On Monday 6 June 2016 Sanne Holtslag-Broekhof will defend her PhD thesis entitled “Dealing with private property for public purposes. An interdisciplinary study of land transactions from a micro-scale perspective” at 13.30 hrs in the Auditorium of Wageningen University.

The defence ceremony will be streamed live by WURTV but can be viewed later as well. The thesis will be available at WUR-Library after the ceremony has been concluded.

Sanne’s PhD thesis focusses on land transactions between governments and private landowners. During these publicly initiated land transactions, central aspects for landowners are ‘a good solution’ and ‘a feeling of justice’. Ideas on just land acquisition are diverse amongst owners and acquirers, but were related to lawfullness, decentness and equality. During land transactions landowners experience many uncertianties. Landowners deal with these uncertainties by creating expectations and act based on these expectations. The risk to end without replacing land, stops many owners from going to court for expropriation. Yet, a comparison between the last compensation offer during the voluntary negotiations and the final compensation in court shows that the final compensation ends on average 52% higher than the last compensation offer.

Since the economic crisis public parties aim for more facilitative land policy, but have often little experience to cooperate with private landowners. The insights of this research can help public parties to deal more effective and lawful with private property during spatial developments.

The sub-department Sociology & Anthropology of Development of the Social Sciences department of Wageningen University invited two key note speakers for a seminar on Foreign Investment in African Agriculture: Prof. Kojo Amanor (University of Ghana) and Prof. Sergio Schneider  (University Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil). The two speakers will specifically highlight the role of China and Brazil.

Prof. Kojo Amanor will present an overview of foreign investments in the agricultural sector in Africa. A specific focus will be on investments from BRIC countries, notably from China and Brazil. Prof. Amanor will debate the new roles of China and Brazil in the context of their own political economies, and wider global trends of geopolitical restructuring. Prof. Amanor has published widely on African Agriculture and co-edited a Special Issue of World Development (Vol. 18, 2016) on foreign invest-ment in African agriculture.

Prof. Sergio Schneider will present an analysis of whether and how Brazilian ideas about family farming and rural development have been adopted in African countries, mostly in Mozambique. Prof. Schneider has published widely on issues related to rural development, family farming and land reform in Brazil.

Venue: Wednesday June 1, 2016; 14.00-17.00 in room C67, in the Leeuwenborch building.