Formalising village land dispossession? An aggregate analysis of the combined effects of the land formalisation and land acquisition agendas in Tanzania

While literature on land grabbing and land formalisation respectively has literally exploded the past decade, few studies analyse the practical processes taking place at their confluence, or provide an analysis at an aggregate level. This paper is based on 27 months of in-depth empirical investigation of thirteen large-scale agro-investments across four regions in Tanzania. It explores how four key legislative acts and policies related to land formalisation and land acquisition for large-scale agro-investments unfold on the ground, their implementation and combined effects. We show that land formalisation and acquisition are intrinsically linked: the former paving the way for investment in all thirteen cases. Moreover, rather than fulfilling development policy expectations of land tenure security for smallholder farmers, employment and poverty reduction in rural Africa, we demonstrate that, in Tanzania, these combined processes rather foster village land dispossession, investors’ land acquisitions, and a (re)centralisation of land control. Therefore, we argue that the conjoint implementation of policies associated with land formalisation and land investments have adverse consequences for rural farmers whose land is formalised and then set aside for investment ultimately leading to a formalised rural land dispossession. Our unique aggregate analysis thus provides solid support to the existing critique towards the parallel implementation of land formalisation and large-scale agro-investments, and the interlinked reform of the land legislative framework, all strongly supported by global development bodies. •The paper presents the practical outcomes of the land formalisation and large-scale agro-investment agendas in Tanzania.•It's based on 27 months of empirical data from 13 large-scale agro-investments in Tanzania across 4 regions and 6 districts.•Combined, land formalisation and large-scale agro-investments lead to a systematic dispossession of village land.•The dispossession takes place through predatory and legal practices implementing four legislative land acts and policies Such systematic dispossession takes place in favor of investors’ land acquisitions and increasing land (re)-centralisation.•Combining land formalisation and land acquisition processes proves detrimental to farmers' and pastoralists' land access.