AGRICULTURAL LAND GRABS | Business Today

An estimated 70.2 million (mn) hectares of agricultural land worldwide have been sold or leased to foreign private and public investors since 2000, according to new research conducted by the Worldwatch Institute (www.worldwatch.org) for its Vital Signs Online service.
The bulk of these acquisitions, which are called ?land grabs? by some observers, took place between 2008 and 2010, peaking in 2009. Although data for 2010 indicate that the amount of acquisitions dropped considerably after the 2009 peak, it still remains well above pre-2005 levels, writes Worldwatch author Cameron Scherer.
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 organisations, released the largest database to date on these types of land deals, gathering data from 1,006 deals covering 70.2mn hectares around the world.
Africa has seen the greatest share of land involved in these acquisitions, with 34.3mn hectares sold or leased since 2000. Asia and Latin America come in second and third for most heavily targeted regions, with 27.1mn and 6.6mn 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 16.5mn 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 industrialising countries has been involved in 274 land deals covering 30.5mn hectares.
The United States and the United Kingdom account for a combined 6.4mn 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 4.6mn hectares.
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 investors at the expense of those living in the targeted land areas.

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Source: http://www.businesstoday.net.my/2012/08/agricultural-land-grabs/

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