Land grabs by foreign companies in poor parts of Africa and Asia could feed an extra 100 million people if the land is used to grow crops. But the gain will be minimal if the grabbers export the produce to countries that are already well fed.
Massive areas of land in poor countries have been bought up by powerful companies over the last decade. The aim is to use it for farming, but these land grabs have displaced and harmed many local people, so several charities and non-governmental organisations are campaigning against this.
of the Polytechnic University of Milan in Italy and of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, looked at a global database of 31 million hectares of land deals concluded since 2000. The largest targets for land-grabbers were Sudan, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.
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They calculated the likely crop yields using modern farming techniques on that land and found that land-grabbers could could produce enough food for 300 million to 550 million people. Traditional local methods could only feed between 190 million and 370 million people
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That sounds great, but it is unlikely that such high yields will be achieved. 鈥淢uch of the acquired land has not been put under production,鈥� the authors say. Moreover, as much as half of land acquisitions are not to grow food at all. 鈥淚n Malaysia, Zimbabwe and Gabon, biofuel crops were the only major cultivations.鈥�
Regardless, if growing food is the aim, then the big question is who gets it: hungry locals or rich foreigners. 鈥淲hether land grabs can be considered a good or bad thing will depend in part on whether the crops will be exported from the target countries,鈥� says Rulli. 鈥淥ften, there are no effective policies in place that can prevent investors from selling the crops to high price markets.鈥� That means local people don鈥檛 have any extra food.
鈥淚t is abhorrent to suggest land-grabbers could feed the world when their acquisitions undermine local food security,鈥� says of Oxfam, which has campaigned against land grabs.
Others say that land-grabbing takes control away from local people. 鈥淭he self-determination of people in these countries, to choose the kind of societies in which they want to live, is undermined by land-grabbing,鈥� says Michael Taylor of the , a network of NGOs and others that hosts the database the researchers used.
鈥淪mallholders still feed most of the world,鈥� says Taylor. He says that, rather than encouraging the takeover of their land, 鈥渞esearchers should help them overcome the challenges that prevent them from doing it better鈥�.
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