4. Land acquisition and livelihood security in Africa

Moreover, Onoja and Achike [28] reviewed cases of land grabbing by foreign investors in West Africa, identified the possible drivers of large-scale land acquisition by foreign investors in the region and discussed the implications of the findings for agricultural and land policy reforms in West Africa. Prior to the study, reports indicating that large portions of land (estimated 50– 80 m ha) have been bought by international investors in middle- and low-income countries, with roughly two-thirds of those purchases occurring in sub-Saharan Africa, called for a cursory appraisal of the implications of the trend of land grabbing for West African food security (Sahel West Africa Countries, SWAC/OECD, [29]). Land transactions involving foreign investors had increased in the area over the years. Over 100,000 ha have been documented in Nigeria. Ghana and Mali have many significant transactions on land by foreign investors. Several investors have more than 100,000 ha. Burkina Faso has one significant land transaction (200,000 ha), while Niger and Senegal have relatively small land transactions. Most lands grabbed in West Africa were profit driven (by biofuel investors) and were made under the guise of using the lands acquired for agricultural investments. Land tenure and investment in land have far-reaching economic and social implications and are therefore key issues for small family–operated farms and their relations with agribusiness (Sahel West Africa Countries, SWAC/OECD, [29]). According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation [30], many problems that are now being recognised in natural and agricultural land systems have arisen out of the use of inadequate technologies for assessing and monitoring land resources, preventing land pollution and rehabilitating contaminated lands. According to Cotula, Vermeulen, Leonard, and Keeley, transactions labelled as "large-scale" involved between 1000 and 500,000 ha [31, 32]. Increasing evidence is emerging to affirm that the problem of large-scale land acquisition by foreign investors in Africa is following a dangerous trend, which needs to be monitored.

The growing interest in petty trading was attributed to the view that the construction of the dam has caused influx of people into the study area, thereby providing market for consumable goods. Other coping strategies included farming, premixed fuel business, wood gathering and pito brewing. The local people in the study communities were unaware of any alternative livelihood interventions provided by the Bui Power Authority and the district assemblies to

The study therefore recommended the introduction of a comprehensive livelihood enhancement programme such as skill training for the youth and the landless group of people in the study communities by the Bui Power Authority and the district assemblies. This would enable

Rural Nigeria is agricultural as 85% of the residents depend on agriculture for their livelihood. However, access to land is limited as families and community heads still manage to control land thereby determining access to land. Given the position of Land Use Act 1978, it implies that the beneficiaries of the communal land allocation system are not formally recognised as the legal holders of right to the land. Again, family and community heads rely on memory and reference to natural and artificial features to define plots of land that is prone to uncertainty regarding the location of boundaries [23]. This is because most communal land allocations are

Availability of land determines food and livelihood security given the level of agricultural development in Nigeria [17]. This is because farming operations will remain at subsistence level due to inadequate access to land. In fact, an estimated 95% of agricultural lands in Nigeria are not titled [24]. This undermines the capacity of farmers to present lands as collateral to access formal loans from financial institutions [24]. Again, the lack of absolute or nonderivative property interest constrains the ability of farming households to plant cash crops consequently limiting their income generation potentials [17]. Therefore, food security is difficult as the population continues to grow and agricultural land becomes scarce [25]. The challenges of agricultural production and food security including inadequate access to land, finance and technology, inconsistent policy regime, infrastructure deficit and adverse climate

Moreover, Onoja and Achike [28] reviewed cases of land grabbing by foreign investors in West Africa, identified the possible drivers of large-scale land acquisition by foreign investors in the region and discussed the implications of the findings for agricultural and land policy reforms in West Africa. Prior to the study, reports indicating that large portions of land (estimated 50– 80 m ha) have been bought by international investors in middle- and low-income countries,

ensure the sustainability of their livelihoods.

98 Land Use - Assessing the Past, Envisioning the Future

them to promote their livelihood sustainability.

not documented [23].

3. Land tenure, food security and livelihood security

change impacts have been documented in literature [26, 27].

4. Land acquisition and livelihood security in Africa

Global Development [33] reported that research findings have indicated that a million Chinese farmers have joined the rush to Africa and that some of the world's richest countries are buying or leasing land in some of the world's poorest to satisfy their insatiable appetites for food and fuel. In the new scramble for Africa, the report added, 2.5 m ha (6.2 m acres) of farmland in five sub-Saharan countries have been bought or rented in the past 5 years at a total cost of \$920 m (£563 m). Recent high-profile land purchases encompassing thousands of hectares of prime agricultural land have raised concerns over equitable land access [30]. Sub-Saharan Africa, especially Nigeria and other West African countries, is not exempt from this development (see Cotula, Vermeulen, Leonard, and Keeley, [31, 32]). Such a trend is more disturbing when considered alongside the future of food production from SSA land, where FAO [34] put the estimated share of arable land in total agricultural land at only 15.6% as of 2000. Response indicators showed that the value of agricultural production per hectare of agricultural land is highest in South Asia, at I\$ 720.6, while Sub-Saharan Africa trailed behind, globally ranking lowest with a value of I\$ 71.8. Under this scenario, worrying over the growing trend of large-scale land acquisition by foreign investors‑who are, at best, interested in growing crops that can only contribute to food security and economic growth of countries outside SSA‑while the limited land available for African farmers is diminishing in the face of lingering hunger and poverty is justified.

