Abstract
This chapter explores the historical and systemic dynamics of the new scramble for Africa, as well as the current land-grabbing patterns and agents. It is argued that, despite the emergence of new competitors from the South, the key drivers of the scramble remain the Western monopolies and their state patrons, in the context of terminal systemic crisis and transition. It is also argued that the scramble has set off new structural tendencies on the continent, which are transforming Africa’s trajectory in the twenty-first century. The tendencies point towards a convergence of economic and social characteristics among the regions, within the overall trend of intensified marginalization and subordinate integration into the world economy. Yet, new forms of resistance have also emerged, from the local to the national and regional levels, which have made concrete and substantial advances, especially in Southern Africa.
Sam Moyo (1954–2015)
This paper was first presented by Sam Moyo at the Round Table Dialogue on ‘Land Reform, Land Grabbing and Agricultural Development in Africa in the Twenty-first Century’, 17–18 June 2013, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The authors are grateful to Ndabezinhle Nyoni, Steve Mberi and Tatenda Matengu of the Sam Moyo African Institute for Agrarian Studies (AIAS) for their research assistance.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
By the turn of the century, about 200 million ha (32% of the suitable area) were being cultivated and 30% of the total land area (892 million ha) was under permanent pasture (FAOSTAT 2001).
- 2.
For an elaboration of the concept of ‘functional dualism’, see de Janvry (1981).
- 3.
The junker path, generally of landlords turned capitalists, has its variants in the white-settler societies of Southern Africa and today operates in tandem with transnational capital (Moyo and Yeros 2005).
- 4.
A merchant path consists of non-rural capital, including merchant capital, petty bourgeois elements, bureaucrats, military personnel and professionals who gain access to land. They farm on a smaller scale than capitalist farms but are integrated into export markets and global agro-industry (Moyo and Yeros 2005).
References
Amin, S. (1972). Underdevelopment and dependence in black Africa: Origins and contemporary forms. Journal of Modern African Studies, 10(4), 503–524.
Amin, S. (1976). Unequal Development (B. Pearce, Trans.). New York, NY & London: Monthly Review Press.
Amin, S. (2003). Obsolescent capitalism: Contemporary capitalism and global disorder. London & New York, NY: Zed Books.
Amin, S. (2010). The law of worldwide value. New York, NY: Monthly Review.
Arrighi, G. (1973). International corporations, labour aristocracies, and economic development in tropical Africa. In G. Arrighi & J. Saul (Eds.), Essays on the political economy of Africa. New York: Monthly Review Press.
CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] (2001). The World Factbook. http://www.odi.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/, accessed in July 2001.
Cotula, L., Vermeulen, S., Leonard, R., & Keeley, J. (2009). Land grab or development opportunity? London & Rome: IIED, FAO & IFAD.
de Janvry, A. (1981). The agrarian question and reformism in latin America. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Dietz, T. (2011). Silverlining Africa: from images of doom and gloom to glimmers of hope; from places to avoid to places to enjoy. Inaugural address, Leiden University and African Studies Centre, January 14. Available at http://www.padev.nl/other_output/Dietz_2011_Silverling_Africa.pdf.
Dos Santos, T. (1978), Imperialismo y dependencia. México: Era.
Doss, C., Summerfield, G., & Tsikata, D. (2014). Land, gender and food security. Feminist Economics, 20(1), 1–23.
ECA [United Nations Economic Commission for Africa] (2003). Land tenure systems and sustainable development in Southern Africa. Document No. ECA/SA/EGM.Land/2003/2, (pp. 2–3).
FAO. (2001a). Gender and food security fact files. Available on http://www.fao.org/Gender/en/agri-e.htm.
FAO. (2001b). Forest resources assessment 2000. Rome: FAO.
FAO (2010). The state of food insecurity in the World: Addressing food insecurity in protracted crises. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
FAO (2013). Towards successful family farming in Africa. Position paper from Cape Town Dialogue. Rome: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
FAOSTAT. (2001). Statistics database of the united nations food and agriculture organization. Rome: FAO.
FAOSTAT. (2013). FAOSTAT database. Available at http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data.
Foster, J. B. (2010a). The age of monopoly-finance capital. Monthly Review, 61(9), 1–13.
Foster, J. B. (2010b). The financialization of accumulation. Monthly Review, 62(5), 1–17.
Foster, J. B., McChesney, R. W., & Jamil Jonna, R. (2011). The internationalization of monopoly capital. Monthly Review, 63(2), 1–23.
Ghosh, J. (2008). ‘The Global Food Crisis’, Public Lecture delivered at the University of Turin, Italy, May, http://www.networkideas.org.
GoC [Government of China]. (2006). China’s Africa policy. www.gov.cn/misc/2006–01/12/content_156509.htm.
GRAIN. (2008). Seized: The 2008 land grab for food and financial security. http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=212.
Hendricks, F. (2000). Questioning the land question: Agrarian transition, land tenure, rural development in the former settler colonies of southern Africa. In Kwesi Kwaa Prah & Abel Ghaffar Mohammed Ahmed (Eds.), Africa in Transformation: Political and Economic Issues, Vol. 1 (pp. 33–64). Addis Ababa: Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA).
IFPRI. (2010). Food security and economic development in the Middle East and North Africa. IFPRI Discussion Paper 00985.Current State and Future Perspectives.
