Minding ‘Productive Gaps’: An Appraisal of Non-operational Land Deals in Seven Sub-Saharan African Countries

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’.

过去二十年来，全球针对非洲农村地区的主流发展议程之一，将大规模农工投资视为实现土地高效利用、提升作物产量、强化粮食安全以及减缓贫困等目标的解决方案。然而，越来越多的证据表明，该议程并未兑现其承诺：绝大多数农业生产类土地交易并未按计划落地，其社会经济发展目标往往也未能实现。尽管未运营项目往往造成严重影响，但学界对于此类项目为何无法启动并开展运营的认知仍零散不全。本文基于对撒哈拉以南7个国家当代土地交易的大量文献综述，揭示了两类“生产性缺口”。其一，本文深入剖析土地交易自身的“生产性缺口”，明确了未运营土地交易的核心驱动因素。经梳理的文献表明，当地反对声与资金困境是影响农业运营的关键因素。而当地反对声在很大程度上源于存在缺陷的土地征收流程，以及投资者未兑现的承诺。其二，本文对“土地攫取”研究领域学术成果所呈现的认知偏差与疏漏之处，展开了批判性评估。