Abstract:
The article details features and implications of the global land rush, with
particular focus on Africa. Data and analyses of the ‘Land Matrix’ project help to
provide an overview of these land-based investments, while locally implemented
case studies in the framework of the ‘Commercial Pressures on Land’ project
facilitate the assessment of implications related (or not) to the question of Africa’s
green revolution. By emphasising the need to go beyond the land acquisition
phenomenon and its direct consequences, it re-contextualises the rush for land
and relates it to broader dynamics of agrarian transformation in Africa.While the
present rush for land may represent a revitalisation of Africa’s agricultural sector,
it is doubtful that this revolution benefits the continent overall.