-PIC)” and “legitimacy-interest-power (LIP)” frameworks to those already signed and ongoing land deals using real-world data is a timely matter.

Land reforms and land rights change: A case study of land stressed groups in the Nkoranza South Municipality, Ghana

Ghana has since the introduction of the National Land Policy in 1999 developed and began the implementation of a Land Administration Project with the goal of ensuring transparent and secure access to land by investors as a means of stimulating national development. This study was conducted using a qualitative research paradigm. An ethnographic case study approach, construed as a merger of case study and ethnographic methods for detailed socio-cultural analysis of a phenomenon was employed to undertake the study. Although, the research acknowledges the role of community dynamics in shaping land rights change; it attributes current land rights changes to a land reform system that exposes close knit communal land resources to global resource consumption and transnational land deals. The study therefore recommends that to safeguard the land rights of vulnerable land users, land reforms must be constructed such that they embody the spiritual, physical and human worldviews of land.

Transnational Land Deals and Gender Equality: Utilitarian and Human Rights Approaches

Transnational land deals pose vexing normative (ethical) questions, not least concerning gendered participation and outcomes. This article explores utilitarian and human rights approaches to gender equality in selected policy initiatives on the land deals. While global policy literature manifests growing attention to women in agriculture, the review found the analysis of gender in early policy initiatives to be absent or weak. Utilitarian arguments were used to justify deals but rarely presented women's participation as a means of social progress or so-called smart economics. Human rights documents were more likely to be critical of the deals and to mention gender, though with little elaboration. While to some extent amended by the emphasis on gender equality in the 2012 Voluntary Guidelines on tenure governance, failures to mobilize the feminist potential in utilitarian and human rights approaches call for more proactive gender analysis and advocacy when addressing transnational land deals as gendered power struggles.

Savannah fires and local resistance to transnational land deals: the case of organic mango farming in Dipale, northern Ghana

Recent interest in investments in land in Africa targets the supposed ‘abundant and wasting’ fire-prone savannah woodlands. Outgrower models are becoming the recommended business model for transnational investments as they are argued to guarantee a win–win outcome for both trans-national companies and local farmers. Using qualitative interviews in the village of Dipale, we investigate one such project, the Integrated Tamale Fruit Company (ITFC). All outgrowers lost their investments to savannah fires and consequently abandoned or converted the mango farms into food crop farms. The political ecology of the area, manifested in the human-environmental conditions and land management practices confounded the business model of land acquisitions thus threatening their profitability for the investors and reducing their contribution to local livelihood outcomes. The savannah fires represent an instrumentalized form of local resistance against the expropriation of their livelihood resources without their full cooperation and consent.

Building the Politics Machine: Tools for ‘Resolving’ the Global Land Grab

ABSTRACTThe recent proliferation of transnational land deals has put the long‐fraught relationship between international cooperation, national development and local dispossession back in the political spotlight. This article argues that transnational land access cannot be resolved as a political question without a better understanding of the material, legal and administrative geographies that accompany and enable it. Using evidence from Laos, the paper illustrates two tools for ‘resolving’ the global land grab geographically: first, a biographical or trajectory‐based approach that connects specific land grabs to larger development landscapes (e.g. of urban infrastructuring); and second, genealogies of property formalization that interrogate and deconstruct the legal geographies of land access, both on and off the map. The paper concludes by suggesting that these tools have purchase elsewhere as well.

Global land and water grabbing

Societal pressure on the global land and freshwater resources is increasing as a result of the rising food demand by the growing human population, dietary changes, and the enhancement of biofuel production induced by the rising oil prices and recent changes in United States and European Union bioethanol policies. Many countries and corporations have started to acquire relatively inexpensive and productive agricultural land located in foreign countries, as evidenced by the dramatic increase in the number of transnational land deals between 2005 and 2009. Often known as "land grabbing," this phenomenon is associated with an appropriation of freshwater resources that has never been assessed before. Here we gather land-grabbing data from multiple sources and use a hydrological model to determine the associated rates of freshwater grabbing. We find that land and water grabbing are occurring at alarming rates in all continents except Antarctica. The per capita volume of grabbed water often exceeds the water requirements for a balanced diet and would be sufficient to improve food security and abate malnourishment in the grabbed countries. It is found that about 0.31 × 10(12) m(3) · y(-1) of green water (i.e., rainwater) and up to 0.14 × 10(12) m(3) · y(-1) of blue water (i.e., irrigation water) are appropriated globally for crop and livestock production in 47 × 10(6) ha of grabbed land worldwide (i.e., in 90% of the reported global grabbed land).