Millions of hectares of African land are currently being purchased or leased on the long term, as part of large-scale strategies by countries to secure food in the future and also to engage in the production of biofuel. The scale of these acquisitions is unprecedented since the colonial era, and is likely to have major regional, national, and global consequences. Many current land grabs are legitimated by a discourse that relies heavily on global warming and expectations of climate change, yet such strategies for coping with the effects of change reduce the resilience of local farmers and risk contributing to a new era of rural–rural and rural–urban migration. Drawing on historical and contemporary case studies from four African countries, this chapter explores past mistakes as well as experience gained through successful agricultural projects that helped small-scale farmers to cope with change.