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Land grabbing
Land grabbing is the large-scale acquisition of land through buying or leasing of large pieces of land by domestic and transnational companies, governments, and individuals.
While used broadly throughout history, land grabbing as used in the 21st century primarily refers to large-scale land acquisitions following the 2007–08 world food price crisis. Obtaining water resources is usually critical to the land acquisitions, so it has also led to an associated trend of water grabbing. By prompting food security fears within the developed world and newfound economic opportunities for agricultural investors, the food price crisis caused a dramatic spike in large-scale agricultural investments, primarily foreign, in the Global South for the purpose of industrial food and biofuels production.
Although hailed by investors, economists and some developing countries as a new pathway towards agricultural development, investment in land in the 21st century has been criticized by some non-governmental organizations and commentators as having a negative impact on local communities. International law is implicated when attempting to regulate these transactions.
The term "land grabbing" is defined as very large-scale land acquisitions, either buying or leasing.[citation needed] The size of the land deal is multiples of 1,000 square kilometres (390 sq mi) or 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) and thus much larger than in the past. The term is itself controversial. In 2011, Borras, Hall and others wrote that "the phrase 'global land grab' has become a catch-all to describe and analyze the current trend towards large scale (trans)national commercial land transactions." Ruth Hall wrote elsewhere that the "term 'land grabbing', while effective as activist terminology, obscures vast differences in the legality, structure, and outcomes of commercial land deals and deflects attention from the roles of domestic elites and governments as partners, intermediaries, and beneficiaries."
In Portuguese, Land Grabbing is translated as "grilagem":
Much is said about grilagem and the term may be curious ... document aged by the action of insects ... However, for those who live in the interior of the country, the expression effectively reveals a dark, heavy, violent meaning, involving abuses and arbitrary actions against the former occupants, occasionally with forced loss of possession by the taking of land
The term grilagem applies to irregular procedures and illegal private landholding with violence in the countryside, exploitation of wealth, environmental damage and the threat to sovereignty, given their gigantic proportions.
The Overseas Development Institute reported in January 2013 that with limited data available in general and existing data associated with NGOs interested in generating media attention in particular, the scale of global land trade may have been exaggerated. They found the figures below provide a variety of estimates, all in the tens of millions of hectares.
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Land grabbing
Land grabbing is the large-scale acquisition of land through buying or leasing of large pieces of land by domestic and transnational companies, governments, and individuals.
While used broadly throughout history, land grabbing as used in the 21st century primarily refers to large-scale land acquisitions following the 2007–08 world food price crisis. Obtaining water resources is usually critical to the land acquisitions, so it has also led to an associated trend of water grabbing. By prompting food security fears within the developed world and newfound economic opportunities for agricultural investors, the food price crisis caused a dramatic spike in large-scale agricultural investments, primarily foreign, in the Global South for the purpose of industrial food and biofuels production.
Although hailed by investors, economists and some developing countries as a new pathway towards agricultural development, investment in land in the 21st century has been criticized by some non-governmental organizations and commentators as having a negative impact on local communities. International law is implicated when attempting to regulate these transactions.
The term "land grabbing" is defined as very large-scale land acquisitions, either buying or leasing.[citation needed] The size of the land deal is multiples of 1,000 square kilometres (390 sq mi) or 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) and thus much larger than in the past. The term is itself controversial. In 2011, Borras, Hall and others wrote that "the phrase 'global land grab' has become a catch-all to describe and analyze the current trend towards large scale (trans)national commercial land transactions." Ruth Hall wrote elsewhere that the "term 'land grabbing', while effective as activist terminology, obscures vast differences in the legality, structure, and outcomes of commercial land deals and deflects attention from the roles of domestic elites and governments as partners, intermediaries, and beneficiaries."
In Portuguese, Land Grabbing is translated as "grilagem":
Much is said about grilagem and the term may be curious ... document aged by the action of insects ... However, for those who live in the interior of the country, the expression effectively reveals a dark, heavy, violent meaning, involving abuses and arbitrary actions against the former occupants, occasionally with forced loss of possession by the taking of land
The term grilagem applies to irregular procedures and illegal private landholding with violence in the countryside, exploitation of wealth, environmental damage and the threat to sovereignty, given their gigantic proportions.
The Overseas Development Institute reported in January 2013 that with limited data available in general and existing data associated with NGOs interested in generating media attention in particular, the scale of global land trade may have been exaggerated. They found the figures below provide a variety of estimates, all in the tens of millions of hectares.