Although definitions
vary, "land grab" here refers to the large-scale purchase of
agricultural land by foreign investors. Thus, land leases or purchases
among domestic actors are omitted. In April 2012, the Land Matrix
Project, a global network of some 45 research and civil society
organizations, released the largest database to date on these types of
land deals, gathering data from 1,006 deals covering 70.2 million
hectares around the world.
Africa has seen the
greatest share of land involved in these acquisitions, with 34.3 million
hectares sold or leased since 2000. East Africa accounts for the
greatest investment, with 310 deals covering 16.8 million hectares.
Increased investment in Africa's agricultural land reflects a
decade-long trend of strengthening economic relationships between Africa
and the rest of the world, with foreign direct investment to the
continent growing 259 percent between 2000 and 2010.
Asia and Latin
America come in second and third for most heavily targeted regions, with
27.1 million and 6.6 million hectares of land deals, respectively.
Investor countries,
in contrast, are spread more evenly around the globe. Of the 82 listed
investor countries in the Land Matrix Project database, Brazil, India,
and China account for 16.5 million hectares, or around 24 percent of the
total hectares sold or leased worldwide. When the East Asian nations of
Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea are included, this group of
industrializing countries has been involved in 274 land deals covering
30.5 million hectares.
The United States and
the United Kingdom account for a combined 6.4 million hectares of land
deals. The oil-rich but arid Gulf states make up the final group of
major land investors, with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and
Qatar responsible for 4.6 million hectares.
"In several cases----namely, South Africa, China, Brazil, and India----there
is an overlap between investor and target countries," said Scherer.
"Yet most of the data paint one of two pictures: First, there is a new
'South-South' regionalism, in which emerging economies invest in nearby,
culturally affiliated countries. The other trend is one of wealthy (or
increasingly wealthy) countries, many with little arable land, buying up
land in low-income nations----especially those that have been particularly vulnerable to the financial and food crises of recent years."
The food crisis of
2007-08 helped spark the dramatic uptick in foreign acquisitions in
2009, as investors rushed to capitalize on the rising prices of staple
crops. But food prices are not solely responsible for the land-grab
trend. As fuel consumption and oil prices continue to rise, the demand
for land on which to grow feedstocks for biofuels will likely rise too,
increasing the pressure on limited cropland.
The implications of
the recent surge in foreign land acquisitions are still unclear. In many
cases, the deals displace local farmers who already occupy and farm the
land, but who frequently lack formal land rights or access to legal
institutions to defend these rights. The land grabs also often result in
the use of industrial agriculture and other practices that can bring
serious ecological and other impacts to these regions. In the absence of
clear regulations, robust enforcement mechanisms, government
transparency, and channels for civil society participation, further
investments in land may benefit a group of increasingly wealthy
investorsat the expense of those living in the targeted land areas.
Further highlights from the report:
- Approximately 56.2 million hectares of land have been sold or leased in Africa----4.8 percent of the continent's agricultural land
- Of the 658 land acquisition deals that took place in 2000-2010
that provided information on individual investors, 442 (67 percent) of
them were carried out by private companies.
- Just over a quarter of the acquired land is used for
nonagricultural purposes: some 11 percent of investors are in the
forestry sector, and 8 percent are from the mining, industry, livestock,
or tourism sectors.
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