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Grabbing of communal rangelands in Sudan: The case of large-scale mechanized rain-fed agriculture
Land Use Policy 47 (2015) 439–447
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Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol
Grabbing of communal rangelands in Sudan: The case of large-scale mechanized rain-fed agriculture Hussein M. Sulieman ∗ Centre for Remote Sensing and Geographical Information Systems, Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Gadarif, P.O. Box 449, 32211 Gadarif, Sudan
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 10 September 2014 Received in revised form 30 March 2015 Accepted 28 April 2015 Keywords: Domestic land grabbing Pastoralists Smallholding farmers Conflict Sudan
a b s t r a c t Capturing of communal resources by investors is one of the pressing tragedies facing customary land tenure systems in Africa. This article aims to look into how large-scale mechanized agriculture is encroaching into communal rangeland in Sudan and its social and environmental consequences. It scrutinizes the steps that large-scale farmers (LSFs) have to follow in order to acquire communal resources. It is clear that the government overwhelmingly serves the interest of economic elites from urban centers by offering a diversity of support in a way that the rights of traditional local land users e.g., pastoralists and smallholder farmers are detriment. The most important formal change was the 1996 ministerial act which legitimized the illegal situation of the LSFs. At the same time, LSFs have not been forced to comply with regulations issued by state institutions. Using their financial potentialities, LSFs are not only accumulating large amounts of land but are also heavily involved in livestock rearing. Among the immediate consequences of converting communal property to individual property is creating a fertile environment for conflicts between different land users. Moreover, introducing of agricultural machinery in such marginal area is causing adverse environmental consequence such as severe soil degradation and desertification. The paper concludes that failure of the pastoralists and smallholder farmers to defend their land tenure rights might be explained by their political marginalization and the absence of their representative institutions. This calls for a new national land use legislation approach that incorporates the rights of rural communities and their associated traditional land use systems. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Communal rangelands have been more subject to land grabbing than any other land tenure type in Africa. This has increased conflicts and environmental degradation in many countries across the continent (Hagmann, 2003; Miller, 2005; Casciarri and Ahmed, 2009; Roe et al., 2009; Verhoeven, 2011; O’Brien, 2011; IIED, 2013; Sulieman, 2013). Converting communal property to individual property threatens the livelihoods of significant proportions of the rural population where such resources usually make up a significant share of the total wealth (German et al., 2013; Behnke and Kerven, 2011). Communal lands are intrinsically vulnerable, they are important for biodiversity, and land grabbing has dispossessed local communities from their customary rights and livelihoods (Sulieman and Ahmed, 2013; Manger, 1996; Ahmed, 2001; Blench, 2001). Although most communal rangelands are located in marginal areas, they have often proved to be sustain-
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +249 916882390. E-mail address: [email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2015.04.026 0264-8377/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
ably productive, because secure customary and communal rights enable rational natural resource utilization by local communities (Breman and de Wit, 1983; Behnke and Abel, 1996; Babiker, 2008). Nevertheless, land grabbers and governments tend to see them as under-populated and under-used (Ahmed, 1987). Moreover, governments often fail to appreciate the economic productivity of traditional pastoral and agro-pastoral systems and allocate rangelands to alternative commercial uses (IIED, 2013; Young et al., 2013). Verhoeven (2011) observed that successive Sudanese governments have a long history in supporting land grabbing under different names and justifications. Most of the underlying reasons are stated to be food security and increasing the country’s agricultural exports. In order to effect changes, land tenure laws and regulations in Sudan have been modified and even new laws have been coined (Dickerman, 1989; Large and El-Bash, 2010; Elhadary, 2010). Until the 1970 unregistered land act (ULA), pastoral people enjoyed some autonomy within their territories in Sudan. However, the 1970 ULA nationalized all unregistered land and declared state ownership of all lands which were not by then registered on
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private hands. It did not define the legal status of existing land users and gave the government broad powers to evict and complete discretion as regards compensation. The act provides legal basis for land acquisition which has dispossessed local communities from customary land rights (Kadouf and Bruce, 1986; Manger, 2006). Based on a top-down approach of economic transformation, the Sudan government at the time depicted large-scale intensive agriculture as the engine for growth, with export revenues fostering large industrial projects and the country becoming the ‘breadbasket’ of the Middle East (O’Brien, 1981), producing enough food not just for internal consumption, but also to sell to a world increasingly worried about resource scarcity (Verhoeven, 2011). However, just after one decade, it turned out that the government was sowing hunger in the country, as O’Brien (1985) stated, and it discovered that the breadbasket was empty (Oesterdiekhoff and Wohlmuth, 1983). Cater (1986) concluded that the people died in 1984 not because the rains failed, but because they could not grow enough food and were too poor to buy what they needed. Their hunger and poverty were due to a complex combination of political, economic and environmental factors that for decades had been destroying the land they depend on. After fully occupying the fertile foil of the central clay plains by mid eighties, as a consequence of 1970 ULA, there is a pressure to expand large-scale mechanized agriculture (LSMA) in the central clay plains of Sudan northwards, into marginal areas where mechanized cultivation has been illegal before, risks are high and possible environmental implications also quite damaging if machinery is used on such lands (Shazali and Ahmed, 1999; UNEP, 2007; Babiker, 2008). In Gadarif State rain-fed LSMA was introduced in 1944, when a government project was started to meet the food needs of army units stationed in the British colonies in eastern Africa during the Second World War (El-Tayeb, 1985). The state now has around 4.2 million hectares of cultivable land which is located in the central and southern parts of the state (Sulieman and Ahmed, 2013). According to Babiker (2012), until the mid early 1980s, Butana was excluded from LSMA because the amount of rainfall is generally too low and erratic for agricultural production. However, in the last three decades, the Butana has seen a drastic expansion of LSMA. According to the Mechanized Farming Corporation (MFC), the northern frontier of LSMA is lat. 14◦ 37 N latitude. This has been decided because the lands bordering the desert further north are marginal in the sense that the precipitation does not support sustainable crop cultivation. However, they are excellent rangelands and home for significant groups of agro-pastoralists and transhumant populations (Sørbø, 1985). Nevertheless, the Gadarif State Ministry of Agriculture issued an act in 1996, which pushed the frontier of LSMA further north to lat. 14◦ 45 N (Fig. 1). Similar developments have been reported elsewhere in the country. Thus, Babiker (2008) described the situation in North Kordofan State where mechanized cultivation has expanded enormously, frequently in areas that are ecologically unsuited to cropping. The northern border for mechanized agriculture in North Kordofan defined in law corresponded more or less with lat. 13◦ N. However, vast areas north of lat. 13◦ N are ploughed by tractors, a process that is environmentally unsustainable and destructive. It is apparent that the agricultural growth model adopted in Sudan since 1970s onwards gave little or no consideration to those who were ousted from communal lands by wealthy elites and investors. Although the Sudanese conflicts contain many ingredients, it is notable that most of the violence has taken place in pastoral and agro-pastoral areas (Helland and Sørbø, 2013). Moreover, the horizontal expansion rather than a vertical improvement in productivity, resulting in drastic clearance of natural vegetation and escalation of land use conflicts and tensions due to lack of adequate involvement of local communities regarding issues of land use (Sulieman and Elagib, 2012).
The large-scale farmers (LSFs) involved in land grabbing in communal rangeland are mainly educated elites, retired civil servants and military officers and traders from the big urban settlements in the region (Bascom, 1990). They achieve access to land through specific alliances with power holders both on state and local levels (Egemi, 2006). The objectives of this paper are (1) to understand the process of domestic land1 grabbing through exploring the different steps taken by LSFs from illegal acquisition to the final step of issuing land lease; (2) to identify the main demographic and socio-economic characteristics of LSFs engaged in the grabbing process; and (3) to investigate the impact of land grabbing on local smallholders, pastoralists and the environment. 2. Case study region The Butana communal rangelands are located in northern Gadarif State of eastern Sudan (Fig. 1). Due to excellent grassland vegetation cover, the area is the most preferred pasture by pastoralists in the region. Settled communities in the area also depend on these communal areas for smallholding cultivation. Furthermore, the area represents the main grazing land for significant groups of transhumant pastoralists in eastern Sudan during the rainy season. Land use patterns and population distribution, to a large extent, have been determined by the combined effects of erratic rainfall and a geological structure which largely contains no water-bearing rocks (Sørbø, 1985). Rainfall shows a remarkable variation in incidence, intensity, and distribution over the entire area. Precipitation occurs during three months from approximately mid-June to midSeptember. The compact nature of the clay soils covering most of the Butana accelerates runoff, which accelerates soil erosion and increases the domination of annual plants. Most of the Butana area is open grassland. Trees and shrubs are generally limited to the soils around the hills and to narrow belts along seasonal watercourses (Akhtar, 1993). Main crop cultivated in the area is early-maturing varieties of sorghum which is the stable food of local population. Average crop productivity in Butana is lower compared to central and southern part of the state due to erratic rainfall and low soil fertility. It is only during the past decades that the Butana has been subject to severe overgrazing due to the introduction of the 1970 ULA, which made it possible for any pastoral group from different parts of the surrounding regions to enter during the rainy season (Elhadary, 2010). There was also increasing sedentarization, pastoral groups shifting from nomadism to transhumance and, as a result, being forced to switch to new sources of income (Casciarri, 2002). In the early 1980s, the MFC, which is the responsible governmental office for leasing rain-fed mechanized agricultural lands, stated that there was no more land for the expansion of mechanized farming. However, since then LSFs started to encroach illegally into Butana communal grazing land in the northern part of the state. 3. Methodology The study is based on unstructured interviews, scheduled interviews, focus group discussions (FGD) and reconnaissance field surveys. Secondary data in the form of reports, statistics and local
1 Foreign land acquisition is also important; however, this study is mainly concerned with domestic aspects of land grabbing as information regarding domestic acquisitions is scarce, while foreign land grabbing in Sudan is catching the news in the international media. Focusing only on large-scale land acquisitions by foreigners has diverted attention from more serious domestic land grabbing currently taking place in the country. Therefore, the response to domestic land grabbing might help in protecting the rights of the vulnerable people.
