Land grabs for food production: 35 million hectares of land in 66 countries after 2006
New from GRAIN | 24 February 2012GRAIN releases data set with over 400 global land grabsToday GRAIN is making available a new data set documenting 416 recent, large-scale land grabs by foreign investors for the production of food crops. The cases cover nearly 35 million hectares of land in 66 countries.This is not an exhaustive list of all land deals. We only focus on those deals that:• were initiated after 2006,• have not been cancelled,• involve large areas of land,• are led by foreign investors, and• are for the production of food crops.Deals for sugar cane and palm oil production were included but not those for crops like jatropha or cotton.The collection of deals provides a stark snapshot of how agribusiness has been rapidly expanding across the globe since the food and financial crises of 2008 and how this is taking food production out of the hands of farmers and local communities.It confirms that Africa is the primary target of the land grabs, but it also underlines the importance of Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe, demonstrating that this is a global phenomenon.The data set also paints a clear picture of who the land grabbers are. While most of the 298 land grabbers documented are from the agribusiness sector, financial companies and sovereign wealth funds are responsible for about a third of the deals. And on many occasions there is overlap. For instance, the data set shows how Cargill, one of the world's largest agribusiness companies, has been acquiring hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland through its hedge fund Black River Asset Management.European and Asian based investors account for about two thirds of the land grabs within the data set. China and India are major sources of land grabbers, as are the UK and Germany. But the UK, much like Singapore and Mauritius, serves as a tax haven for land grabbers, and often the true operating bases of the companies reside elsewhere. Other major centres of land grabbers are the US, which tops the list at 41 cases, and the UAE and Saudi Arabia with 39 combined.Most of the data was collected from the website farmlandgrab.org. Complete references can be made available upon request.The data set is available in XLS and PDF formats here: http://www.grain.org/e/4479French and Spanish versions will be available shortly.Other recent GRAIN data sets on land grabbing are available here: http://www.grain.org/e/4479For further information, please contact:Devlin Kuyek in Montreal, Canadadevlin@grain.org+1 514 571 7702Renée Vellvé in Paris, Francerenee@grain.org+33 6 75073468Carlos Vicente in Marcos Paz, Argentinacarlos@grain.org+549 11 63088809 Join New from GRAIN and receive occasional announcements of new GRAIN publications and other developments To subscribe, click http://ourlists.org/lists/grain-subscribe.htmlTo unsubscribe, click http://ourlists.org/lists/newfromgrain-en-unsubscribe.htmlVisit GRAIN's website at http://www.grain.org