Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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The Great Land Grab: Rush for World’s Farmland Threatens Food Security for 
the Poor
http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/?q=node/view/526
For Immediate Release : October 8, 2009

As experts on food and agriculture come together in Rome on October 12, 2009 
to discuss the challenge of feeding the world by 2050, a new report from the 
Oakland Institute, The Great Land Grab: Rush for World's Farmland Threatens 
Food Security for the Poor, sounds the alarm on the threat that land grabbing 
poses to food security and livelihoods. Land grabs--the purchase of vast 
tracts of land from poor, developing countries by wealthier, food-insecure 
nations and private investors--have become a widespread phenomenon, with 
foreign interests seeking or securing between 37 million and 49 million acres 
of farmland between 2006 and the middle of 2009. While such land grabs have 
not gone unnoticed, much attention has focused on individual countries, such 
as China and Saudi Arabia, buying land in poor nations. The Great Land Grab 
lays bare the insidious role played by international financial institutions 
like the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank and Foreign 
Investment Advisory Service (FIAS), as well as rich nations, in promoting and 
facilitating this widespread land reappropriation--all in the name of 
promoting food security through foreign investment in agriculture.

An estimated 1.02 billion people-one sixth of humanity-suffer from chronic 
hunger, and, in one of the world's cruelest ironies, 70 percent of this 
starving population live and work on small-scale farms and in rural areas. To 
tackle the growing crisis of world hunger, policy makers and agriculture 
experts will again gather at the World Food Summit in November 2009; 
preparation for the summit is revolving around increased investment in 
agriculture. However, as The Great Land Grab points out, there is a dangerous 
disconnect between increasing agricultural investment through rich countries 
amassing land in poor countries and the goal of secure and adequate food 
supplies for poor and vulnerable populations.

The Great Land Grab critically examines the role of the private sector in 
agricultural development and exposes implications of private sector control 
over food resources. The report concludes that those who promote the benefits 
of private sector growth in agriculture fail to recognize that acquisition of 
crucial food-producing lands by foreign private entities poses a threat to 
rural economies and livelihoods, land reform agendas, and other efforts aimed 
at making access to food more equitable. The report concludes that the 
current debate surrounding the land grab phenomenon fails to adequately and 
rigorously examine the consequences of this trend and implores that we 
question the assumption that increased investment in agriculture is 
beneficial for all parties involved.