“…Since 2008, a huge number of land transfers have been approved by rural councils, the elected local bodies authorised to allocate land. During the Wade era (2000 -2012), 16% of Senegal's arable land, over 400,000 hectares, was taken from local peasants and given to 'people who can invest in it' (Faye et al 2011. Using a provision of the national land law of 1964 that stipulates that land cannot be alienated except where it has not been 'developed' (mise en valeur) -an ambiguous concept often interpreted as meaning investment in irrigation, machines, and buildings -the Wade government instructed rural councils to alienate land from peasant farmers and pastoralists, who by common knowledge lacked resources to 'develop' it, in order to allocate it to wealthy foreign or national 'investors', who, by definition, did.…”