Publisher's Synopsis
"The Zambian government regards agriculture as a "panacea" for rural poverty, and the country's leaders have been promoting agribusiness investments on huge swaths of land. However, flaws in the government's regulation of commercial agriculture, and its poor efforts at protecting the rights of vulnerable people, instead of helping people climb out of the poverty mire, are actually hurting them. Families that have lived and farmed for generations on land now allocated to commercial farms are being displaced without due process or compensation. Some have been left hungry and homeless. Any one commercial agriculture project, whether a massive investment by foreign investors on tens of thousands of hectares of agricultural land, or smaller land deals on a few hundred to a few thousand hectares, may impact individuals and households. Without proper safeguards, they may have a tremendously negative cumulative impact on local communities. ...
