Land grabbing is the large-scale acquisition of land through buying or leasing of large pieces of land by domestic and transnational companies, governments, and individuals. While used broadly throughout history, land grabbing as used in the 21st century primarily refers to large-scale land acquisitions following the 2007–08 world food price crisis. Obtaining water resources is usually critical to the land acquisitions, so it has also led to an associated trend of water grabbing. This phenomenon has raised concerns about food security in the developed world and newfound economic opportunities for agricultural investors. As a result, there was a dramatic spike in large-scale agricultural investments, primarily foreign, in the Global South for the purpose of industrial food and biofuels production. Although hailed by investors, economists and some developing countries as a new pathway towards agricultural development, investment in land in the 21st century has been criticized by some non-governmental organizations and commentators as having a negative impact on local communities. International law is implicated when attempting to regulate these transactions.
Definition The term "land grabbing" is defined as very large-scale land acquisitions, either buying or leasing. The size of the land deal is multiples of 1,000 square kilometres (390 sq mi) or 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) and thus much larger than in the past. The term is itself controversial. In 2011, Borras, Hall and others wrote that "the phrase 'global land grab' has become a catch-all to describe and analyze the current trend towards large scale (trans)national commercial land transactions." Ruth Hall wrote elsewhere that the "term 'land grabbing', while effective as activist terminology, obscures vast differences in the legality, structure, and outcomes of commercial land deals and deflects attention from the roles of domestic elites and governments as partners, intermediaries, and beneficiaries." In Portuguese, Land Grabbing is translated as "grilagem":
Much is said about grilagem and the term may be curious ... document aged by the action of insects ... However, for those who live in the interior of the country, the expression effectively reveals a dark, heavy, violent meaning, involving abuses and arbitrary actions against the former occupants, occasionally with forced loss of possession by the taking of land The term grilagem applies to irregular procedures and illegal private landholding with violence in the countryside, exploitation of wealth, environmental damage and the threat to sovereignty, given their gigantic proportions.
Situation in the 21st century
Land area The Overseas Development Institute reported in January 2013 that with limited data available in general and existing data associated with NGOs interested in generating media attention in particular, the scale of global land trade may have been exaggerated. They found the figures below provide a variety of estimates, all in the tens of millions of hectares.
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) estimated in 2009 between 15 and 20 million hectares of farmland in developing countries had changed hands since 2006. As of January 2013 the Land Matrix Initiative's data totalled 49 million hectares of deals globally, although only 26 million hectares of these are transnational. A 2011 World Bank report by Klaus Deininger reported 56 million hectares worldwide. Friis & Reenberg (2012) reported in 2012 between 51 and 63 million hectares in Africa alone. The GRAIN database published in January 2012, quantified 35 million hectares, although when stripping out more developed economies such as Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Romania, the amount in the GRAIN database reduces to 25 million hectares. Between 1990 and 2011, in the West Bank (Palestine) 195 km2 of land were expropriated by Israel, without compensation for the local owners, and allocated to immigrants for new settlements and for the establishment of mostly large farms. Water for the local population became extremely sparse. In 2016, as a part of a permanent process 300 acres of land were added. Most seem to arrive at a ballpark of 20–60 million hectares. Given that total global farmland takes up just over 4 billion hectares, these acquisitions could equate to around 1 per cent of global farmland. However, in practice, land acquired may not have previously been used as farmland, it may be covered by forests, which also equate to about 4 billion hectares worldwide, so transnational land acquisitions may have a significant role in ongoing deforestation. The researchers thought that a sizeable number of deals remain questionable in terms of size and whether they have been finalised and implemented. The land database often relies on one or two media sources and may not track whether the investments take place, or whether the full quantity reported takes place. For example, a number of deals in the GRAIN database appear to have stalled, including:
1 million hectares taken between US firms Arc Cap and Nile Trading and Development Inc in Sudan A 400,000 hectare deal between China and Colombia that seems to have stalled The 325,000 hectare investment by Agrisol in Tanzania A 324,000 hectare purchase of land by the UAE in Pakistan A suspended 320,000 hectare purchase by Chinese investors in Argentina. The researchers claim these are only those that have been checked, and already amount to nearly 10 per cent of the GRAIN database transnational land acquisitions. Deals are reported that use the estimate of the full extent of land that the firm expects to use. For example,
Indian investment in Tanzania is reported at 300,000 hectares, currently operating on just 1,000 hectares Olam International's investment in Gabon reported at 300,000 hectares, currently operating on just 50,000 Three investments amounting to 600,000 hectares in Liberia, with Equatorial Palm Oil's deal reported at 169,000 hectares, despite their plans to reach just 50,000 by 2020.
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