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Fig. 1. Map showing the location of study region and the area under investigation. Numbers from 1 to 6 indicate name of villages visited during data collection namely Eleded Elsamena, Eleded Eltwal, Um Serha, Elhesheib, Mela and Elmagata Wedelzein.
acts were also utilized. Unstructured interviews and FGD were used to collect data from villagers and smallholding farmers. A total of six villages namely Eleded Elsamena, Eleded Eltwal, Um Serha, Elhesheib, Mela and Elmagata Wedelzein (Fig. 1) were visited. They were the main villages in the area that has been subject to land grabbing by LSFs. Major questions addressed, among others, to people in the villages during the FGD included historical background about the establishment of the village, village population, historical perspective of land grabbing in the area, observations regarding rangeland condition, water resources, land ownership, agricultural practices, livestock and conflicts. Initial interview with the village chief and head of the village people’s committee were conducted to identify the potential informants for the FGD. Criteria for selection of key informant are is be inhabitant from the village and above 50 years old. If possible, elder key informants were preferred. Within each village, two FGDs with groups of 6–10 informants were conducted. In order to get information on some aspects that are not recorded in the available reports and documents five experts from the MFC were interviewed, two of them were already retired. Beside the individual interview, the MFC experts were gathered together for a FGD. Main questions addressed to this group were on historical evolvement of LSMA in the area and important milestones in the process. Scheduled interviews were used to collected data from LSFs owning land in the area. Forty LSFs were interviewed. Contacts with potential LSF were established mostly through colleagues or former interviewees or through the MFC. The majority of the LSFs
interviews took place in Gadarif which is the capital city of the state and where most LSFs were settled. Only a few interviews took place in the villages. Main questions asked to LSFs were under three major themes namely personal characteristics including age and level of education. The second theme included questions about agricultural practices, land ownership, total area owned and locations, date of ownership, main crops, crop yield, and pesticide applications. The third topic was about the livestock and included questions like livestock species, herd size and herding system. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Reconnaissance field surveys cover the area between the old (lat. 14◦ 37 N) and new border (lat. 14◦ 45 N) of the LSMA and its periphery. The idea was to gather field evidence that shows the impact of land grabbing on soil degradation and deterioration of plant species composition and structure. A GPS device and digital camera were used to document some field features. Data collection was administered during the period December 2013–February 2014.
4. Results 4.1. The communal rangeland grabbing process Fig. 2 describes the process of land acquisition which started illegally in mid-eighties until it was legalized by ministerial act in 1996.
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ACTORS
STEPS Occupation of communal rangeland by LSFs
- Smallholder farmers - Pastoralists
Resistance to land acquisition by local community
TIMEFRAME
Early 1980s
Early 1980s 1985
- Farmers' Union - MFC - Loan banks
Getting temporal land lease to be eligible for subsidized services and loan from banks
Farmers’ Union MFC Ministry of Agriculture
Legalization of the grabbed land through issuing the 26 Ministerial Act
1996
Further illegal encroachment and new occupation of communal rangeland
1997 to date
1986 - 1995
Fig. 2. Evolution of land grabbing process in Butana area, northern Gadarif showing main steps of the process, actors involved and the timeframe from illegal land acquisition to legalization.
Step 1: Land acquisition (early 1980s–1985) The acquisition of land in the Butana communal rangelands by LSFs started in the early 1980s. When a LSF decides to acquire land, he begins his activities in the early rainy season. He collects background information of the piece of land he would like to acquire through his network.2 Basic information includes whether or not there is another LSF cultivating the area, and if there are smallholders from surrounding villages holding land leases in the area. The area of land he would like to acquire depends mainly on his financial situation. Most of them go up at least to 420 ha (which is the minimum area to be classified as LSF according to MFC) in the first season, which might be expanded in successive seasons. After two or three seasons the LSF will normally start to dig a water reservoir (hafir) in order to collect surface water during the rainy season. At this stage, LSFs do not need to make any official contacts with relevant government offices, such as the MFC. They start cultivating based on the presumption that the land is empty with no owners, neglecting that it is pastureland where fodder is available for nomadic and transhumant pastoralists during the rainy season. In case there are problems with smallholders from nearby villages, LSFs try to settle disputes through negotiations and compensation is given in terms of money. In case the villagers claim that the area is a communal grazing area for their village, the village chief takes the lead to negotiate with the LSF. However, villagers are complaining that in many cases their is lack of transparency in the process
2 Elitism always works through networking. They make use of their networks to facilitate the occupation of various locations of authority and to build power from community to regional and national level (Sam, 2010). In the case described in this paper; colleagues, officials from MFC, Farmers’ Union and local tribal leaders make up the network.
of negotiation. Capturing of communal rangeland by local leaders has been mentioned by many villagers. This was happed because some wealthy leaders in those villages, through their alliance with LSFs, have now become LSFs themselves. Step 2: Getting temporal land lease (1986–1995) On their way to legalize their situation, LSFs started in 1985 to negotiate with the MFC and the ministry of agriculture to provide them with some kind of documents which they can use to benefit from the subsidized services that the government was offering at that time, such as fuel and spare parts for their machinery and loan offered by banks.3 In 1986, the MFC started to issue temporary oneyear valid leaseholds. In 1990, this kind of temporary leasehold was extended to be for five years. The main actors playing significant roles to help LSFs to obtain temporal lease were the farmers’ union, financial institutions, the state ministry of agriculture and the MFC. LSFs consider the temporary leasehold as a bridge towards getting long term leases lasting 25 years. Step 3: Legalization (1996) According to the 1970 ULA, the communal rangelands of Butana remain the property of the state. This makes their onward sale or lease to private investors perfectly legal. In 1996, the Gadarif State Minister of Agriculture issued an act which legalized the situation for those who are cultivating illegally north of lat. 14◦ 37 N and the permission extends until lat. 14◦ 45 N. The 26 ministerial act (MA) allows LSFs to get 25 years leasehold. It is not a coincidence
3 The government was offering special prices for LSFs at that time. However, after the liberalization of prices in 1994, this policy is no more followed.
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that the act was issued just two years after federalism was introduced as a governing system in Sudan. Decentralization transfers the functions of leasing unregistered land from federal level to local institutions at state level.
Step 4: Further encroachments after legalization (1997–2014) During the reconnaissance field survey it was registered that in some locations, the encroachment of LSMA reached 14◦ 56 N. It is apparent that the 26 MA opened the door for more land grabbing. The strategy of first invading the land and then looking to legitimize the situation is currently widely pursued by LSFs. One of the officials in a relevant institution mentioned that: ‘we regularly have reported to the MFC and the State Ministry of Agriculture that LSMA is rabidly getting into the heart of the Butana communal rangelands. Throughout this dispute, the government has repeatedly promised to sanction those cultivating north of the 45 line, but nothing has been done’.
4.2. Demographic and socio-economic profile of LSFs Analysis of the primary data collected from LSFs indicates that they are all educated. 21 (53%) finished secondary school and even 6 (15%) were graduated. Only two of LSFs in the sample are from Butana, while the rest are outsiders from Khartoum (1) and Gadarif (37). It is clear that LSFs hold a large amount of land at their disposal. The mean land size owned by a LSF in Butana is 1889 ha, while the minimum is 420 ha and the largest is 7560 ha. 26 (65%) of the LSFs in the sample owned land in other places in addition to Butana. Among this group the mean, smallest and largest land size in locations other than Butana were 2809 ha, 420 ha and 10,500 ha, respectively. Twenty (50%) of the LSFs started to cultivate during the period 1980–1996. Eight (20%) started after 1996, while 12 (30%) started after 2000. Most of the last group their land is located north of the 14◦ 45 N line. The dominant soil type is light clay. Nevertheless, in many locations the soil surface was covered with stones and or gravels to extent that LSFs in such locations gathered the stones in one place (Fig. 3) in order to plow the soil. This clearly shows that this type of soil is not suitable for agricultural machinery. The main crop cultivated in the area is sorghum. Average sorghum yield for the last season was 376 kg/ha. Herbicides are among main methods to control weed. A substantial number of LSFs (26.65%) owned livestock. The average livestock amount in terms of murah4 were 2.8 for camels, 4.5 sheep and for 1.5 goats. Eight LSFs (20%) owned all three species, while 9 (22.5%) owned camels and sheep, 3 (7.5%) owned sheep and goats and 6 (15%) owned sheep only. Ten (25%) LSFs left the crop residues to their own livestock, whereas 15 (37.5%) preferred to sell the crop residue to pastoralists and the same number favored to combine both options. The majority (90%) of LSFs dig hafirs in their land. The main reason is provision of water for livestock. 19 (47.5%) of the hafirs kept water year round, while 11 (27.5%) lasted for at least six months. Concerning how LSFs were utilizing the water collected in hafirs, 22 (55%) were selling the water together with the crop residue to pastoralists, 7 (17.5%) utilized the water for their own animals besides selling to pastoralists, 7 (17.5%) were just selling the water, and 4 (10%) left the water for his own animals.
