Against a background of resurgent land grabs, penetration of capital in the rural landscape and the expulsion of small producers from their pieces of land in most African countries, the Sam Moyo African Institute for Agrarian Studies (SMAIAS) working in collaboration with the Zimbabwe Land and Agrarian Network (ZiLAN) announces the commencement of comprehensive studies on land rights and contract farming in Southern Africa.  The study on contract farming will examine the power relations embedded in the model, its impact on the livelihoods of small producers while the land rights study is aimed at understanding the tenuous nature of land rights amongst different social groups. The studies build on two baseline surveys and various other country studies conducted by the SMAIAS since its inception in 2003.