The Twenty-first Century Agricultural Land Rush - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 823

What's New about the Land Grab?
hewakeofthe2007-2008foodcrisishasbeencharacterizedbyasharpincreasein
international land transactions, as well as a trend toward more rapid expansion of the
global agricultural area. Compared to an average expansion of global agricultural land
oflessthan4 millionhectaresperyearpriorto2008,theWorldBankhaspredictedthe
openingofatleast6 millionhectaresofagriculturallandannuallythrough2030,amore
than50 percentincrease(WorldBank2010,vi,11).Meanwhile,ananalysisoftheLand
Matrixdatabase,themostcomprehensiverecordoflanddealssincetheyear2000,inds
asurgeinthenumberoflandacquisitionsater2005,accompanyingrisingcommodity
prices,withapeakfollowingtheglobalfoodcrisisin2009.Althoughreportedlanddeals
havedeclinedsomewhatsince2009,possiblyasaresultoftheinancialcrisisandcritical
media coverage of land grabbing, the reporting of deals with signed contracts contin-
ues to occur at a level significantly higher than at the beginning of the decade, suggest-
ing an enduring increase in the number of international land transactions (Anseeuw
et al.2012,6).Evendealsthatarenotfullyimplementedmayimpactlocallivelihoodsas
expectations of foreign demand spur land grabbing by local elites, or as investors restrict
accesstoanareaandthenfailtousethelandproductively(WorldBank2010,48-49).
Furthermore, the rapid overall expansion of agricultural land and the acceleration of
landtransactionsisaccompaniedbyashitinthelocusofproduction: theUNFoodand
AgricultureOrganization(FAO)predictsthatevenwithoutaccountingforbiofuelsand
forest plantations, there will be a decrease of 27 million hectares of agricultural land in
developed countries and an increase of 74 million hectares in developing countries from
2010to2030(WorldBank2010,11).6
In qualitative terms, these land deals may appear not as a fundamental break with
thepast,butratherasanaccelerationofhistoricaltrends.DeSchutter(2011)notesaris-
ingtrendofforeigndirectinvestment(FDI)inagriculturepriortothe2007-2008food
crisis, as well as the prior existence of practices of offshore agricultural production for
foodsecuritybycountrieslikeJapanandChina(251).7 However, the sheer magnitude of
reported deals8 and the significant projected increase in agricultural expansion approach a
quantity-qualitythreshold,signalingfundamentalchangesintheorganizationoftheagri-
cultural food-feed-fuel complex and in the perspectives of states and investors regarding
agricultural production. These changes in actor perceptions and the evolving public and
private sector interactions driving agricultural land deals emerge from the conjuncture of
inancial,food,andecologicalcrisesthatrockedtheglobalsystemattheendofthe2000s.