Many thanks for this – ‘creating new exchange institutions different from the market model’ does indeed seem to be an important priority if we are to avoid the inequitable outcomes that so often accompany market-based land reforms. But what form might such exchange institutions take? This point you raise seems to me to be quite a different thing from the efforts to make customary land uses more sustainable and inclusive, which we heard quite a lot about at the conference. Innovative approaches to exchange was something we heard less about – would be very interested to hear of any examples!

It is a pity indeed that discussions on food sovereignty were omitted, where a key discussion is on how land has been transformed into a commodity, to be bought and sold in the open market. This I believe is what makes the land-grabbing or land-investing phenomenon a central problem of development.

Food sovereignty activists point out that land loses its central role in food security the more it becomes a commodity. Land can be bought, or grabbed, not to produce food or be a base for shelter, but to park capital to be sold later when prices rise (the technical term I think is ‘financialisation’). Instead of being located at the beginning of the food chain, land is transformed into a platform where commodities from somewhere (e.g. animal feed) are transformed into another commodity (e.g. meat or wool) destined for somewhere else. ‘Food miles’ expand tremendously – I can only buy bananas from Central America at my local Tesco’s. Over time, land loses its value as an autonomous source of life, especially when migration to the cities, rather than owning a plot, become seen as the best way to survive.

Such transformations may not necessarily be bad, especially if, as many economists argue, it leads to remarkable wealth creation. But it also can’t be denied that turning land into a commodity creates and reproduces inequality as well – it is arguably an origin of the have-lots and have-nots. But furthermore, turning land into a commodity, argue food sovereignty advocates, makes it difficult to slow down processes that create climate change. Thus, while there is an ‘invisible hand’ for creating wealth and maximising profit, there is no similar ‘hand’ invisible or not for resolving the paradox of poverty amidst plenty, or in pursuing the protection of the planet.

Yes there is a need, certainly, “to replace the teetering paradigm of a secure legal title”. The shoots of new directions can be found too in the food sovereignty debates – ie. challenging commodification from below; experimentation on agro-ecology; or creating new exchange institutions different from the market model.