Foreign large-scale land acquisitions in Sub-Saharan Africa: Boon or bane for domestic food security?

Abstract: Since the boom in global food prices in 2008, governments and companies around the world seek to boost agricultural output and sustain internal food security through the purchase and lease of farmland in Sub-Saharan Africa. There is no consensus in the literature whether land acquisitions by foreign investors are beneficial to the livelihoods of the local people in Africa. This thesis aims to contribute to the on-going debate by providing empirical evidence on the net effects of large-scale land deals on food security in the host countries. I construct a panel dataset on Sub-Saharan Africa from 2000 to 2013 and estimate the statistical impact on daily per capita food supplies while accounting for heterogeneity across countries with random and fixed effects. I find evidence that large-scale land acquisitions improve food security significantly. However, the results should be interpreted with care due to limitations of the underlying data. The thesis stresses the importance of increased access to information on international land deals and greater transparency in negotiation and documentation processes. Only then, research can provide conclusive evidence on the implications for food security.