A large number of NGOs – such as here, the Green Belt Movement, based in Kenya – are critical of the methods that foreign investors are applying to buy up land.
Photo: Afromusing

Land grabbing

16.01.2012

Oxfam: Land grabbing more widespread than previously thought

Land is being sold off on an unprecedented scale; according to the report “Land and Power”, published by the NGO Oxfam at the end of September 2011, some 227 million hectares of land worldwide have been sold or leased since 2001, much of it in the last two years. This corresponds to an area roughly the size of western Europe, and it means that the extent of land sales – for which foreign investors are chiefly responsible – is four to five times greater than had been assumed. The report sees the land rush as clearly linked to the 2007/2008 food price crisis, which led investors and governments to turn their attention towards agriculture after decades of neglect. The purpose of land deals is often to produce goods for foreign food and biofuel markets. And the rights of the local population are often ignored in the process, justifying – according to Oxfam – the use of the term “land grabbing”. The report focuses in particular on land deals in Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, South Sudan and Uganda.
More information: www.oxfam.org

(Oxfam/sri)

   
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Harald Kirsch, Tuesday, 07-02-12 08:28

Just take a look at Asia. I have been working in Cambodia for more than 6 years. Land grabbing seems to be an official government policy there. Corrupt government officials collaborate with Korean and Chinese so-called investors. Nothing will be left for normal Cambodians in a few years.

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