The Twenty-first Century Agricultural Land Rush - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 835

the future of the global system. This concluding section revisits the question of implica-
tions to underscore the main debates about the nature and effects of the land grab.
The recognition that many land deals are announced but never completed, and that
actualnewfarmlanddevelopmentotenfallsshortofitsplannedextent,mighttempt
us to conclude that the land rush is more apparent than real. However, available empiri-
cal work confirms that the areas of land changing hands are substantial, significant
increases in agricultural expansion are projected, and perceptions of the importance of
land and the nature of food security in the global economy have been fundamentally
altered. As production from these new land investments comes on line in the future,
the broader impacts of land grabbing on the food system will become more apparent.
Immediateimpactsarealreadysubstantial,however,withbillionsofdollarsininvest-
ment, millions of hectares changing hands, and tens of thousands of people displaced.26
On a more fundamental level, the land grab may prove symptomatic of a systemic
crisis of the global political economy, with this wave of farmland acquisition establish-
ing the foundations for a new cycle of accumulation, or deepening the contradictions
of the present crisis toward the disintegration of global capitalism as a socio-ecological
system(Araghi2009;Moore2010;McMichael2012).herealhistoricalsigniicanceof
structural changes in the global political economy, manifested in the coincident crises
of finance, food, and ecology, and acknowledged in changing actor perceptions and
actions including the rush for land, suggests that the implications of the land grab will be
durable and systemic.
Understoodasaprojecttostabilizetheglobalpoliticaleconomy,thetwenty-irstcen-
tury land rush is effectively a synecdoche for the contemporary agrarian question. Can
large-scale farmland acquisitions enhance global food security? Will they undermine food
sovereignty? Does land grabbing generate a productive surplus, or only a redistributive sur-
plusthroughexpropriation?Canlarge-scaleagro-industrialexpansionstabilizethecondi-
tions of production for the global economy, even launching a new wave of growth? Does the
land grab spell the end of the global peasantry? These questions force a recognition of the
agrarianquestion,crystallizedinthecurrentlandrush,asfundamentaltoourpresentcon-
juncture and key to the future of the global political economy and global ecology.
Notes
1. The terms of these acquisitions vary widely, from short- or long-term leases to freehold
sales.Forareview,seeHLPE2011.
2. The “land grab” framing has been further extended to consider nonagricultural land
deals,suchasformineralextractionornatureconservation(e.g.,Zoomers2011),aspart
ofageneralphenomenonof“newenclosures”(Whiteet al.2012).hischaptermaintains
afocusonlandacquisitionsforagriculture,whichrepresentover80 percentofthedeals
cataloguedintheLandMatrix,themostcomprehensiveavailabledatabaseoninterna-
tionallandtransactionssince2000(Anseeuwet al.2012).
3. hebestavailableglobaldataonlanddealscomefromtheLandMatrixdatabase,compiled
bytheInternationalLandCoalition(ILC)andpartnerorganizations.hepublicdatabase,