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Paper short abstract

The cancellation of land grabs since the early 2000s has left millions of hectares of land in Africa lying in limbo, uncultivated or used under precarious conditions. The paper aims to explore how cancelled land deals affect smallholders’ land access and livelihoods in Tanzania.

Paper long abstract

While research on large-scale agricultural investment in Africa has exploded over the past two decades, the focus of development bodies has gradually shifted elsewhere. This might be due to the meagre delivery from this global development agenda for rural Africa, compared to expected achievements, where most of these investments have been stalled, scaled back or even cancelled. However, studying the effects of such cancelled land deals is urgent since they still negatively affect smallholder farmers’ access to land and livelihoods but also seem to offer opportunities to redistribute land to smallholders. Indeed, the cancellation of land grabs since the early 2000s has left millions of hectares of land lying in limbo, uncultivated or used under precarious conditions. This paper aims to explore how cancelled land deals affect smallholders’ land access and livelihoods in Tanzania.