Land Grabbing: Last Ditch Effort of Colonialism? A Survey of a Few Contributions and a Couple of Suggestions

We present a survey of a few recent papers on Large Scale Land Acquisition (LSLA), a phenomenon that has become globally manifest since the beginning of the new millennium, in particular in Africa. The papers we look over examine outstanding aspects of LSLA, such as the benefits and damages produced by sale of land by landowners to foreign buyers, the local implications in terms of displacement and employment of incumbent farmers, the possible corruption of hosting governments and mighty foreign enterprises, the degree of fairness of LSLA, the expropriation threats of foreign investment by local authorities, the political economy aftermath and the risk that LSLA may generate conflicts between poor peripheries and a richer core. The examination of all these aspects of LSLA makes for a rather skeptical and cautious overall stance as it appears that traces of old colonialism persist and environmental unscrupulousness is quite common.