ABSTRACT
International investors have acquired farm land abroad with increasing speed, the trend being furthered by the food price crisis in 2007–2008. Consequently, the analyses of country-level trends and patterns of large-scale investments are scarce. Ethiopia, among other countries, has to date leased out significant areas to foreign investors, providing an excellent case study of the process. Large acquisition of use rights over land is often accompanied with large-scale production on that land in the form of plantation or extensive mechanised use, depending on the crop cultivated. In a traditional agrarian society such as Ethiopia, land is the most important natural resource. As established in the federal and regional constitutions, as well as by land laws, all land, whether urban or rural, is property of the state. In the 1990s the government’s rural development strategy was based on smallholders. Policies were biased towards small-scale production and the land tenure system put in place was considered to be peasant-friendly.
