Notes from a conference on land grabbing in Southeast Asia at Chiang Mai University, Thailand, 5-6 June. Covers colonial and post-colonial plantations; the infrastructural violence of plantations; winners and losers – gender and generation; what then is the future for small-scale and family farmers?; state power, private capital and people’s rights; comparative thoughts

Some commercial farmers in Serenje District, Central Province of Zambia, have acquired thousands of hectares while ignoring laws meant to prevent forced evictions. Some have used bulldozers to forcibly evict residents whose families have farmed the land for generations. This has been devastating for the communities and particularly hard on women.

Addresses the research question, do different land tenure conditions affect farming systems, organisation and performance among Zambian small farmers, and if so, how? Discusses the widespread demand for title, even on customary lands, and concludes that this is a defensive measure, based on a desire for secure possession and for bequeathment and the protection of fixed investments.

Impossible to have imagined 50 years ago that Africa’s ruling political elites would have come to despise their own small-scale farmers and pastoralists and to look kindly on foreign-run large plantations. Impact of decades of structural adjustment programmes forgotten. Sceptical about claims that land grabs can be stopped within 3 years. Looks at variety of responses attempting to address power inequalities at local levels. Research a not unproblematic area. Concludes with case studies of legal empowerment in Mozambique and Namati’s community land protection programme.

A review of Fred Pearce’s book

Presents two personal testimonies of eviction and dispossession to illustrate the long and complex political history of land in Zimbabwe. The first concerns the eviction of white commercial farmers from one district in December 2002, the second of black peasant farmers in 1948, to make way for the white post-1945 white war veterans.

A review of Zimbabwe in 2001, focusing on the land question and farm workers. Reflections on conferences on Zimbabwe in Copenhagen and on farm workers in Southern Africa in Harare, with a section highlighting the key issues brought out in a new book on farm workers in Zimbabwe. Argues that issues around farm workers need to be seriously rethought and debated across the political spectrum and that land is a part of a much wider crisis of governance.

Covers introduction, farm workers in South Africa, tenure security for farm workers with a focus on ESTA – including the justice system, farmers’ responses and women farm workers; equity share schemes; rural housing and land redistribution; lessons to and from South Africa.

Argues that the price of commercial farmland in Namibia is high in relation to the profits that can be made from commercial livestock farming. As a result, farming is rapidly becoming the preserve of the urban rich who farm as a lifestyle choice and are prepared to subsidise their farms from their principal sources of income. Government policy is trying to encourage black Namibians into commercial farming through the Affirmative Action Loans scheme. However, given the price of land, many of these farmers will struggle to create commercially viable farms.

Land reform is one way in which the ‘new’ South Africa set out to redress the injustices of apartheid and, by redistributing land to black South Africans, to transform the structural basis of racial inequality. During the first decade of democracy, land reform has fallen far short of both public expectations and official targets. This article describes the progress of the programme and its changing nature.

Focuses on property rights in land, giving a short narrative of some of the key ‘land tenure’ or ‘land policy’ issues and the emerging consensus around them. Addresses the redistribution of property rights in land from large to small farmers. A policy framework for redistributive land reform is outlined within which the competing paradigms can actually compete there where it matters: on the ground.

Looks at the problems of creating a stratum of black commercial farmers in South Africa in the light of historical experiences in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Argues that this will be a daunting challenge since apartheid tried to destroy black commercial farmers. The double challenge will be to unlock historical structural constraints within the agrarian economy and to reorient the current macro-economic climate to be more responsive to the needs of small-scale black farmers.