scholarly journals Improving Transparency and Reliability of Tenure Information for Improved Land Governance in Senegal

Land ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Bourgoin ◽  
Elodie Valette ◽  
Simon Guillouet ◽  
Djibril Diop ◽  
Djiby Dia

In current literature, certain scholars have stressed the role of the private sector in the process of revitalizing agriculture through agribusiness-led development. Others have underlined the global risks of poorly negotiated land acquisitions that disadvantage farmers and of nontransparent trade arrangements that create suspicion within local communities. Official and unofficial data whose relevance is frequently questioned, because they differ from actual conditions found on the ground, are often built upon these narratives. This acknowledgement points to the need for reliable data in order to support constructive debates on models of agricultural development. Senegal is experiencing similar controversies involving the dynamics of agribusiness development within the context of inadequate information on land acquisitions. In this paper, we first acknowledge the existence of past and current efforts to address investments in the agricultural sector. After critical analysis of these documents, we propose another way to monitor investments with survey tools that are embedded in participatory action-research processes and then provide information that can be used as a boundary object. We advocate the use of mapping tools to identify and monitor land processes, and the use of geospatial information to help identify an initial inventory of various sources of data on large-scale land transactions.

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 312
Author(s):  
Ruxandra Malina Petrescu-Mag ◽  
Hamid Rastegari Kopaei ◽  
Dacinia Crina Petrescu

Foreign land grabbing is acknowledged as a phenomenon that generates disempowerment and dispossession of local farmers, human rights violations. Previous studies have revealed the lack of ethical benchmarks in foreign large-scale land transactions that raise moral concerns. It is evident that when resources are scarce and people depend on them, the balance between values and interests transforms itself into a dilemma. Within this context, the aims of the paper were to bring to the fore critical reflection on a more ethical perspective of large-scale land acquisitions and to extend the scant information on what factors determine landowners not to sell their land to foreigners to limit land grabbing. This context justifies the need for a critical reflection on a more ethical perspective of large-scale land acquisitions. Therefore, two objectives were set. The first one is to document the role of ethics in large-scale land transactions. Based on the land grabbing literature, authors selected a set of eight land grabbing narratives, most often interrelated and overlapping, that pose ethical considerations. The second objective is to reveal how well a set of variables can predict the “Resistance to sell” the land to foreigners even when an attractive price is offered. As ethics is a social construct, the analysis captured the stakeholders’ perspective on land grabbing. Therefore, a questionnaire was applied to a sample of 332 Romanian landowners from twelve randomly selected counties to reveal their perceptions. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to observe how well a set of seven variables could predict landowners’ “Resistance to sell” their land to foreign buyers. The use of PLS-SEM was justified by the existence of single items and the need to examine many structural model relations. Results showed that the variables with the strongest contribution to the prediction of the dependent variable are the “Probability to join an association for farmers rights defense”, the “Importance of the land price offered by the potential foreign buyer”, and the “Perceived effect of agricultural land conversion to urban land”. Raising awareness on the importance of buyer attributes, increasing people’s perception of the negative effect of agricultural land conversion to urban land, or strengthening the state’s image as a necessary actor to limit land grabbing will increase landowners’ resistance to sell their land to foreigners. Finally, it can be inferred that, within this frame of discussion, ethics should be valued as a means to create economically viable and morally justifiable solutions for foreign large-scale land transactions.


Land ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramona Bunkus ◽  
Insa Theesfeld

Recently, we witnessed an immense increase in international land transactions in the Global South, a phenomenon slowly expanding in northern industrialized countries, too. Even though in Europe agriculture plays a decreasing economic role for rural livelihoods, the increases in land transactions by non-local, non-agricultural investors pervades rural life. Nevertheless, the underlying processes are not yet well understood. Large-scale land acquisitions describe such purchases and leases in a neutral way, while ‘land grabbing’ expresses negative consequences for rural people. We investigate whether and under which conditions the term land grabbing is justified for the phenomenon observed in Europe. We propose six socio-cultural criteria that scholars should consider to come to an initial classification: legal irregularities, non-residence of new owners, centralization in decision-making structures, treating land as an investment object, concentration of decision-power, and limited access to land markets. We supplement our findings with empirical material from East Germany, where such land acquisition processes occur. Our paper contributes to the ongoing discussion about agricultural structural change in Europe, which is intensified by increasing land prices and a new distribution of landownership but likewise strongly intertwined with rural development.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 112-127
Author(s):  
Valentina A. Nokhrina ◽  

In the proposed article, on the basis of the materials of the Moscow Society of Agriculture identified in the fund of the Central Scientific Agricultural Library. With the involvement of the developments of researchers on the history of agrarian thought in Russia in the 19th and early 20th centuries, forms of communication between the scientific and professional communities are determined for the modernization of the agricultural sector of agriculture after the peasant reform of 1861 of the year. The publication highlights the main forms of communication: the publishing activity of the Society, the organization of exhibitions and congresses. To assess the large-scale activities of the Moscow Society of Agriculture for 110 years, a brief overview of its practical work is presented, and the role in the agrarian rationalization of agriculture in Russian historiography is revealed. Members of the Moscow Society have made a significant contribution to the study of the state of agriculture, ways of evolution and methods of increasing its productivity. On the example of materials from three All-Russian congresses on agronomic assistance to the population, the organizational aspects of resolving issues of agricultural management in the regions of Russia. The role and significance of the public initiative is especially valuable today, when the problems of innovative renewal and modernization of the agricultural sector are becoming a national task. For its successful solution, the documents of the congresses can be useful, since they make it possible to trace the genesis of the processes of agricultural development in various thematic areas and economic zones in historical terms and to avoid possible mistakes in decision-making.


2013 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Perrine Burnod ◽  
Rivo Andrianirina Ratsialonana ◽  
André Teyssier

Author(s):  
Carol A. Hunsberger ◽  
Saturnino M. Borras ◽  
Jennifer C. Franco ◽  
Wang Chunyu

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