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Copyright of Cahiers Agriculture is the property of EDP Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cahiers Agriculture is the property of EDP Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Sub-Saharan Africa is confronted with land issues such as the private appropriation of farmland, land use conflicts, and access to land for women and younger generations. These diverse issues and the promotion of evidence-based policies encourage actors in land reform to equip themselves with steering, evaluation, and monitoring tools capable of producing information to accompany decision-making processes for land policy. Land observatories are viewed as mechanisms of information production and diffusion that can inform choices and help in these processes. In this context, they also occupy a central place in the international development discourse among research institutes, national institutions, and civil society organizations. This is generally the case in Africa where the concept of land observatories has had undeniable success in the development field in recent years. This success is manifest in the establishment of national land observatories in Madagascar (2007), Cameroun (2013, 2019), South Africa and Burkina Faso (2014), Senegal (2015), Mali (2017), and Uganda (2018). Our research uses a case study in Senegal to analyze the discrepancy between the discourse and the practices surrounding land observatories and to explore the actors' games and the institutional power-plays involved in their implementation. We also discuss the ability of these instruments to actually reduce informational asymmetries, produce and share knowledge, and improve land governance. In order to examine the reality of the land observatories rather than what they pretend to be or do, we have developed a qualitative research approach which combines the perspectives of science and technology studies, political geography, and the sociology of public action. • Diachronic mapping shows that land observatories in Senegal are marked with the power plays typical of institutional games. • We point out the promises made by proponents of land observatories and compare them to the actual realization in the field. • We underline the need to repoliticize public policy instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land is central to addressing global development challenges, and land governance is at the heart of paradigms of democracy, justice, sustainability, and resilience. Despite the thoroughly recognized importance of land as a basis for all human-nature relations, the land sector is challenged by mechanisms of commodification and land control. The widely recognized global land rush of the late 2000 s increased the pressure on land, spotlighting in particular the rising demand for arable lands. But despite a growing awareness, the patterns and regimes of dispossession are still subject to blind spots, due in part to a recurring focus on foreign land grabbers, a lack of transparent data on land investments, and several methodological limitations. In Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the world's most targeted areas in terms of land investments, Senegal offers an interesting case study because published data on land control has been limited to foreign land investments. In this study, conducted in partnership with the technical committee of the Senegalese Land Governance Observatory, we propose another way to look at land control in agriculture by encompassing all types of investors at a national scale and focusing on the full ensemble of control processes. In our results, we describe the dynamics of land investments through time and space and identify three different types (or clusters) of investment patterns with specificities in terms of investing stakeholders, crops, and markets. While we highlight the inequality in land distribution and control, we also stress the environmental impacts of large agricultural investments that encroach on common lands and the social consequences of restricting access and use of resources, which further exacerbates the exclusion of local communities. • Despite a growing awareness, mechanisms of commodification and land control in Senegal are still subject to blind spots. • This study provides a first comprehensive assessment on large-scale land acquisitions in Senegal's agricultural sector. • We identify three different archetypes of investment with specificities in terms of stakeholders, crops, and markets. • Acknowledging patterns of land concentration can support policy design to accompany or regulate future investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Senegalese delta, like many other agricultural territories in the Global South, is experiencing changes in agricultural trajectory. These changes are related to the promotion of competitive and performance-based forms of agriculture. In a context of tense relations between farmers and herders, the quest for equitable access to land, which is a guarantee of peace, stability, and balanced economic and social development, is being called into question by the arrival of capital investors and new actors that are highly supported by the State. This situation raises questions about two important issues: (i) the challenge of the sustainable management of natural resources, especially land; and (ii) the socio-political stakes related to the fact that land is a sensitive resource, both politically and socially. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that dominant discourses are being built around representation of unused and available lands. The aim of this article is to address this controversy by questioning land-use planning processes and tools and underlining the reality depicted. We demonstrate that discourses around land availability are built upon sectoral visions that tend to overshadow the realities of land use. Indeed, livestock farming and particularly its mobile form (i.e., pastoralism) is rendered invisible by not being considered in the majority of land-use and agricultural policies. Through a participatory survey of campsites, we show that gathering basic information on livestock farming should not to be reduced to technical issues. Beyond that, we acknowledge that these land-use issues are rooted in sector-based and neoliberal visions of development. We conclude by discussing the importance of effective decentralization in financial and technical means and the development of systemic proficiency that goes beyond normative sectoral views to acknowledge and act on territorial development. • The Delta area is experiencing strong pressure on natural and land resources. • Historically land use planning has been entangled in sectoral logic and constraints. • Livestock farming and mobility are still a reality in the Delta area. • Aside from technical solutions and promises, structural organizational changes are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The persistence of transhumance systems requires continued access to key pastoral resources that together allow the seasonal movement of livestock herds over long distances. In dryland West Africa, these pastoral resources are vulnerable to competing land uses - particularly agriculture. The mapping of pastoral resources is needed as a necessary but insufficient first step in local to national efforts to manage competing forms of land use in ways that do not threaten transhumance as a form of land use. In the hopes of spurring analogous efforts elsewhere, a new digital map of the transhumance system in eastern Senegal is described. Not only does it provide detailed information about key transhumance resources (water points, encampments, corridors, pastures), but allows these to be updated, queried and questioned through an on-line interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]