Land and Livelihoods: Securing Broad-based Sustainable Growth

Edited by Kate Wellard

Land is central to sustainable development. Agriculture and other land-based activities underpin most rural people’s livelihoods strategies. With investment in appropriate technologies, sustainable management and the right land policies, it has the potential to deliver food security, economic growth and broad-based development.

As public and private interest in agriculture grows, competition over land resources is intensifying. Large-scale trans-national commercial land transactions – through land purchases, land leases and contract farming – are exploding across the continent. Land deals in Africa in 2009 alone amounted to 45 million hectares.

Governments, multi-national corporations, civil society and donors are reacting to ‘land grabbing’ in very different ways. Some see commercial land deals as a threat to the lives and livelihoods of the rural poor.. Others see economic opportunity for small scale farmers but are wary of corruption and negative consequences, calling for improved governance of land markets. Now, the Pan African Parliament has called for land governance issues and their implications for food security and peace to be addressed.