The Twenty-first Century Agricultural Land Rush - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 836

releasedinbetaversionin2012,documents924dealssincetheyear2000,involvingmore
than 48 million hectares of land ( http://landportal.info/landmatrix ).GRAINalsocontin-
uesitsefortstoprovidemorecomprehensiveaggregatedataonlandgrabbing(GRAIN
2011).
4. A notableefortistheOaklandInstitute'sAfricacountryreportsintheirUnderstanding
LandInvestmentDealsinAfricaseries( http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/publications) .
5. A focusonstateactorsaloneisclearlyinsuicientforunderstandingthelandgrabphe-
nomenon, particularly when global political-economic processes are increasingly trans-
national in character, while local actors are highly differentiated in their political and
economic relations. Given the prominence of national governments in international land
deals, however, and the continued relevance of the state in the space connecting local and
global processes, maintaining some focus on country-level phenomena remains impor-
tant and illuminating.
6. heWorldBankconsidersalllow-andmiddle-incomecountries(i.e.,thosehavingaGNI
percapitaofUS$12,275orless)tobe“developingcountries,”andhigh-incomecountries
are considered “developed” countries. Developed countries under this definition include,
interalia,mostEUmemberstates;theUnitedStates,Canada,Australia,andNewZealand;
JapanandSouthKorea;andthemembersoftheGulfCooperationCouncil(Bahrain,
Kuwait,Oman,Qatar,SaudiArabia,andtheUnitedArabEmirates).
7. he UNCTAD World Investment Report 2009 discusses similar examples of efforts at
establishingofshoreproductionbytheGulfStatesandKoreainthe1960sand1970s.
8. heLandMatrixrecordsover1,200reportedagriculturallanddealssincetheyear
2000,coveringmorethan83 millionhectaresindevelopingcountries,anareamore
thantwicethesizeofGermany.Productionwasreportedtohavestartedonprojects
coveringover20 millionhectares,anarearoughlythesizeoftheUnitedKingdom
(Anseeuwet al.2012,4).
9. hechronologyinthisparagraphisbasedonTimmer(2010).
10. Majorgrainsaremutuallysubstitutableformanypurposes,andtheirmarketpricesgener-
ally correlate.
11. Where2002-2004foodpricesareweightedto100,theFoodPriceIndexforFebruary2011
averaged238.
12. Inatypicalretelling,BorrasandFranco(2010b)describenationalgovernmentsoffood
importing countries as “shocked” by the food price crisis and “rushing” to find land and
labortoproducefoodforthemselves(4fn.6).UNCTADsuggeststhatthenewwaveof
offshore food security land investments may be more successful than such investments
were in the past, in part because “many home countries see the latest changes in the global
agricultural industry as a sea change from the past, with high prices, shortages, and volatil-
ityinfoodcropspersistingintothefuture”(UNCTAD2009,161-162).
13. Onthisviewoftheinteractionbetweenstructuralchangeandcriticaleventsinhistory,
compareSewell2005.
14. Corporations involved in banana production in Central America, for example, have
moved away from plantation production toward purchasing bananas from smallholders
and providing technical assistance. The tea industry in Kenya and the tobacco industry
globally provide similar examples of a transition away from direct corporate ownership of
landandcontrolofproductiontowardamodelofdecentralizedproductioncoupledwith
centralizedprocessinganddistribution(UNCTAD2009,105).