Is There a “Win-Win” Solution to Land Acquisitions?
This is a four-part piece about the increasing prevalence of large-scale land acquisition, or “land grabs” in Sub-Saharan Africa originally featured on the Worldwatch Intitute’s Nourishing the Planet. Part I: Innovations in Access to Land: Land Grab or Agricultural Investment? Background: There has been a documented trend in recent years of foreign governments and private firms investing and acquiring large tracts of land in other countries for the purpose of agricultural production and export. While the trend is global, increasingly the countries where these deals are taking place are in largely under or undeveloped regions in Asia and Africa. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), cited in a 2009 article in The Economist, 37-49 million acres of farmland were the subject of deals or proposed deals involving foreigners, between 2006 and mid-2009 alone. The investments are spurred by concerns over food security and growing populations, as well as the expa
