In the past two decades, foreign direct investment (FDI) in emerging economies has witnessed substantial growth in the agricultural sector. Globally, more than a quarter of these investments have failed. Beyond case studies, the factors that contribute to these failures have been subject to limited research. To address this research gap, this article draws on a unique data set of 106 investments in Ethiopia, from which failures were identified and detailed case studies analysed to identify the causes of failure. Drawing on the literature on institutional voids, our analysis shows that the high rates of failure in the agricultural sector are often caused by insufficient planning at the proposal stage, assumptions about the availability of expertise, socio-political and environmental risks, insufficient financing and/or a changing investment landscape and underestimation and/or misunderstanding regarding the limits of extractive approaches. These lessons suggest that while FDI in the agricultural sector has potential, the working approaches require significant transformation. We offer a set of strategic recommendations to mitigate the risk of investment failure in agricultural investment.

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国外农业投资为何失败？埃塞俄比亚的五个教训

过去二十年来，新兴经济体的外国直接投资（FDI）在农业领域大幅增长。在全球范围内，超过四分之一的投资都失败了。除了案例研究之外，对导致这些失败的因素的研究还很有限。为了弥补这一研究空白，本文利用了埃塞俄比亚 106 项投资的独特数据集，从中找出了失败的案例，并分析了详细的案例研究，以确定失败的原因。根据有关制度缺陷的文献，我们的分析表明，农业部门的高失败率往往是由于提案阶段规划不足、对专业知识可用性的假设、社会政治和环境风险、融资不足和/或不断变化的投资环境以及对采掘方法局限性的低估和/或误解。这些经验教训表明，虽然农业部门的外国直接投资具有潜力，但工作方法需要重大转变。我们提供一系列战略建议来降低农业投资失败的风险。