After the global financial crisis of 2008, a new trend in foreign direct investments (FDI) emerged: investors' rising interest in farmland in developing nations. This 'land rush' was a marker of increased land commodification and agricultural financialization, but has also been associated with global narratives of agricultural modernization, and development through FDI of 'cheap, unproductive and/or idle' farmland. Yet, as this book demonstrates, global investment dynamics are dictated by complex economic, political, socio-historical dynamics in any host country. Focusing on the land rush in Tanzania, the contexts of six investment projects in the nation are examined and unpacked, helping to understand the ways in which political struggles over land, capital and authority all feed into determining the goals - and eventually the outcomes - of the 'farmland investment game'.

Interrogates the narratives of land grabbing and agricultural investment through detailed local studies that illuminate how these are experienced on the ground and the implications for Africa's land and agricultural economy.

"What does it mean to say that rural areas of Africa are poor? Many people insist that in rural African countries areas poverty is prevalent. This is either because the smallholder agricultural practices are unproductive or it is because economic policies have not protected and promoted African farming. But whether this deprivation is the fault of the peasant, or the government, both sides agree on the facts of rural poverty. However in both cases rural poverty is described using measures which make it hard, if not impossible, to capture new forms of wealth that rural people may be accruing. These new forms of wealth, which largely comprise productive assets, are especially important because they feature so prominently in rural people's own definitions of wealth. Using an unprecedented collection of longitudinal surveys, in which experienced researchers have revisited villages which they have known for decades, we track surprising increases in assets in diverse locations in Tanzania. These findings the result is a compilation which is fascinating in itself and important far understanding of rural economies development data and agricultural policy"--

This timely and perceptive book addresses the issues surrounding the adequacy of old-age income for future pensioners worldwide. It highlights how today’s young people are confronted with the simultaneous challenges of increasing employment uncertainty and declining pension generosity – topics which are highly relevant in contemporary welfare states.

This book brings together geological, biological, radical economic, technological, historical and social perspectives on peak oil and other scarce resources. The contributors to this volume argue that these scarcities will put an end to the capitalist system as we know it and alternatives must be created. The book combines natural science with emancipatory thinking, focusing on bottom up alternatives and social struggles to change the world by taking action. The volume introduces original contributions to the debates on peak oil, land grabbing and social alternatives, thus creating a synthesis to gain an overview of the multiple crises of our times. The book sets out to analyse how crises of energy, climate, metals, minerals and the soil relate to the global land grab which has accelerated greatly since 2008, as well as to examine the crisis of profit production and political legitimacy. Based on a theoretical understanding of the multiple crises and the effects of peak oil and other scarcities on capital accumulation, the contributors explore the social innovations that provide an alternative. Using the most up to date research on resource crises, this integrative and critical analysis brings together the issues with a radical perspective on possibilites for future change as well as a strong social economic and ethical dimesion. The book should be of interest to researchers and students of environmental policy, politics, sustainable development and natural resource management.

The global food system is characterized by large numbers of people experiencing food insecurity and hunger on the one hand, and vast amounts of food waste and overconsumption on the other. This book brings together experiences from different countries addressing the challenges associated with food security. Seen through various disciplinary lenses the different cases included are countries at various stages of food security, with diverse stories of success as well as failures in their efforts. China, Brazil and India, as well as less developed countries in Africa and Asia, such as Malawi, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Myanmar, Bangladesh and the Philippines. The authors pay special attention to the environmental and socio-economic challenges in the respective chapters and how they contribute to food insecurity. Each of the case studies identifies and analyzes which factors or drivers (environmental, economic, policy, technology, markets) have been the most powerful shapers of the food system and their future impact. The case studies identify interventions at regional, national and local level that contribute positively to food security, highlighting solutions that are effective and easy to implement for all levels of decision makers, from farmers to policy makers. Overall, the book provides insights in order to foster a greater understanding of the issues surrounding food security and support progress towards the goal of a sustainable food system for all.

This handbook examines agricultural and rural development in Africa from theoretical, empirical and policy stand points. It discusses the challenges of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and assesses how poverty and other development concerns can be addressed in rural communities through agricultural transformation. Additionally, the handbook extends the Post-2015 Development Agenda and it emphasizes the importance of the agricultural sector as it is closely related to the issues of food sustainability, poverty reduction, and employment creation. The contributors suggest multiple evidence-based policies to develop the rural areas through the transformation of the agricultural sector which can significantly benefit the African continent.

Giulia Barbanente investigates the impact of large-scale foreign land acquisitions (LSLAs) on rural households in Ethiopia and Tanzania. Given the scale of LSLAs happening in developing countries, there is urgent need to objectively assess whether risks for smallholders are balanced by positive economic outcomes. The author considers four key pathways of influence of LSLAs on rural households: access to land, returns to land, returns to labor and price of agricultural goods. The four pathways are tested on the background of Ethiopia’s and Tanzania’s land tenure systems, which are strikingly different. The evidence shows several elements of similarity in the reported effect of LSLAs on the defined indicators of households’ welfare in the two countries.

The last two years have seen a huge amount of academic, policy-making and media interest in the increasingly contentious issue of land grabbing - the large-scale acquisition of land in the global South. It is a phenomenon against which locals seem defenceless, and one about which multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank, as well as civil-society organizations and action NGOs have become increasingly vocal. This in-depth and empirically diverse volume - taking in case studies from across Africa, Asia and Latin America - takes a step back from the hype to explore a number of key questions: Does the 'global land grab' actually exist? If so, what is new about it? And what, beyond the immediately visible dynamics and practices, are the real problems? A comprehensive and much-needed intervention on one of the most hotly contested but little-understood issues facing countries of the South today.