CIAO DATE: 12/2011
November 2011
Danish Institute for International Studies
Large-scale agriculture in Africa is in the news because of widespread worries about ‘land-grabbing’. This working paper asks what lessons can be drawn for critical discussion about current developments, and the narratives used to describe them, from a re-assessment of large-scale agriculture in Africa during the twentieth century. Amongst the issues dealt with in the paper are the varieties of large-scale farming systems that emerged and became stabilized in the twentieth century, the systems of labour control that were bound up with them, and the theories and arguments that policy makers used to justify or oppose large-scale agriculture from the colonial period onwards. A first central conclusion is that, while the main farming systems found in large-scale agriculture in twentieth century Africa always exhibited a high degree of divergence, some convergence occurred, especially after 1960, in respect of the systems of labour control that were deployed. A second conclusion is that the historical evidence does not clearly support the dominant policy narrative on large-scale farming in Africa over the last hundred years, which emphasizes low investment, low productivity and limited employment potential.
Resource link: Experiences of Plantation and Large-Scale Farming in 20th Century Africa [PDF] - 511K