Medium-scale farmers (5-20 ha) are the fastest growing segment of farmers across Sub-Saharan Africa.

True
The most revolutionary change in farm structure has been among medium-scale holdings. In spite of the international media’s focus on “land grabs” by foreign investors, land controlled by medium-scale farms now exceeds that of foreign and domestic large-scale holdings combined across Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia, and we expect for other Sub-Saharan countries too. (Source: Thomas S. Jayne, Antony Chapoto, Nicholas Sitko, Milu Muyanga, Charles Nkonde and J. Chamberlin. 2014. Africa’s Changing Farm Structure and Employment Challenge. Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy Research Brief 1. East Lansing: Michigan State University).

So What?
Most governments’ existing strategies are officially oriented to promote agricultural growth and food security for the millions of their rural constituents who are small-scale farmers. However, these strategies assume unhindered access to land, which this research shows is not true. In spite of rhetorical support for small-scale farmers, there are increasing concerns that de facto agricultural and land policies have encouraged, and are continuing to encourage, the transfer of land to medium-and large-scale interests without due recognition of how this is affecting land access by future generations of indigenous rural communities.