Jha, P., Moyo, S., & Yeros, P. (2017). Capitalism and ‘Labour Reserves’: A note. In C. P. Chandrasekhar & J. Ghosh (Eds.), Interpreting the world to change it: Essays for Prabhat Patnaik (pp. 205–37). New Delhi: Tulika.
Land Matrix. (2012). The online public database on land deals. http://landmatrix.org/en/. Retrieved December 2012.
Lake, W. B., & Souré, M. (1997). Water and development in Africa. Ottawa: International Development Information Centre, CIDA.
Li, M. (2009). The rise of China and the demise of the capitalist world economy. New York, NY: Monthly Review.
Mafeje, A. (2003). The agrarian question, access to land and peasant responses in sub-Sahara Africa. UNRID Programme papers on Civil Society and Social Movements.
Mamdani, M. (1996). Citizen and subject: Contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Marini, R. M. (1969). Subdesarrollo y Revolución. Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno.
Marini, R. M. (2000). A Dialética da Dependência, ed. E. Sader. Petrópolis: Editora Vozes.
Mitchell, D. (2008). A note on rising food prices. Policy Research Working Paper No. 4682. The World Bank. Development Prospects Group. July 2008.
Mkandawire, T. (2011). Rethinking pan-Africanism, nationalism and the new regionalism. In S. Moyo & P. Yeros (Eds.), Reclaiming the nation: The return of the national question in Africa, Asia and Latin America (pp. 31–53). London & New York, NY: Pluto Press.
Mkandawire, T., & Soludo, C. (1999). Our continent, our future: African perspectives on structural adjustment. Dakar, Ottawa and Asmara: CODESRIA, IDRC and AWP.
Moyo, S. (2000). Land reform under structural adjustment in Zimbabwe: Land use change in the Mashonaland Provinces. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.
Moyo, Sam. (2008). African land questions, agrarian transitions and the state: Contradictions of neoliberal land reforms. Dakar: CODESRIA.
Moyo, S. (2011a). Three decades of agrarian reform in Zimbabwe. Journal of Peasant Studies, 38(3), 493–531.
Moyo, S. (2011b). Land Concentration and accumulation after redistributive reform in post-settler Zimbabwe. Review of African Political Economy, 38(128), 257–276.
Moyo, S. (2011c). Changing Agrarian relations after redistributive land reform in Zimbabwe. Journal of Peasant Studies, 38(5), 939–966.
Moyo, S., Jha, P., & Yeros, P. (2013). The classical agrarian question: Myth, reality and relevance today. Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2(1), 93–199.
Moyo, S., Tsikata, D., & Diop, Y. (Eds.). (2015). Land in the struggles for citizenship in Africa. Dakar: CODESRIA.
Moyo, S., & Yeros, P. (2005). The resurgence of rural movements under neoliberalism. In S. Moyo & P. Yeros (Eds.), Reclaiming the land: The resurgence of rural movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America. London & Cape Town: Zed Books & David Philip.
Moyo, S., & Yeros, P. (2013). The Zimbabwe model: Radicalisation, reform and resistance. In S. Moyo & W. Chambati (Eds.), Land and agrarian reform Zimbabwe: Beyond white-settler capitalism (pp. 331–357). Dakar: CODESRIA.
Moyo, S., Yeros, P., & Jha, P. (2012). Imperialism and primitive accumulation: Notes on the new scramble for Africa. Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy., 1(2), 181–203.
NEPDG [National Energy Policy Development Group]. (2001). National energy policy, May. http://www.whitehouse.gov.
Nkrumah, K. (1965). Neo-colonialism: The last stage of imperialism. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd.
Patnaik, P. (1972). On the political economy of development. In Economic and political weekly, Annual Number (pp. 197 − 212).
Patnaik, U. (1999). Export-oriented agriculture and food security in developing countries and in India. In Utsa Patnaik (Ed.), The long transition (pp. 351–416). New Delhi: Tulika.
Patnaik, P. (2008). The Accumulation process in the period of globalization. http://www.networkideas.org/feathm/may2008/ft28_Globalization.htm.
Patnaik, U., & Patnaik, P. (2017). A theory of imperialism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Prasad, A. (2016). Adivasi women agrarian change and forms of labour in Neoliberal India. Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 5(1), 20–49.
Rodney, Walter. (1973). How Europe underdeveloped Africa. Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House.
Schincariol, V. E., Barbosa, M. S., & Yeros, Paris. (2017). Labour trends in Latin America and the Caribbean in the current crisis (2008–2016). Agriarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 6(1), 113–141.
Shivji, I. G. (2009). Accumulation in an African periphery. Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota Publishers Ltd.
Tabb, W. K. (2008). The global food crisis and what has capitalism to do with it. www.networkideas.org/focus/Jul2008/fo28_Global_Food_Crisis.htm.
Tsikata, D. (2016). Gender land tenure and agrarian production systems in Africa. Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 5(1), 1–19.
UNEP. (2002). Africa Environment outlook—Past, present and future perspectives. Available on http://www.unep.org/dewa/africa/publications/aeo-1/171.htm. Retrieved on April 5, 2013.
World Bank. (2008). World development report 2008: Agriculture for development. Washington, DC: The World Bank.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Moyo, S., Jha, P., Yeros, P. (2019). The Scramble for Land and Natural Resources in Africa. In: Moyo, S., Jha, P., Yeros, P. (eds) Reclaiming Africa. Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5840-0_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5840-0_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-5839-4
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-5840-0
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)