This blogpost shares some commentaries emerging from the International Conference on Global Land Grabbing held in Bogota in March (see this IDS news article). All have relevance to the wider debate about land and agrarian reform, including in Zimbabwe.
I start with an article I wrote with Angela Serrano for openDemocracy, which was titled, A new and silent land grab is underway – we must stop it. We open with the following:
“As recently as 15 years ago, large-scale land grabs regularly made headlines around the world, as wealthy governments bought up fertile fields in poorer countries to grow and export produce to feed their own populations. This was part of a trend that has seen 30 million hectares of agricultural land sold off around the world since the early 2000s, according to the Land Matrix, an independent monitoring initiative that tracks land deals across the world. But these spectacular state-led land grabs appear to have now been replaced by silent, often small and incremental forms of expropriation, where capital extends its frontier for either expanding agricultural estates, conservation areas, carbon investments and energy projects. Against this background, land struggles are playing out across the world.”
This article is from Zimbabweland, a blog written by IDS Research Fellow Ian Scoones. Zimbabweland focuses on issues related to rural livelihoods and land reform in Zimbabwe.
Read the full article on the Zimbabweland website