4 Murah is the local name for livestock herd. Normally, livestock owners prefer to give their stock in terms of murah instead of heads. Generally one murah of camels counts from 50 to 60 and for sheep and goats from 80 to 100.
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4.3. Impact of LSMA expansion on local community and the environment in Butana Broadly speaking the local population in Butana could be divided into two main categories; settled agro-pastoralists who were once nomadic pastoralists, and transhumant pastoralists visiting the area during the rainy season from July to October. People started to settle in 1940 and the most recent settlement was in 1976. Both periods were during times of drought and famine which hit the area and the whole Sahelian region. As a consequence of the drastic expansion of LMA in the Butana, local populations are being pushed out from their lands. Furthermore, LSFs occupy the land surrounding villages which mean that there is no possible expansion for smallholders as the population increased in theses villages. The empirical evidence showed that while the average land size among LSFs is 1889 ha, the average ranges between 19 ha and 8 ha among smallholders. Moreover, currently no one among the local population across the six villages owned an amount that reached a murah. The total number of interviewed LSFs from the six main villages was 2 and they were among the village leaders. Except for Elhesheib and Elmagata Wedelzein basic services, such as education were only recently introduced. Water availability is the most pressing livelihood issue in the area. Most of the villages lack health care centers and proper schools. Introducing chemical herbicides in the Butana is expected to be a serious threat to grassland in the area. During the FGDs, people mentioned that they are afraid that herbicide will affect their animals when they graze on crop residue or drink water from the hafirs. Another aspect that was observed by local community in Butana is the change of species composition due to herbicide application. They perceived that species, such as Hibiscus esculentus, which is one of the important edible plants in the region, is disappearing and at the same time some unpalatable species, such as Xanthium brasilicum and Datura stramoniumare becoming more dominant. Moreover, the soil type is not suitable for mechanized agriculture. Large stone and gravels appeared on the top of the soil after a few years of cultivation (Fig. 3). This is a phenomenon associated with shallow soils which allows for little water storage. It may also be easily moved by the wind. The expansion of LSMA into Butana has created a fertile environment for conflicts between different land users. Based on data collected during FGDs the three types of conflicts due to the expansion of LSMA are (a) between smallholders and LSFs; (b) between pastoralists and LSFs; and (c) between settled communities and transhumant pastoralists. The general feature of the conflict between smallholders and LSFs is over land ownership. While smallholders claim that they are the original people cultivating land based on customary rights, the LSFs present written documents from the MFC showing that they are the official owners of that land. The main trend of such cases showed that smallholders are losing land to LSFs. The conflict between pastoralists and LSFs is mainly about grazing rights. As part of their annual migration, transhumant pastoralists move to the northern parts of the Gadarif State looking for pasture in the Butana following specified routes. Conflicts occur when pastoralists cross the cultivated lands. In many locations the livestock corridors are blocked due to the expansion of LSMA. Due to the escalation of such types of conflicts the Gadarif State established a corridors’ police force in 2006 in order to regulate conflicts emerged between pastoralists and other land users along the corridors. Most of this force is concentrated in the northern parts of the state around Butana area. However, pastoralists are complaining that Corridors’ Police Force is biased to LSFs and they mentioned two arguments that LSFs are offering lodging facilities to the police force and the police force is not reporting the encroachment of LSFs into corridors or even blocking
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Fig. 3. Examples from locations where the soil surface is covered with large stones (a) and how LSFs are collecting the stones to mechanical allow soil ploughing (b).
it in some cases. On the other side pastoralists are forced by the police to comply with regulations. The conflicts between settled communities and transhumant pastoralists are related to trespassing of livestock into farms cultivated by smallholders and access to water. In this type of conflict access to water is the main source of disputes. After the drying-up of rain water collected in natural ponds access to water sources is challenging for pastoralists. The only available source of water is hafirs which are either owned by settled communities LSFs. While access to hafirs owned LSFs is on commercial basis, access to hafirs belonged to settled communities is exclusive to villagers and they did not allow pastoralists to water their animals. Conflicts have been escalating in recent years, resulting in loss of life, serious injuries and increased livestock looting. 5. Discussion This study set out to investigate how LSFs used their potential and power to move the state legislation system in the direction of their own interests in such a way that the rights of traditional local land users are eroded. Within a period of around 15 years, LSFs succeed to legalize their situation and get land lease for a land that they start to cultivate illegally and the land is originally used by local population. This situation is attracting more LSFs to invest in the area. 30% of the interviewed LSFs started cultivated in the area after 2000. Most of this group their land is located north of the 14◦ 45 N line (Fig. 1), which means their situation is illegal. Such violation of local rights in the name of promoting agricultural investment is triggering an endless dilemma of conflict in Sudan (Sulieman, 2013; Shazali and Ahmed, 1999; Helland and Sørbø, 2013). The Sudanese state offers a diversity of support to LSFs. They have access to land at minimal rates, credit at interest rates below inflation, subsidized foodstuffs and subsidized tractor fuel and spare parts (Kadouf and Bruce, 1986; Bascom, 1990; Elhadary, 2010). Bascom (1990) mentioned that LSFs have not been forced to comply with regulations of the MFC such as establishing shelter-belts, following the recommended crop rotations or abide with regulations that prohibit them from selling, renting, or sharecropping the land. During the period 2010–2012 the head of the Farmers’ Union was elected as Governor of Gadarif State while keeping his position in the union. And before being elected as state governor he was also the President of Gadarif State Legislative Assembly which is dominated by LSFs. The predominance of LSFs interests in state politics has meant that measures intended to maintain the rights of smallholders and pastoralists are not being considered. Therefore, contemporary debates on land grabbing in Sudan draw attention to the continuing deprival of political marginalized communities to access to key resources including land (Babiker, 2012). The
failure of pastoralists to defend their land tenure rights is a factor of their political marginalization as is the hijacking of their representative institutions by livestock traders (Shazil and Ahmed, 1999; Sulieman and Ahmed, 2013). Fig. 2 depicts different types of actors that were involved throughout the process of land grabbing. Getting subsidized services is not the ultimate aim for temporary leaseholders as shown in step 2, but it is a pragmatic step towards gradually legalizing their situation. This pragmatic way of doing business shows the personal capability of the elites who are from an urban background. Bascom (1990) mentioned that LSFs are frequently well educated, high-ranking members of the civil service and military, closely linked to major power holders. Sulieman (2013) mentioned that it is difficult for pastoralists to access their rights through formal legal processes in local courts. It is clear that the matter of power plays a key role in such cases between transhumant pastoralists and wealthy farmers who are settled in the main cities of the state. Some of the key informants mentioned that several traditional village leaders also play a key role in the allocation of land to LSFs. In such cases, LSFs need to build a coalition with local leaders. In such situations, the traditional role of local leaders as mediators and supporters of their community is totally eroded. The role of local leaders in weakening the rights of their local community has also been reported in many other countries (Oxfam, 2011; Utshudi and Ansoms, 2011). Thus, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo local customary chiefs tried to maintain their position by becoming the gatekeepers during the transition period from customary laws to the introduction of the modern legal system. On an individual level, this radical change led to unequal access to land, growing tenure insecurity and finally to impoverishment and local degradation (Claesseng et al., 2013). In some cases, elites register land occupied by the local community in the national land registry with the complicity of the customary chief who declared the land as vacant (Utshudi and Ansoms, 2011). This also happened in Tayan Hulu, Indonesia where the development of oil palm plantations created a rift between the community and its traditional leaders. As a result, the village heads and chiefs do not represent the community but effectively represent the company against their own community (Oxfam, 2011). It is clear that the abolition of the Native Administration and tribal homelands in 1970, combined with the privatization that benefited well-connected elites, has led to changes in the way and arrangements of how people are accessing land in Sudan (Assal, 2009). Furthermore, the announcement of federalism in Sudan in 1994 represented a major policy shift and has impacted negatively on patterns of resource use. As stated by Dutta (2009) a common disadvantage of the decentralization process in developing countries is the phenomenon of elite capture. The 26 MA is observed
