The Twenty-first Century Agricultural Land Rush - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 831

populationsafectedbylandtransfers(WorldBank2010,37;Anseeuwet al.2012,10-11).
Ingeneral,partofthejustiicationforlarge-scalefarmlandtransactionsrestsonthe
claim that there are large areas of “potentially available,” “marginal,” or “reserve” agricul-
tural land that can accommodate the large-scale expansion of cultivation. (World Bank
calculationsof“landavailability”areoneexampleofthisperspective.)AsBorrasand
Franco(2010a,516) note,“acceptingthenotionofreserveagriculturallandnecessarily
consigns existing local land-based social relations and practices that are diverse and dis-
tincttobeingvestigesofthepast....heysimplydonot'it'theeconomicdevelopment
grid,...theyarenotthebeneiciariesofthe'responsibleagriculturalinvestment'that
is envisioned.” The likely outcome is “dispossession in the name of transforming “mar-
ginal” land into economically productive spaces.” They give the example of a land deal in
the Philippines where 1.4 million hectares of “marginal” lands were promised to China.
The lands were considered marginal because they were officially catalogued as public,
but they were in fact inhabited by communities practicing a variety of land-based liveli-
hoodstrategies(517).Indeed,datafromtheLandMatrixindicatethatnearlyhalfofall
land acquisitions target areas with existing agricultural activities, especially cropping
mosaicsthatotenareassociatedwithsmallholderlanduse(Anseeuwet al.2012,17-18).
Incountrieswherestaterecognitionofrurallandrightsisweak,investorsmaybeable
to obtain large tracts of land through host country governments without engaging the
local population.23 These processes of dispossession and displacement of local popula-
tions may be compounded by corruption in host country institutions as domestic busi-
ness and political elites seek to benefit from foreign investment. The receptivity and
attractiveness of host countries for investors may likewise be affected by the existence of
investment treaties and trade agreements that limit the conditions host countries may
imposeonnewinvestment(DeSchutter2011,266),andbyactivehostcountrymeasures
to attract investors, such as elimination of short-term property taxes and reduction of
exporttarifs(RobertsonandPinstrup-Andersen2010),orallowingforgreaterforeign
participationinstaplecropproduction(asinthecaseofIndonesia).hisdomesticinsti-
tutional context, and especially the conditions of rural land tenure, affects the social con-
structionoflandavailabilityandisconstitutedininteractionwithacountry'sstructural
position in the global economy. Taken together, these factors represent important deter-
minantsofhostcountryparticipationinlarge-scalefarmlandtransactions(Fig.34.2).
Institutional Positions and
Political Responses
The previous sections have attempted to situate the land grab in historical context and to
provide a framework for understanding the geography of foreign farmland acquisitions.
This section turns to an exploration of the current academic and political approaches