Food security is a current issue in Nigeria, as it is across Africa. According to the review, it was noted that there are 307 million hungry people in Africa, most of whom live in Sub-Saharan Africa (265 million). A FAO statistic indicated that at least 9.4 million Nigerians were undernourished and that out of Nigeria's 147.7 million citizens, 6% were highly undernourished (2011). Instead of dealing with food supply or food security problems at such a critical time, the country is selling off arable lands to foreign investors prospecting in biofuels production to the extent of losing greater than 136,000 ha of land from only eight deals that could have been used in producing food crops. The implication of this is that the drive for food security will still be a far-fetched dream as long as attraction of foreign investment in agriculture only aims to produce biofuels for profit. The auctioning of fertile farmlands for this purpose also portends danger of losing job opportunities, increasing poverty in the country, and helping the growth of foreign companies to the disadvantage of poor land owners in Nigeria. The overall implication of these trends is to increase poverty, unfavourable terms of trade against Nigeria, desertification, increased global warming and the adverse consequences of climate change and the disempowerment of indigenous citizens, who will now be left with few pieces of land that may not reach even 1 ha. The study therefore recommended that a regional approach should be applied by African countries, implementing land reforms that will involve the local communities who own the land, stopping long-term leasing beyond 50 years, building capacity and creating awareness about land transactions of large magnitudes.

The fourth conceptual issue relates to how land is administered. The management regimes of land and natural resources differ due to the nature of the historical experiences. The main issues relate to the accessibility, transparency and accountability of the administrative systems. There has been a tendency towards too much administration, due to the different layers of the state, local and indigenous authority, particularly within customary tenure systems. The fifth analytical construct relates to systems of adjudicating land disputes. There are key questions with regard to how to resolve current and past land problems in situations where multiple tenure regimes exist. In most countries, the legal framework has been biased towards the

Land Acquisition and Use in Nigeria: Implications for Sustainable Food and Livelihood Security

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.79997

101

The study also reviewed the model by Maxwell and Weibe [41] that illustrates a causal flow relationship between resources, production, income, consumption and nutritional status.

Below is an example of a conventional conceptual nexus between land and food: Resources ! Production ! Income ! Consumption ! Nutritional status (Source: Adopted from Maxwell and

But it was suggested that a simple linear model does not adequately capture the interrelationships between consumption and investment decisions, household endowments, production and exchange decisions, and household entitlements. A more comprehensive model illustrates a circular relationship between these four factors, which are further impacted upon by tenure institutions and asset markets and have outputs in terms of environmental impact, generation and redistribution of wealth. The most apparent qualitative link that was suggested was that increased security of tenure in productive resources enables more efficient and profitable agricultural production and hence greater access to food via both own production

Also, a report was given by the European Union on Development in 2011 that was driven mainly by concerns about the scarcity of food, energy and arable land and linked to these

i. How the land deals come about, the quality of the contracts, and who will benefit and who will lose (i.e., governance and accountability issues with respect to decision-making

ii. Whether there is recognition of all local rights (including informal and secondary rights)

iii. Whether the contracts override customary rights, resulting in smallholders, pastoralists

iv. The implications for food security/sovereignty, rural development and the future of

5. Conventional conceptual links between land and food

expectations of rising land values with issues relating to:

on transactions and terms of the contracts).

and forest dwellers being driven from the land.

and adequate compensation.

smallholder farming.

market and the state.

Wiebe [41].

and trade.

Furthermore, a report by Economic Commission for Africa [35] to show the linkages between land tenure and food security in Africa confirms that land plays an important role in the livelihoods of the majority of Africans. This asserts that food security and poverty reduction cannot be achieved unless issues of access to land, security of tenure and the capacity to use land productively and in a sustainable manner are addressed. This chapter suggests that land is central in promoting rural livelihoods in Africa because access to land and security of tenure are the main means through which food security and sustainable development can be realised because the livelihoods of over 70% of the population in Africa are mainly linked to land and natural resources exploitation.

This chapter studied the land policy generic model developed by Moyo [36], based upon Shivji et al. [37], derived from five analytical constructs of land management, namely, land distribution, land utilisation, land tenure security, land administration and land adjudication. It posits land tenure as one of the central factors determining food security and sustainable development.

In terms of land distribution, the major problem relates to unequal access to land according to race, gender, class and ethnic distinctions. The second analytical construct relates to land utilisation and how this has been economically and socially constructed. There is a tendency to view small farms as inefficient and large farms as highly efficient in terms of yields per unit of land [38], especially in settler countries. But such a perception has long since been debunked [39, 40] and multinational organisations (IMF and World Bank) have come to accept the efficiency of smallholder land use. The main question of analysis is how the regulation of land-use is consensual or coercive and whether it is free of discrimination. The third conceptual issue is how land tenure has been constructed and qualified in most African countries. The main question relates to how secure the tenure systems are and whether there is equity or not. It was argued that access to more productive land and control of natural resources by the poor offers the most stable form of security for poor households. In this case, livelihood security cannot be achieved without some form of redistribution of land held by wealthy classes (constituted of individuals and multinational companies). The assumption tends to be that enhancing access to land, security of tenure or sustainability of land resource use will ultimately enhance welfare, including food security.

The fourth conceptual issue relates to how land is administered. The management regimes of land and natural resources differ due to the nature of the historical experiences. The main issues relate to the accessibility, transparency and accountability of the administrative systems. There has been a tendency towards too much administration, due to the different layers of the state, local and indigenous authority, particularly within customary tenure systems. The fifth analytical construct relates to systems of adjudicating land disputes. There are key questions with regard to how to resolve current and past land problems in situations where multiple tenure regimes exist. In most countries, the legal framework has been biased towards the market and the state.

The study also reviewed the model by Maxwell and Weibe [41] that illustrates a causal flow relationship between resources, production, income, consumption and nutritional status.
