Access To Land

The global farmland grab in 2016: How big, how bad?

June 2016

GRAIN released in June its new report on global framland grab with the new 2016 dataset.

GRAIN "is a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems". In 2008, GRAIN released its first report on global farmland grab. Eight years after, the dataset evolved and we can start to see new trends appearing.

The 2016 dataset lists 491 landgrabs in 78 countries representing more than 30 million hectares. The number of land deals continue to increase but to a lesser extent than in 2012.

Farmland grab evolved as part of a large business strategy (carbon market benefits, access to mineral and water resources...). It is mainly carried out by agro-business industries and by the financial sector. However the geographical areas impacted by this phenomena are rather limited. Indeed, farmland grab now takes place in countries where agro-industries are already present and where the legal environment fosters foreign investment. Accordingly, the dataset shows a rise of landgrab in Africa, Eastern Europe and Pacific. In Europe, Romania and Ukraine are particularly affected.

Yet the resistance against these landgrab projects is rising.

Find below the complete reports in English and French and the complete dataset 2016.

For more informations, visit GRAIN website.

Download documents

  Report-EN   Report-FR   Dataset-EN   Dataset-FR

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