Paper short abstract:

The paper outlines a comparative appraisal of land acquisitions for large-scale agro-investments in rural Tanzania and Uganda, which were scaled back, stalled or cancelled. It conceptualizes the implications of such land deals on future land access and use for rural smallholders and herders.

Paper long abstract:

The literature on land acquisition for large investments in rural Africa has exploded in recent years. Such investments have proven key in land commodification and in (re)-shaping land control in rural settings. There are still, however, relatively few studies discussing their longer-term implications for future land access and use for smallholder farmers and herders. This paper outlines a comparative appraisal of such land acquisition processes in rural Tanzania and Uganda, with a particular focus on acquisitions for large-scale agro-investments that have not progressed as planned: Despite differences in land tenure regimes, Tanzania and Uganda both display large numbers of agro-investments that have been scaled back, stalled or cancelled. This high degree of “failure” stands in stark contrast to development narratives of grand opportunities brought by these investments. Importantly, not only operational investments, but also cancelled ones appear to have long-lasting, sometimes irreversible, implications on land access and use for rural smallholders and herders, in an environment of growing land scarcity for not least the younger generation.

In order to conceptualize future land access and use in rural East Africa, the paper builds on two interrelated strands; i) the diverse investment processes and practices and their implications for, for instance, land use patterns, land concentration and social relations and ii) a mapping of national and global power configurations and legal and political frameworks related to land use. The paper discusses how these two strands are profound in shaping future pathways of land access and use in rural East Africa.