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to be issued two years after introducing a decentralized system in the country. The introduction of federalism and decentralization as a governing system in 1994 was an attempt to decentralize responsibilities to state-local levels of government with a view to overcoming regional and local discontent with central policies. Theoretically, decentralization may be used as a means of settling longstanding claims for autonomy within a single state so as to provide minorities an immediate sense of ownership of the state and of belonging to it, by providing them with an opportunity for self-government. However, many cases across Africa showed that decentralization has contradictory impacts at the local level (Ribot, 2002; Wily, 2003). For instance, Chinigò (2011) argued that rather than opening new spaces for local democracy and improving the ability of rural community to major role in relevant decisions concerning their resources, decentralization of land management and administration in Ethiopia make it more difficult for local communities both to express their needs and to bring forward demands to the political and administrative system. The demographic profile and socio-economic characteristics of LSFs showed that they are well-educated compared the actual situation of literacy in Sudan, where the national average for literacy rate is 60.9% (UNESCO, 2006). In contrast, the level of education among settled smallholders and transhumant pastoralists in Butana is very low. Previous studies in the area indicated that the level of illiteracy among settled communities in Butana is 42% (Sulieman and Siddig, 2014), while among transhumant pastoralists it reached 88% (Sulieman and Ahmed, 2013). Such limited level of education among pastoralists in East Africa is among the main challenges that obstruct them to access their rights (Oxfam, 2008). During the FGDs with key informants, it became apparent that currently there is no mobile schooling obtainable for transhumant pastoralists and the basic school offered for settled population in Butana is poor. Trench et al. (2007) mentioned that pastoral areas in Horn of Africa have long been neglected by central governments in the provision of basic services such as education. Therefore, level of education among pastoralists is lower than national average. Lack of education among pastoralists is a key determinant of their political marginalization as it significantly reduces their ability to speak out for their rights (Pavanello, 2009). Among the 40 LSFs interviewed, there were only two LSFs from Butana while the rest are from big settlements. Settling in big urban centers facilitated access to relevant governmental institutions. Miller (2005) described Gadarif as an ‘agropole’ city where most big merchants and agro-capitalists are settled. They own large mechanized schemes and benefited from the governmental land policy of 1970 ULA that distributed former communal or tribal land to rich individuals and companies. Furthermore, she mentioned that many merchants had background that provided them with useful connections at the right time. They had the money but not the agricultural skills or the time to stay on the farm, since this was not their main occupation but rather a side investment. Wakils (representatives of the lease holder) were appointed by these LSFs to manage the farms (El-Tayeb, 1985). In this respect, Egemi (2006) estimated that most of LSFs are basically traders (31%) or government employees (48%). The privileged access to mechanized schemes by the educated elite, retired civil servants and military officers and traders in Gadarif and elsewhere in the country has been mentioned by many other authors (Niblock, 1987; Abdelkarim, 1985; Komey, 2009). Besides holding large amounts of land, often in more than one location, 26.65% LSFs are also combining livestock rearing with agriculture. Due to the vast clearance of natural vegetation, crop residue is the most important fodder source in Gadarif (El-Tayeb, 1985; SKAP, 1992; Sulieman and Ahmed, 2013). The idea behind combining agriculture and livestock by LSFs is not only to increase their earnings, but also manage the risk and uncertainty (Anderson and Dillon, 1992; Mustafa, 2006). Mustafa (2006) mentioned that about
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47% of the LSFs in Gadarif owned livestock and this trend of keeping animals besides agricultural production is expected to increase in the future. For some of the LSFs the profit from selling crop residue and water is higher than what they get from crop harvest. Based on this, one can describe LSMA in Butana as ranching/enclosure, more than crop cultivation. However, the repeated failure of enclosure or ranching projects in the dry African savannah is largely attributable to differences in perspective between planners and their pastoral clients (Behnke, 1985). The rangeland enclosure and registration in East Africa of exclusive rights to grazing to individuals is increasing the pressure on poor pastoralists, pushed further and further onto marginal land and eventually out of the pastoral production completely (Graham, 1988). According to Egemi (2006), LSMA has consistently been a major factor fueling conflict and a source of injustice in the clay plains of the central Sudan. It was written that no farmer is allowed to have more than one scheme (i.e. 420 ha) as a maximum but the reality shows that there is a violation of the regulations of lease provision. Also among the negative implications of the invasion of Butana by LSMA, is the increase of pressure on remnant rangeland which increases the rate of conflicts by the settled people and the transhumant pastoralists. In this context, a recent study (Sulieman and Siddig, 2014) indicated that rangeland degradation, increasing competition over resources and increasing abnormal climatic events have been playing a great role in impoverishing settled agropastoralists in Butana. El-Tayeb (1985) stated that LSFS in Gadarif pushed the pastoralists and small farmers out of their areas. As a result, many of the subsistence farmers became wage laborers and gave up their land. This change from land owner to landless wage earner has brought about changes in the social structure of the region. The trend of pushing pastoralists out of their system has been observed in many African countries, where political and economic powers tend to be in the urban and large-scale agricultural sectors. Thus, valuable grazing lands have been lost and important traditional exchange relationships between pastoralists and smallholder farmers have broken down. This type of range degradation is widespread, particularly in regions where small-scale agriculture and pastoralism in the past were in balance with environmental conditions (FAO, 1993).
6. Conclusions and policy implications The case presented in this paper clearly shows that after fully exploiting the fertile soils of the central clay plains of Sudan there is a pressure to expand LSMA northwards into marginal areas where mechanized cultivation has been illegal before. Historically, these areas are known to be communal rangeland inhibited by pastoralists and stallholder farmers. Normally, LSFs started the process of land grabbing and then use their power to direct the state land legislation apparatus into the direction that fulfill their interest. During the process from illegal to legal situation LSFs allied with different bodies and institutions such as local leaders in villages and Farmers’ Union. It is clear that the 1996 MA opened the door for further encroachment and recent visits to the area showed that the LSMA is far north outside the LSMA limits. Due to political marginalization and the absence of their representative institutions, it is not possible for pastoralists and smallholders to defend their tenure rights. On the other side, LSFs are often well educated and most of them settled in urban centers and their union is closely linked to major power centers in the state. A range of actions are therefore required to address the threats and challenges facing traditional land users in Sudan. Policy makers have a key role to play in fostering the development of pastoral sector and in ensuring responsible investment in agriculture. The accelerated rangeland diminishing process should be considered
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as a reflection of unsustainable economic development and of inequality of access to resources, at national and local levels. Such process of uneven development and economic dislocation began during the colonial period and became particularly massive in recent decades. It is obvious that Sudan is lacking a national land use policy that appreciated the traditional land use systems practiced by smallholders and pastoralists. Ignoring the importance of such systems is putting the country in a long last dilemma of natural resources related conflicts which is not only affecting the contemporary situation of the country but is also shaping its future. Acknowledgements This paper was written during residency scholarship at Watson Institute for International Studies of Brown University, Providence RI under the aegis of BIARI (Brown International Advanced Research Institutes) program for its alumni. I would like to thank BIARI staff for providing me with facilities as a Visiting Scholar. I am very grateful to Hatim Soliman and Mohand Mukhar for conducting the field research with me and for their effort in helping me to collect secondary data. I would like to thank Gunnar Sørbø for his valuable and constructive reading and for Abdelghaffar Ahmed for his comments on an earlier version of the paper. References Abdelkarim, A., 1985. The segmented agricultural labour market in Sudan. Rev. Afr. Pol. Econ. 34, 46–54. Ahmed, A.G.M., 1987. National ambivalence and external hegemony: the negligence of pastoral nomads in the Sudan. In: Mohamed Salih, M.A. (Ed.), Agrarian Change in the Central Rainlands: Sudan, A Socio-Economic. Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala. Akhtar, M., 1993. Desertification in the Butana. GeoJournal 31 (1), 41–50. Anderson, J.R., Dillon, J.L., 1992. Risk Analysis in Dryland Farming Systems, FAO Farm Systems Management Series No. 2. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome. Assal, M., 2009. The relationship between nomadic and sedimentary people in Sudan in the context of state policies and internationalization. Nomadic Peoples 13 (1), 154–170. Babiker, M., 2008. Communal Land Rights and Peace-Building in North Kordofan: Policy and Legislative Challenges. Sudan Working Paper: 3, Bergen. Chr. Michelsen Institute, Bergen. Babiker, M., 2012. Mobile pastoralism and land grabbing in Sudan: Impacts and responses. In: Catley, A., Lind, J., Scoones, I. (Eds.), In Pastoralism and Development in Africa: Dynamic Change at the Margins. Routledge, ISBN: 978-0-415-54072-8. Bascom, J.B., 1990. Food wages and profits: mechanized schemes and the Sudanese state. Econ. Geogr. 66 (2), 140–155. Behnke, R., 1985. Open-Range Management and Property Rights in Pastoral Africa – A case of Spontaneous Range Enclosure in South Darfur, Sudan. Paper 20f, Overseas Development Institute, Pastoral Development Network. Behnke, R.H., Abel, N.O.J., 1996. Revisited: the overstocking controversy in semi-arid Africa. World Anim. Rev. 87, 3–27. Behnke, R., Kerven, C., 2011. Replacing pastoralism with irrigated agriculture in the Awash Valley, northeastern Ethiopia: counting the costs. Paper Presented at the International Conference: Future of Pastoralism. Blench, R.M., 2001. Pastoralism in the New Millennium. FAO: Animal Health and Production Series, No. 150. Breman, H., de Wit, C.T., 1983. Rangeland productivity and exploitation in the Sahel. Science 221, Number 4618. Cater, N., 1986. Sudan: The Root of Famine. Published by Oxfam, Oxfam Banbury Road. Casciarri, B., 2002. Local trends and perceptions of processes of commoditisation in central Sudan: the responses of the ahamda pastoral system to state pressures and capitalist dynamics (1). Nomadic Peoples 6 (2), 32–50. Casciarri, B., Ahmed, A.M., 2009. Pastoralists under pressure in present-day Sudan: an introduction. Nomadic Peoples 13 (1), 10–22. Chinigò, D., 2011. Decentralisation of land management and administration in Ethiopia: the case of Siraro Woreda in Oromia region. In: Panel 138 Negotiating access to Land in East Africa, ECAS 2011 – 4th European Conference on African Studies Uppsala 15–18 June 2011. Claesseng, K., Mudinga, E., Ansoms, A., 2013. Land Grabbing by Local Elites in the Territory of Kalehe, South Kinvu Eastern DRC , Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty (accessed 11.04.14.). Dickerman, C.W., 1989. Security of Tenure and Land Registration in Africa. Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, LTC Paper 137, U.S, ISSN 0084-0793.
