Minding ‘Productive Gaps’: An Appraisal of Non-operational Land Deals in Seven Sub-Saharan African Countries
基于对七个撒哈拉以南非洲国家土地交易的文献综述，分析了农业土地交易未能运营的原因，包括地方反对和资金困难，并批判了相关学术研究中的偏见与疏漏。
One of the dominant global development agendas for rural Africa in the past two decades has cast large-scale agro-industrial investments as a solution to achieve more efficient land use, higher crop yields, enhanced food security, and poverty reduction, among others. However, mounting evidence shows that this agenda has not fulfilled its promises: most land deals for agricultural production have not materialised as planned and their socio-economic development objectives often remain unreached. Despite the often severe impacts of non-operational projects, knowledge about why they fail to take place and operate remains fragmentary. Based on an extensive literature review of contemporary land deals in seven sub-Saharan countries, this paper sheds light on two ‘productive gaps’. First, the article delves into the ‘productive gap’ of land deals themselves, identifying key drivers of non-operational land deals. The reviewed literature points to local opposition and financial difficulties as significant factors impacting agricultural operations. Local opposition, in turn, stems largely from flawed land acquisition processes and unfulfilled investors’ promises. Second, this article offers a critical appraisal of the biases and oversights in the knowledge the land grab scholarship has ‘produced’.