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Global Land Grab

Sobering, and alarming, are the words which comes to mind when reading this piece "Global Land Grab" from FPIF [Foreign Policy in Focus]:

"Close to a billion people in the world are hungry, and there is growing poverty, unemployment, and displacement in the rural sector. The world community is in widespread agreement about the urgency of more investment in agriculture. The food crisis, partly characterized by unstable markets and low reserves, has led governments to seek measures to meet their food security needs more directly than through global trade. Even though this year's harvest was good and there was some replenishment of global stocks, there's no certainty of what markets will look like next year.

Governments and corporations looking to outsource food and energy more directly themselves are promoting a new wave of land acquisitions, also known as "land grabs." Persian Gulf states are working out land deals in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. India has set up agricultural projects in Brazil. South Korea recently tried to buy up nearly half of the island of Madagascar.

"If food was ever a soft policy issue before," editorializes The Financial Times, "it now rivals oil as a basis of power and economic security." Control over the land that produces this power remains as critical today as it was in the past."

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