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Grabbing of communal rangelands in Sudan: The case of large-scale mechanized rain-fed agriculture Hussein M. Sulieman ∗ Centre for Remote Sensing and Geographical Information Systems, Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Gadarif, P.O. Box 449, 32211 Gadarif, Sudan
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 10 September 2014 Received in revised form 30 March 2015 Accepted 28 April 2015 Keywords: Domestic land grabbing Pastoralists Smallholding farmers Conflict Sudan
a b s t r a c t Capturing of communal resources by investors is one of the pressing tragedies facing customary land tenure systems in Africa. This article aims to look into how large-scale mechanized agriculture is encroaching into communal rangeland in Sudan and its social and environmental consequences. It scrutinizes the steps that large-scale farmers (LSFs) have to follow in order to acquire communal resources. It is clear that the government overwhelmingly serves the interest of economic elites from urban centers by offering a diversity of support in a way that the rights of traditional local land users e.g., pastoralists and smallholder farmers are detriment. The most important formal change was the 1996 ministerial act which legitimized the illegal situation of the LSFs. At the same time, LSFs have not been forced to comply with regulations issued by state institutions. Using their financial potentialities, LSFs are not only accumulating large amounts of land but are also heavily involved in livestock rearing. Among the immediate consequences of converting communal property to individual property is creating a fertile environment for conflicts between different land users. Moreover, introducing of agricultural machinery in such marginal area is causing adverse environmental consequence such as severe soil degradation and desertification. The paper concludes that failure of the pastoralists and smallholder farmers to defend their land tenure rights might be explained by their political marginalization and the absence of their representative institutions. This calls for a new national land use legislation approach that incorporates the rights of rural communities and their associated traditional land use systems. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Communal rangelands have been more subject to land grabbing than any other land tenure type in Africa. This has increased conflicts and environmental degradation in many countries across the continent (Hagmann, 2003; Miller, 2005; Casciarri and Ahmed, 2009; Roe et al., 2009; Verhoeven, 2011; O’Brien, 2011; IIED, 2013; Sulieman, 2013). Converting communal property to individual property threatens the livelihoods of significant proportions of the rural population where such resources usually make up a significant share of the total wealth (German et al., 2013; Behnke and Kerven, 2011). Communal lands are intrinsically vulnerable, they are important for biodiversity, and land grabbing has dispossessed local communities from their customary rights and livelihoods (Sulieman and Ahmed, 2013; Manger, 1996; Ahmed, 2001; Blench, 2001). Although most communal rangelands are located in marginal areas, they have often proved to be sustain-
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +249 916882390. E-mail address: [email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2015.04.026 0264-8377/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
ably productive, because secure customary and communal rights enable rational natural resource utilization by local communities (Breman and de Wit, 1983; Behnke and Abel, 1996; Babiker, 2008). Nevertheless, land grabbers and governments tend to see them as under-populated and under-used (Ahmed, 1987). Moreover, governments often fail to appreciate the economic productivity of traditional pastoral and agro-pastoral systems and allocate rangelands to alternative commercial uses (IIED, 2013; Young et al., 2013). Verhoeven (2011) observed that successive Sudanese governments have a long history in supporting land grabbing under different names and justifications. Most of the underlying reasons are stated to be food security and increasing the country’s agricultural exports. In order to effect changes, land tenure laws and regulations in Sudan have been modified and even new laws have been coined (Dickerman, 1989; Large and El-Bash, 2010; Elhadary, 2010). Until the 1970 unregistered land act (ULA), pastoral people enjoyed some autonomy within their territories in Sudan. However, the 1970 ULA nationalized all unregistered land and declared state ownership of all lands which were not by then registered on
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private hands. It did not define the legal status of existing land users and gave the government broad powers to evict and complete discretion as regards compensation. The act provides legal basis for land acquisition which has dispossessed local communities from customary land rights (Kadouf and Bruce, 1986; Manger, 2006). Based on a top-down approach of economic transformation, the Sudan government at the time depicted large-scale intensive agriculture as the engine for growth, with export revenues fostering large industrial projects and the country becoming the ‘breadbasket’ of the Middle East (O’Brien, 1981), producing enough food not just for internal consumption, but also to sell to a world increasingly worried about resource scarcity (Verhoeven, 2011). However, just after one decade, it turned out that the government was sowing hunger in the country, as O’Brien (1985) stated, and it discovered that the breadbasket was empty (Oesterdiekhoff and Wohlmuth, 1983). Cater (1986) concluded that the people died in 1984 not because the rains failed, but because they could not grow enough food and were too poor to buy what they needed. Their hunger and poverty were due to a complex combination of political, economic and environmental factors that for decades had been destroying the land they depend on. After fully occupying the fertile foil of the central clay plains by mid eighties, as a consequence of 1970 ULA, there is a pressure to expand large-scale mechanized agriculture (LSMA) in the central clay plains of Sudan northwards, into marginal areas where mechanized cultivation has been illegal before, risks are high and possible environmental implications also quite damaging if machinery is used on such lands (Shazali and Ahmed, 1999; UNEP, 2007; Babiker, 2008). In Gadarif State rain-fed LSMA was introduced in 1944, when a government project was started to meet the food needs of army units stationed in the British colonies in eastern Africa during the Second World War (El-Tayeb, 1985). The state now has around 4.2 million hectares of cultivable land which is located in the central and southern parts of the state (Sulieman and Ahmed, 2013). According to Babiker (2012), until the mid early 1980s, Butana was excluded from LSMA because the amount of rainfall is generally too low and erratic for agricultural production. However, in the last three decades, the Butana has seen a drastic expansion of LSMA. According to the Mechanized Farming Corporation (MFC), the northern frontier of LSMA is lat. 14◦ 37 N latitude. This has been decided because the lands bordering the desert further north are marginal in the sense that the precipitation does not support sustainable crop cultivation. However, they are excellent rangelands and home for significant groups of agro-pastoralists and transhumant populations (Sørbø, 1985). Nevertheless, the Gadarif State Ministry of Agriculture issued an act in 1996, which pushed the frontier of LSMA further north to lat. 14◦ 45 N (Fig. 1). Similar developments have been reported elsewhere in the country. Thus, Babiker (2008) described the situation in North Kordofan State where mechanized cultivation has expanded enormously, frequently in areas that are ecologically unsuited to cropping. The northern border for mechanized agriculture in North Kordofan defined in law corresponded more or less with lat. 13◦ N. However, vast areas north of lat. 13◦ N are ploughed by tractors, a process that is environmentally unsustainable and destructive. It is apparent that the agricultural growth model adopted in Sudan since 1970s onwards gave little or no consideration to those who were ousted from communal lands by wealthy elites and investors. Although the Sudanese conflicts contain many ingredients, it is notable that most of the violence has taken place in pastoral and agro-pastoral areas (Helland and Sørbø, 2013). Moreover, the horizontal expansion rather than a vertical improvement in productivity, resulting in drastic clearance of natural vegetation and escalation of land use conflicts and tensions due to lack of adequate involvement of local communities regarding issues of land use (Sulieman and Elagib, 2012).
The large-scale farmers (LSFs) involved in land grabbing in communal rangeland are mainly educated elites, retired civil servants and military officers and traders from the big urban settlements in the region (Bascom, 1990). They achieve access to land through specific alliances with power holders both on state and local levels (Egemi, 2006). The objectives of this paper are (1) to understand the process of domestic land1 grabbing through exploring the different steps taken by LSFs from illegal acquisition to the final step of issuing land lease; (2) to identify the main demographic and socio-economic characteristics of LSFs engaged in the grabbing process; and (3) to investigate the impact of land grabbing on local smallholders, pastoralists and the environment. 2. Case study region The Butana communal rangelands are located in northern Gadarif State of eastern Sudan (Fig. 1). Due to excellent grassland vegetation cover, the area is the most preferred pasture by pastoralists in the region. Settled communities in the area also depend on these communal areas for smallholding cultivation. Furthermore, the area represents the main grazing land for significant groups of transhumant pastoralists in eastern Sudan during the rainy season. Land use patterns and population distribution, to a large extent, have been determined by the combined effects of erratic rainfall and a geological structure which largely contains no water-bearing rocks (Sørbø, 1985). Rainfall shows a remarkable variation in incidence, intensity, and distribution over the entire area. Precipitation occurs during three months from approximately mid-June to midSeptember. The compact nature of the clay soils covering most of the Butana accelerates runoff, which accelerates soil erosion and increases the domination of annual plants. Most of the Butana area is open grassland. Trees and shrubs are generally limited to the soils around the hills and to narrow belts along seasonal watercourses (Akhtar, 1993). Main crop cultivated in the area is early-maturing varieties of sorghum which is the stable food of local population. Average crop productivity in Butana is lower compared to central and southern part of the state due to erratic rainfall and low soil fertility. It is only during the past decades that the Butana has been subject to severe overgrazing due to the introduction of the 1970 ULA, which made it possible for any pastoral group from different parts of the surrounding regions to enter during the rainy season (Elhadary, 2010). There was also increasing sedentarization, pastoral groups shifting from nomadism to transhumance and, as a result, being forced to switch to new sources of income (Casciarri, 2002). In the early 1980s, the MFC, which is the responsible governmental office for leasing rain-fed mechanized agricultural lands, stated that there was no more land for the expansion of mechanized farming. However, since then LSFs started to encroach illegally into Butana communal grazing land in the northern part of the state. 3. Methodology The study is based on unstructured interviews, scheduled interviews, focus group discussions (FGD) and reconnaissance field surveys. Secondary data in the form of reports, statistics and local
1 Foreign land acquisition is also important; however, this study is mainly concerned with domestic aspects of land grabbing as information regarding domestic acquisitions is scarce, while foreign land grabbing in Sudan is catching the news in the international media. Focusing only on large-scale land acquisitions by foreigners has diverted attention from more serious domestic land grabbing currently taking place in the country. Therefore, the response to domestic land grabbing might help in protecting the rights of the vulnerable people.
