World Bank

Foreign purchases of agricultural land from Mozambique to Cambodia pose “significant risks” to the livelihoods of farmers in countries with “weak land governance,” the World Bank said in a report.

Around 45 million hectares of farmland deals were announced by the end of 2009, according to the Bank, with many of them providing little, if any, compensation to rural communities for the loss of land rights

The World Bank has backed the controversial practice of countries selling large tracts of agricultural land to overseas investors but is urging vendors to demand much more to increase their farming productivity and peoples’ livelihoods.

A new World Bank report says volatility in food prices has been a key factor behind a rising tide of large scale farmland purchases in the developing world, which can pose social and environment risks, if not well managed.

The World Bank report on land grabbing, entitled 'Rising Global Interest in Farmland – Can it yield sustainable and equitable benefits?', will finally be released on 8 September 2010.

African governments need to raise their level of accountability and ensure that they improve and protect their own food security through quid pro quo side-agreements negotiated when they lease or sell their arable land to foreign interests, says Keith Mullin of Thompson Reuters

La polémique autour de l'accaparement de terres, en particulier en Afrique, est relancée par une étude de la Banque mondiale qui tarde à être publiée alors que le cours du blé repart à la hausse

States and mega-corporations are snapping up cheap land to produce food and making money at the expense of people in host countries.

L’ennui, reconnaît la Banque mondiale, c’est que ces investissements, loin d’être une aubaine pour le continent noir, finissent par nuire à des populations déjà pauvres et à des économies précaires.

To speak only of the ‘threats and potential opportunities’ that these investments highlight leaves underexposed the grave risks to human rights that they pose, writes Dr. Margot Salomon, from the London School of Economics

"Investors are targeting countries with weak laws, buying arable land on the cheap, and failing to deliver on promises of jobs and investments," says a leaked draft of the World Bank report

The way to make it possible for third parties to benefit materially in exchange for a signature is to eliminate the profit motive.