The Political Economy of Large-Scale Agricultural Land Acquisitions: Implications for Food Security and Livelihoods/Employment Creation in Rural Mozambique

This paper will provide a brief assessment of the impacts of investments on food security and rural livelihoods/ employment creation in Mozambique. Based on the lessons learned from the Mozambican experience the paper will discuss the potential role of large-scale land acquisitions in promoting food security and reducing poverty. The paper will also discuss some of the opportunity costs associated with large-scale farming and look at the alternative rural development strategies available to Mozambique, as well as other land-abundant African countries. The paper concludes that, despite some recorded positive impacts, the relatively high number of negative impacts from recent large-scale land acquisitions in Mozambique give cause for concern. The country`s demographic and sociopolitical characteristics suggest that a labor intensive rural development strategy may be more suitable than the attraction of large-scale investments in farmland.