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Fig. 1. Map showing the location of study region and the area under investigation. Numbers from 1 to 6 indicate name of villages visited during data collection namely Eleded Elsamena, Eleded Eltwal, Um Serha, Elhesheib, Mela and Elmagata Wedelzein.
acts were also utilized. Unstructured interviews and FGD were used to collect data from villagers and smallholding farmers. A total of six villages namely Eleded Elsamena, Eleded Eltwal, Um Serha, Elhesheib, Mela and Elmagata Wedelzein (Fig. 1) were visited. They were the main villages in the area that has been subject to land grabbing by LSFs. Major questions addressed, among others, to people in the villages during the FGD included historical background about the establishment of the village, village population, historical perspective of land grabbing in the area, observations regarding rangeland condition, water resources, land ownership, agricultural practices, livestock and conflicts. Initial interview with the village chief and head of the village people’s committee were conducted to identify the potential informants for the FGD. Criteria for selection of key informant are is be inhabitant from the village and above 50 years old. If possible, elder key informants were preferred. Within each village, two FGDs with groups of 6–10 informants were conducted. In order to get information on some aspects that are not recorded in the available reports and documents five experts from the MFC were interviewed, two of them were already retired. Beside the individual interview, the MFC experts were gathered together for a FGD. Main questions addressed to this group were on historical evolvement of LSMA in the area and important milestones in the process. Scheduled interviews were used to collected data from LSFs owning land in the area. Forty LSFs were interviewed. Contacts with potential LSF were established mostly through colleagues or former interviewees or through the MFC. The majority of the LSFs
interviews took place in Gadarif which is the capital city of the state and where most LSFs were settled. Only a few interviews took place in the villages. Main questions asked to LSFs were under three major themes namely personal characteristics including age and level of education. The second theme included questions about agricultural practices, land ownership, total area owned and locations, date of ownership, main crops, crop yield, and pesticide applications. The third topic was about the livestock and included questions like livestock species, herd size and herding system. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Reconnaissance field surveys cover the area between the old (lat. 14◦ 37 N) and new border (lat. 14◦ 45 N) of the LSMA and its periphery. The idea was to gather field evidence that shows the impact of land grabbing on soil degradation and deterioration of plant species composition and structure. A GPS device and digital camera were used to document some field features. Data collection was administered during the period December 2013–February 2014.
4. Results 4.1. The communal rangeland grabbing process Fig. 2 describes the process of land acquisition which started illegally in mid-eighties until it was legalized by ministerial act in 1996.
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ACTORS
STEPS Occupation of communal rangeland by LSFs
- Smallholder farmers - Pastoralists
Resistance to land acquisition by local community
TIMEFRAME
Early 1980s
Early 1980s 1985
- Farmers' Union - MFC - Loan banks
Getting temporal land lease to be eligible for subsidized services and loan from banks
Farmers’ Union MFC Ministry of Agriculture
Legalization of the grabbed land through issuing the 26 Ministerial Act
1996
Further illegal encroachment and new occupation of communal rangeland
1997 to date
1986 - 1995
Fig. 2. Evolution of land grabbing process in Butana area, northern Gadarif showing main steps of the process, actors involved and the timeframe from illegal land acquisition to legalization.
Step 1: Land acquisition (early 1980s–1985) The acquisition of land in the Butana communal rangelands by LSFs started in the early 1980s. When a LSF decides to acquire land, he begins his activities in the early rainy season. He collects background information of the piece of land he would like to acquire through his network.2 Basic information includes whether or not there is another LSF cultivating the area, and if there are smallholders from surrounding villages holding land leases in the area. The area of land he would like to acquire depends mainly on his financial situation. Most of them go up at least to 420 ha (which is the minimum area to be classified as LSF according to MFC) in the first season, which might be expanded in successive seasons. After two or three seasons the LSF will normally start to dig a water reservoir (hafir) in order to collect surface water during the rainy season. At this stage, LSFs do not need to make any official contacts with relevant government offices, such as the MFC. They start cultivating based on the presumption that the land is empty with no owners, neglecting that it is pastureland where fodder is available for nomadic and transhumant pastoralists during the rainy season. In case there are problems with smallholders from nearby villages, LSFs try to settle disputes through negotiations and compensation is given in terms of money. In case the villagers claim that the area is a communal grazing area for their village, the village chief takes the lead to negotiate with the LSF. However, villagers are complaining that in many cases their is lack of transparency in the process
2 Elitism always works through networking. They make use of their networks to facilitate the occupation of various locations of authority and to build power from community to regional and national level (Sam, 2010). In the case described in this paper; colleagues, officials from MFC, Farmers’ Union and local tribal leaders make up the network.
of negotiation. Capturing of communal rangeland by local leaders has been mentioned by many villagers. This was happed because some wealthy leaders in those villages, through their alliance with LSFs, have now become LSFs themselves. Step 2: Getting temporal land lease (1986–1995) On their way to legalize their situation, LSFs started in 1985 to negotiate with the MFC and the ministry of agriculture to provide them with some kind of documents which they can use to benefit from the subsidized services that the government was offering at that time, such as fuel and spare parts for their machinery and loan offered by banks.3 In 1986, the MFC started to issue temporary oneyear valid leaseholds. In 1990, this kind of temporary leasehold was extended to be for five years. The main actors playing significant roles to help LSFs to obtain temporal lease were the farmers’ union, financial institutions, the state ministry of agriculture and the MFC. LSFs consider the temporary leasehold as a bridge towards getting long term leases lasting 25 years. Step 3: Legalization (1996) According to the 1970 ULA, the communal rangelands of Butana remain the property of the state. This makes their onward sale or lease to private investors perfectly legal. In 1996, the Gadarif State Minister of Agriculture issued an act which legalized the situation for those who are cultivating illegally north of lat. 14◦ 37 N and the permission extends until lat. 14◦ 45 N. The 26 ministerial act (MA) allows LSFs to get 25 years leasehold. It is not a coincidence
3 The government was offering special prices for LSFs at that time. However, after the liberalization of prices in 1994, this policy is no more followed.
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that the act was issued just two years after federalism was introduced as a governing system in Sudan. Decentralization transfers the functions of leasing unregistered land from federal level to local institutions at state level.
Step 4: Further encroachments after legalization (1997–2014) During the reconnaissance field survey it was registered that in some locations, the encroachment of LSMA reached 14◦ 56 N. It is apparent that the 26 MA opened the door for more land grabbing. The strategy of first invading the land and then looking to legitimize the situation is currently widely pursued by LSFs. One of the officials in a relevant institution mentioned that: ‘we regularly have reported to the MFC and the State Ministry of Agriculture that LSMA is rabidly getting into the heart of the Butana communal rangelands. Throughout this dispute, the government has repeatedly promised to sanction those cultivating north of the 45 line, but nothing has been done’.
4.2. Demographic and socio-economic profile of LSFs Analysis of the primary data collected from LSFs indicates that they are all educated. 21 (53%) finished secondary school and even 6 (15%) were graduated. Only two of LSFs in the sample are from Butana, while the rest are outsiders from Khartoum (1) and Gadarif (37). It is clear that LSFs hold a large amount of land at their disposal. The mean land size owned by a LSF in Butana is 1889 ha, while the minimum is 420 ha and the largest is 7560 ha. 26 (65%) of the LSFs in the sample owned land in other places in addition to Butana. Among this group the mean, smallest and largest land size in locations other than Butana were 2809 ha, 420 ha and 10,500 ha, respectively. Twenty (50%) of the LSFs started to cultivate during the period 1980–1996. Eight (20%) started after 1996, while 12 (30%) started after 2000. Most of the last group their land is located north of the 14◦ 45 N line. The dominant soil type is light clay. Nevertheless, in many locations the soil surface was covered with stones and or gravels to extent that LSFs in such locations gathered the stones in one place (Fig. 3) in order to plow the soil. This clearly shows that this type of soil is not suitable for agricultural machinery. The main crop cultivated in the area is sorghum. Average sorghum yield for the last season was 376 kg/ha. Herbicides are among main methods to control weed. A substantial number of LSFs (26.65%) owned livestock. The average livestock amount in terms of murah4 were 2.8 for camels, 4.5 sheep and for 1.5 goats. Eight LSFs (20%) owned all three species, while 9 (22.5%) owned camels and sheep, 3 (7.5%) owned sheep and goats and 6 (15%) owned sheep only. Ten (25%) LSFs left the crop residues to their own livestock, whereas 15 (37.5%) preferred to sell the crop residue to pastoralists and the same number favored to combine both options. The majority (90%) of LSFs dig hafirs in their land. The main reason is provision of water for livestock. 19 (47.5%) of the hafirs kept water year round, while 11 (27.5%) lasted for at least six months. Concerning how LSFs were utilizing the water collected in hafirs, 22 (55%) were selling the water together with the crop residue to pastoralists, 7 (17.5%) utilized the water for their own animals besides selling to pastoralists, 7 (17.5%) were just selling the water, and 4 (10%) left the water for his own animals.
