based on submission of an investment plan.<sup>5</sup> A key policy issue related to this is that, as sales are not allowed, land acquired by failed investments cannot just be transferred to others but requires elaborate state intervention to cancel and reassign the lease. Together with weak and incomplete land records, this makes it difficult to unambiguously ascertain or extinguish pre-existing claims, an issue that has consistently been raised as a challenge for investors (OECD 2013; UNCTAD 2012). It implies that, despite the country’s land abundance, the amount of land for which ownership or absence of competing claims can be easily established may be quite limited.

One reason for the relative neglect of agriculture is the country’s rich mineral resource endowment that led the government to pursue a development strategy focused on ‘mega-projects’.<sup>6</sup> Yet, hopes that these projects, with strong government support, would generate jobs and local linkages were often disappointed. Large investments to rehabilitate the sugar industry (Buur _et al._ 2012) and establish irrigation for rice (Kajisa and Payongayong 2011) notwithstanding, Mozambique’s level of agricultural public investment is low even by African standards.<sup>7</sup> Moreover, it has been argued that the impact of such spending may have been compromised by a preference for high-visibility projects with short gestation periods compared to alternatives with higher payoff (Mogues and Do Rosario 2015).

To more effectively reduce rural poverty and promote a more inclusive pattern of development, the government’s latest strategic plan for agricultural development (PEDSA) puts priority on smallholderdriven agricultural growth. It includes efforts to improve technology, reduce small farmers’ capital constraints, and increase the extremely low levels of modern input use some of which show potentially interesting results (Carter _et al._ 2014). Support to smallholders at a micro-level is to be complemented by development of 6 growth corridors to provide infrastructure and public services.<sup>8</sup> Ideally these corridors would provide a springboard for ‘pioneer’ investors to create market links, fine-tune technology packages, and develop local infrastructure in ways that help increase small farmers’ productivity and the area cultivated by them along the lines of Collier and Venables (2012). To provide incentives, the country offers attractive conditions for agricultural investment including low corporate income taxes (with effective rates as low as 2% to increase to 5% over the next decade) and cheap land (with 50-year leases at USD 1/ha and year). A center for promotion of agriculture (CEPAGRI) complements the national (CPI) and several regional investment promotion agencies to attract, nurture, and coordinate investment.

> 5 In theory, submission of an investment plan will trigger receipt of a provisional DUAT that will, after a period of two years, either be converted into a definitive one or cancelled. In practice, it appears that most of the documents held by investors are still provisional. 6 Mega-projects include the Mozal aluminium smelter in Maputo province, the Inhambane Sasol/Temane gas extraction and pipeline projects, the Moma titanium ore (heavy sands) project in Nampula, the Moatize coalmine in Tete, and Corridor Sands in Gaza (Cunguara 2012). 7 Mozambique’s spending on R&D in agriculture is less than 0.25% of agricultural GDP, about one third of the 0.69% achieved in Africa overall and one sixth of the l.5% target agreed upon by African countries (World_Bank 2011).

> 8 These are Maputo and Limpopo (with focus on rice, horticulture, cattle and poultry), Pemba-Lichinga (focus on wheat, beans, maize, soja, cotton, potato, tobacco, and poultry), Nacala (cassava, maize, cotton, fruit, poultry, and groundnut), Zambezia (rice, maize, potato, cattle, goats, cotton, and poultry), and Beira (maize, wheat, horticulture, poultry, soja, rice and cattle).

5