Contemporary debates on land grabbing and large-scale farming in 20the century Africa

Third World Quarterly has just published online a new paper by Peter Gibbon and Elena Baglioni (Queen Mary College, University of London) looking at the lessons from the experience of 20th century large-scale agriculture in Africa, and policy debates around it, for the current discussion on ’land-grabbing’ in Africa. The paper, which is part of a special edition on Global Land Grabs edited by Marc Edelman, Carlos Oya and Saturnino Borras (Vol. 34, No. 9), points out that in Africa there has been little or no expansion of large-scale agriculture as a share of the total cultivated area since World War One, although the main locations of this type of farming have shifted northwards; and that with a few exceptions ever since this period colonial and post-independence agricultural policy has broadly favoured small-scale farming.