4 Murah is the local name for livestock herd. Normally, livestock owners prefer to give their stock in terms of murah instead of heads. Generally one murah of camels counts from 50 to 60 and for sheep and goats from 80 to 100.
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4.3. Impact of LSMA expansion on local community and the environment in Butana Broadly speaking the local population in Butana could be divided into two main categories; settled agro-pastoralists who were once nomadic pastoralists, and transhumant pastoralists visiting the area during the rainy season from July to October. People started to settle in 1940 and the most recent settlement was in 1976. Both periods were during times of drought and famine which hit the area and the whole Sahelian region. As a consequence of the drastic expansion of LMA in the Butana, local populations are being pushed out from their lands. Furthermore, LSFs occupy the land surrounding villages which mean that there is no possible expansion for smallholders as the population increased in theses villages. The empirical evidence showed that while the average land size among LSFs is 1889 ha, the average ranges between 19 ha and 8 ha among smallholders. Moreover, currently no one among the local population across the six villages owned an amount that reached a murah. The total number of interviewed LSFs from the six main villages was 2 and they were among the village leaders. Except for Elhesheib and Elmagata Wedelzein basic services, such as education were only recently introduced. Water availability is the most pressing livelihood issue in the area. Most of the villages lack health care centers and proper schools. Introducing chemical herbicides in the Butana is expected to be a serious threat to grassland in the area. During the FGDs, people mentioned that they are afraid that herbicide will affect their animals when they graze on crop residue or drink water from the hafirs. Another aspect that was observed by local community in Butana is the change of species composition due to herbicide application. They perceived that species, such as Hibiscus esculentus, which is one of the important edible plants in the region, is disappearing and at the same time some unpalatable species, such as Xanthium brasilicum and Datura stramoniumare becoming more dominant. Moreover, the soil type is not suitable for mechanized agriculture. Large stone and gravels appeared on the top of the soil after a few years of cultivation (Fig. 3). This is a phenomenon associated with shallow soils which allows for little water storage. It may also be easily moved by the wind. The expansion of LSMA into Butana has created a fertile environment for conflicts between different land users. Based on data collected during FGDs the three types of conflicts due to the expansion of LSMA are (a) between smallholders and LSFs; (b) between pastoralists and LSFs; and (c) between settled communities and transhumant pastoralists. The general feature of the conflict between smallholders and LSFs is over land ownership. While smallholders claim that they are the original people cultivating land based on customary rights, the LSFs present written documents from the MFC showing that they are the official owners of that land. The main trend of such cases showed that smallholders are losing land to LSFs. The conflict between pastoralists and LSFs is mainly about grazing rights. As part of their annual migration, transhumant pastoralists move to the northern parts of the Gadarif State looking for pasture in the Butana following specified routes. Conflicts occur when pastoralists cross the cultivated lands. In many locations the livestock corridors are blocked due to the expansion of LSMA. Due to the escalation of such types of conflicts the Gadarif State established a corridors’ police force in 2006 in order to regulate conflicts emerged between pastoralists and other land users along the corridors. Most of this force is concentrated in the northern parts of the state around Butana area. However, pastoralists are complaining that Corridors’ Police Force is biased to LSFs and they mentioned two arguments that LSFs are offering lodging facilities to the police force and the police force is not reporting the encroachment of LSFs into corridors or even blocking
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Fig. 3. Examples from locations where the soil surface is covered with large stones (a) and how LSFs are collecting the stones to mechanical allow soil ploughing (b).
it in some cases. On the other side pastoralists are forced by the police to comply with regulations. The conflicts between settled communities and transhumant pastoralists are related to trespassing of livestock into farms cultivated by smallholders and access to water. In this type of conflict access to water is the main source of disputes. After the drying-up of rain water collected in natural ponds access to water sources is challenging for pastoralists. The only available source of water is hafirs which are either owned by settled communities LSFs. While access to hafirs owned LSFs is on commercial basis, access to hafirs belonged to settled communities is exclusive to villagers and they did not allow pastoralists to water their animals. Conflicts have been escalating in recent years, resulting in loss of life, serious injuries and increased livestock looting. 5. Discussion This study set out to investigate how LSFs used their potential and power to move the state legislation system in the direction of their own interests in such a way that the rights of traditional local land users are eroded. Within a period of around 15 years, LSFs succeed to legalize their situation and get land lease for a land that they start to cultivate illegally and the land is originally used by local population. This situation is attracting more LSFs to invest in the area. 30% of the interviewed LSFs started cultivated in the area after 2000. Most of this group their land is located north of the 14◦ 45 N line (Fig. 1), which means their situation is illegal. Such violation of local rights in the name of promoting agricultural investment is triggering an endless dilemma of conflict in Sudan (Sulieman, 2013; Shazali and Ahmed, 1999; Helland and Sørbø, 2013). The Sudanese state offers a diversity of support to LSFs. They have access to land at minimal rates, credit at interest rates below inflation, subsidized foodstuffs and subsidized tractor fuel and spare parts (Kadouf and Bruce, 1986; Bascom, 1990; Elhadary, 2010). Bascom (1990) mentioned that LSFs have not been forced to comply with regulations of the MFC such as establishing shelter-belts, following the recommended crop rotations or abide with regulations that prohibit them from selling, renting, or sharecropping the land. During the period 2010–2012 the head of the Farmers’ Union was elected as Governor of Gadarif State while keeping his position in the union. And before being elected as state governor he was also the President of Gadarif State Legislative Assembly which is dominated by LSFs. The predominance of LSFs interests in state politics has meant that measures intended to maintain the rights of smallholders and pastoralists are not being considered. Therefore, contemporary debates on land grabbing in Sudan draw attention to the continuing deprival of political marginalized communities to access to key resources including land (Babiker, 2012). The
failure of pastoralists to defend their land tenure rights is a factor of their political marginalization as is the hijacking of their representative institutions by livestock traders (Shazil and Ahmed, 1999; Sulieman and Ahmed, 2013). Fig. 2 depicts different types of actors that were involved throughout the process of land grabbing. Getting subsidized services is not the ultimate aim for temporary leaseholders as shown in step 2, but it is a pragmatic step towards gradually legalizing their situation. This pragmatic way of doing business shows the personal capability of the elites who are from an urban background. Bascom (1990) mentioned that LSFs are frequently well educated, high-ranking members of the civil service and military, closely linked to major power holders. Sulieman (2013) mentioned that it is difficult for pastoralists to access their rights through formal legal processes in local courts. It is clear that the matter of power plays a key role in such cases between transhumant pastoralists and wealthy farmers who are settled in the main cities of the state. Some of the key informants mentioned that several traditional village leaders also play a key role in the allocation of land to LSFs. In such cases, LSFs need to build a coalition with local leaders. In such situations, the traditional role of local leaders as mediators and supporters of their community is totally eroded. The role of local leaders in weakening the rights of their local community has also been reported in many other countries (Oxfam, 2011; Utshudi and Ansoms, 2011). Thus, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo local customary chiefs tried to maintain their position by becoming the gatekeepers during the transition period from customary laws to the introduction of the modern legal system. On an individual level, this radical change led to unequal access to land, growing tenure insecurity and finally to impoverishment and local degradation (Claesseng et al., 2013). In some cases, elites register land occupied by the local community in the national land registry with the complicity of the customary chief who declared the land as vacant (Utshudi and Ansoms, 2011). This also happened in Tayan Hulu, Indonesia where the development of oil palm plantations created a rift between the community and its traditional leaders. As a result, the village heads and chiefs do not represent the community but effectively represent the company against their own community (Oxfam, 2011). It is clear that the abolition of the Native Administration and tribal homelands in 1970, combined with the privatization that benefited well-connected elites, has led to changes in the way and arrangements of how people are accessing land in Sudan (Assal, 2009). Furthermore, the announcement of federalism in Sudan in 1994 represented a major policy shift and has impacted negatively on patterns of resource use. As stated by Dutta (2009) a common disadvantage of the decentralization process in developing countries is the phenomenon of elite capture. The 26 MA is observed
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to be issued two years after introducing a decentralized system in the country. The introduction of federalism and decentralization as a governing system in 1994 was an attempt to decentralize responsibilities to state-local levels of government with a view to overcoming regional and local discontent with central policies. Theoretically, decentralization may be used as a means of settling longstanding claims for autonomy within a single state so as to provide minorities an immediate sense of ownership of the state and of belonging to it, by providing them with an opportunity for self-government. However, many cases across Africa showed that decentralization has contradictory impacts at the local level (Ribot, 2002; Wily, 2003). For instance, Chinigò (2011) argued that rather than opening new spaces for local democracy and improving the ability of rural community to major role in relevant decisions concerning their resources, decentralization of land management and administration in Ethiopia make it more difficult for local communities both to express their needs and to bring forward demands to the political and administrative system. The demographic profile and socio-economic characteristics of LSFs showed that they are well-educated compared the actual situation of literacy in Sudan, where the national average for literacy rate is 60.9% (UNESCO, 2006). In contrast, the level of education among settled smallholders and transhumant pastoralists in Butana is very low. Previous studies in the area indicated that the level of illiteracy among settled communities in Butana is 42% (Sulieman and Siddig, 2014), while among transhumant pastoralists it reached 88% (Sulieman and Ahmed, 2013). Such limited level of education among pastoralists in East Africa is among the main challenges that obstruct them to access their rights (Oxfam, 2008). During the FGDs with key informants, it became apparent that currently there is no mobile schooling obtainable for transhumant pastoralists and the basic school offered for settled population in Butana is poor. Trench et al. (2007) mentioned that pastoral areas in Horn of Africa have long been neglected by central governments in the provision of basic services such as education. Therefore, level of education among pastoralists is lower than national average. Lack of education among pastoralists is a key determinant of their political marginalization as it significantly reduces their ability to speak out for their rights (Pavanello, 2009). Among the 40 LSFs interviewed, there were only two LSFs from Butana while the rest are from big settlements. Settling in big urban centers facilitated access to relevant governmental institutions. Miller (2005) described Gadarif as an ‘agropole’ city where most big merchants and agro-capitalists are settled. They own large mechanized schemes and benefited from the governmental land policy of 1970 ULA that distributed former communal or tribal land to rich individuals and companies. Furthermore, she mentioned that many merchants had background that provided them with useful connections at the right time. They had the money but not the agricultural skills or the time to stay on the farm, since this was not their main occupation but rather a side investment. Wakils (representatives of the lease holder) were appointed by these LSFs to manage the farms (El-Tayeb, 1985). In this respect, Egemi (2006) estimated that most of LSFs are basically traders (31%) or government employees (48%). The privileged access to mechanized schemes by the educated elite, retired civil servants and military officers and traders in Gadarif and elsewhere in the country has been mentioned by many other authors (Niblock, 1987; Abdelkarim, 1985; Komey, 2009). Besides holding large amounts of land, often in more than one location, 26.65% LSFs are also combining livestock rearing with agriculture. Due to the vast clearance of natural vegetation, crop residue is the most important fodder source in Gadarif (El-Tayeb, 1985; SKAP, 1992; Sulieman and Ahmed, 2013). The idea behind combining agriculture and livestock by LSFs is not only to increase their earnings, but also manage the risk and uncertainty (Anderson and Dillon, 1992; Mustafa, 2006). Mustafa (2006) mentioned that about
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47% of the LSFs in Gadarif owned livestock and this trend of keeping animals besides agricultural production is expected to increase in the future. For some of the LSFs the profit from selling crop residue and water is higher than what they get from crop harvest. Based on this, one can describe LSMA in Butana as ranching/enclosure, more than crop cultivation. However, the repeated failure of enclosure or ranching projects in the dry African savannah is largely attributable to differences in perspective between planners and their pastoral clients (Behnke, 1985). The rangeland enclosure and registration in East Africa of exclusive rights to grazing to individuals is increasing the pressure on poor pastoralists, pushed further and further onto marginal land and eventually out of the pastoral production completely (Graham, 1988). According to Egemi (2006), LSMA has consistently been a major factor fueling conflict and a source of injustice in the clay plains of the central Sudan. It was written that no farmer is allowed to have more than one scheme (i.e. 420 ha) as a maximum but the reality shows that there is a violation of the regulations of lease provision. Also among the negative implications of the invasion of Butana by LSMA, is the increase of pressure on remnant rangeland which increases the rate of conflicts by the settled people and the transhumant pastoralists. In this context, a recent study (Sulieman and Siddig, 2014) indicated that rangeland degradation, increasing competition over resources and increasing abnormal climatic events have been playing a great role in impoverishing settled agropastoralists in Butana. El-Tayeb (1985) stated that LSFS in Gadarif pushed the pastoralists and small farmers out of their areas. As a result, many of the subsistence farmers became wage laborers and gave up their land. This change from land owner to landless wage earner has brought about changes in the social structure of the region. The trend of pushing pastoralists out of their system has been observed in many African countries, where political and economic powers tend to be in the urban and large-scale agricultural sectors. Thus, valuable grazing lands have been lost and important traditional exchange relationships between pastoralists and smallholder farmers have broken down. This type of range degradation is widespread, particularly in regions where small-scale agriculture and pastoralism in the past were in balance with environmental conditions (FAO, 1993).
6. Conclusions and policy implications The case presented in this paper clearly shows that after fully exploiting the fertile soils of the central clay plains of Sudan there is a pressure to expand LSMA northwards into marginal areas where mechanized cultivation has been illegal before. Historically, these areas are known to be communal rangeland inhibited by pastoralists and stallholder farmers. Normally, LSFs started the process of land grabbing and then use their power to direct the state land legislation apparatus into the direction that fulfill their interest. During the process from illegal to legal situation LSFs allied with different bodies and institutions such as local leaders in villages and Farmers’ Union. It is clear that the 1996 MA opened the door for further encroachment and recent visits to the area showed that the LSMA is far north outside the LSMA limits. Due to political marginalization and the absence of their representative institutions, it is not possible for pastoralists and smallholders to defend their tenure rights. On the other side, LSFs are often well educated and most of them settled in urban centers and their union is closely linked to major power centers in the state. A range of actions are therefore required to address the threats and challenges facing traditional land users in Sudan. Policy makers have a key role to play in fostering the development of pastoral sector and in ensuring responsible investment in agriculture. The accelerated rangeland diminishing process should be considered
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as a reflection of unsustainable economic development and of inequality of access to resources, at national and local levels. Such process of uneven development and economic dislocation began during the colonial period and became particularly massive in recent decades. It is obvious that Sudan is lacking a national land use policy that appreciated the traditional land use systems practiced by smallholders and pastoralists. Ignoring the importance of such systems is putting the country in a long last dilemma of natural resources related conflicts which is not only affecting the contemporary situation of the country but is also shaping its future. Acknowledgements This paper was written during residency scholarship at Watson Institute for International Studies of Brown University, Providence RI under the aegis of BIARI (Brown International Advanced Research Institutes) program for its alumni. I would like to thank BIARI staff for providing me with facilities as a Visiting Scholar. I am very grateful to Hatim Soliman and Mohand Mukhar for conducting the field research with me and for their effort in helping me to collect secondary data. I would like to thank Gunnar Sørbø for his valuable and constructive reading and for Abdelghaffar Ahmed for his comments on an earlier version of the paper. References Abdelkarim, A., 1985. The segmented agricultural labour market in Sudan. Rev. Afr. Pol. Econ. 34, 46–54. Ahmed, A.G.M., 1987. National ambivalence and external hegemony: the negligence of pastoral nomads in the Sudan. In: Mohamed Salih, M.A. (Ed.), Agrarian Change in the Central Rainlands: Sudan, A Socio-Economic. Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala. Akhtar, M., 1993. Desertification in the Butana. GeoJournal 31 (1), 41–50. Anderson, J.R., Dillon, J.L., 1992. Risk Analysis in Dryland Farming Systems, FAO Farm Systems Management Series No. 2. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome. Assal, M., 2009. The relationship between nomadic and sedimentary people in Sudan in the context of state policies and internationalization. Nomadic Peoples 13 (1), 154–170. Babiker, M., 2008. Communal Land Rights and Peace-Building in North Kordofan: Policy and Legislative Challenges. Sudan Working Paper: 3, Bergen. Chr. Michelsen Institute, Bergen. Babiker, M., 2012. Mobile pastoralism and land grabbing in Sudan: Impacts and responses. In: Catley, A., Lind, J., Scoones, I. (Eds.), In Pastoralism and Development in Africa: Dynamic Change at the Margins. Routledge, ISBN: 978-0-415-54072-8. Bascom, J.B., 1990. Food wages and profits: mechanized schemes and the Sudanese state. Econ. Geogr. 66 (2), 140–155. Behnke, R., 1985. Open-Range Management and Property Rights in Pastoral Africa – A case of Spontaneous Range Enclosure in South Darfur, Sudan. Paper 20f, Overseas Development Institute, Pastoral Development Network. Behnke, R.H., Abel, N.O.J., 1996. Revisited: the overstocking controversy in semi-arid Africa. World Anim. Rev. 87, 3–27. Behnke, R., Kerven, C., 2011. Replacing pastoralism with irrigated agriculture in the Awash Valley, northeastern Ethiopia: counting the costs. Paper Presented at the International Conference: Future of Pastoralism. Blench, R.M., 2001. Pastoralism in the New Millennium. FAO: Animal Health and Production Series, No. 150. Breman, H., de Wit, C.T., 1983. Rangeland productivity and exploitation in the Sahel. Science 221, Number 4618. Cater, N., 1986. Sudan: The Root of Famine. Published by Oxfam, Oxfam Banbury Road. Casciarri, B., 2002. Local trends and perceptions of processes of commoditisation in central Sudan: the responses of the ahamda pastoral system to state pressures and capitalist dynamics (1). Nomadic Peoples 6 (2), 32–50. Casciarri, B., Ahmed, A.M., 2009. Pastoralists under pressure in present-day Sudan: an introduction. Nomadic Peoples 13 (1), 10–22. Chinigò, D., 2011. Decentralisation of land management and administration in Ethiopia: the case of Siraro Woreda in Oromia region. In: Panel 138 Negotiating access to Land in East Africa, ECAS 2011 – 4th European Conference on African Studies Uppsala 15–18 June 2011. Claesseng, K., Mudinga, E., Ansoms, A., 2013. Land Grabbing by Local Elites in the Territory of Kalehe, South Kinvu Eastern DRC , Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty (accessed 11.04.14.). Dickerman, C.W., 1989. Security of Tenure and Land Registration in Africa. Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, LTC Paper 137, U.S, ISSN 0084-0793.
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