The Dutch development bank FMO says its investments promote oil palm plantations in local communities. But the local communities are not welcoming these plantations. They want their land back.

A critical examination of the European Union's involvement in land grabbing

New book, “Palms of controversies: Oil palm and development challenges,” says the problems is not the oil palm but the way people have chosen to exploit it.

CIFOR scientist argues that failure to accept large-scale farmland investments as a new economic reality in Africa will hold back the development of effective institutional and regulatory frameworks.

The CEO of Emirates Investments Group calls for investment "in agricultural land abroad or leasing land to a professional who can manage it more efficiently with better practices."

The editors have involved a highly diverse group of expert researchers, who review the pro- and anti-investment arguments, geopolitics, the role of capitalist investors, the environmental contexts and the political implications of, and reasons for, leasing millions of hectares in sub-Saharan Africa.

Obama announces G8's New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition and reiterates support for the "process and pilot use of the Principles of Responsible Agricultural Investment"

One of the manifestations of the greed of Africa's domestic plutocrats and their imperial overlords is the massive land grab that we are witnessing today.

Foreign investors see Africa as a breadbasket. Done well, investment could help with African hunger but create food security for the rest of the world.

In the Philippines, a land lease hotspot like Cambodia or Laos, a series of high-profile deals has clashed with long-running demands for agrarian reform including land redistribution.

The terms of farmland deals are hardly made public. Although a theoretical possibility exists in a few cases for some transfer of technology for agricultural development, risk also exists to peasant farmers who cannot compete with well-resourced commercial farms. Take, for instance, the case of barley and oilseeds producers in Ethiopia.

With scarce arable land and water resources, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are expanding their agricultural diplomacy to improve food access and vying for agricultural cooperation with Africa

A new study identifies around 18m hectares of land in Cambodia, Colombia and the DRC that have been acquired in large-scale deals for logging, intensive agriculture, fossil-fuel extraction and mining.

Okomu Oil, one of the two commercial palm oil producers listed on the Nigeria's stock exchange, is reaping record profits from current rise in the price of palm oil.

While the governments chant the mantra of "leaving no one behind", it is ironic that they are abetting corporate grabbing of land and resources, which is pushing farmers out of agriculture.

Study finds that, compared with similar areas that have not seen private investment, areas with large-scale land acquisitions had higher forest loss in 52% of cases.

African countries are also welcoming big agricultural projects bankrolled by foreign investors whose goal is to send food abroad.

Former Nigerian president Obasanjo calls on African Union to develop a framework for managing foreign investment in agriculture, and says governments should consider a moratorium on large-scale land deals pending legislation to protect smallholder farmers.

Though farmland investing has been around for more than 20 years and Callan has covered the asset class for more than 12 years, it was only within the last 2 years that Shen saw an explosion in client interest.

MCC is playing a key role in commodifying Africa’s farmlands

On April 3, 89 civil society organizations signed a joint statement calling on the IFC and the EBRD to ensure remedy and accountability, for the severe and systemic violations at Indorama Agro cotton project, Uzbekistan. In 2019, a presidential decree allocating 50,000 hectares of land to Indorama Agro resulted in the arbitrary termination of thousands of farmers’ land leases without free, prior and informed consent.

The handful of companies that control industrial palm oil production in West and Central Africa have been linked to numerous social and environmental impacts, violating their buyers’ NDPE commitments.

Brazilian deforestation is most highly driven by land speculation, whereby land speculators deforest an area, possibly selling off the timber, then convert the land to pasture, and then again quickly sell the land to a soy producer at a much increased price.

Duncan Pruett reflects on the last 5 years at work advocating on the issues of land rights and foreign investments in agriculture.

The World Bank formally reiterates its concern over the large-scale corporate “land grabbing” that has affected vast swathes of Africa in recent years.

A land grab is taking place all across Africa, a transfer of control unprecedented in the post-colonial era.

Principles for responsible agriculture investment are stock templates, designed to deflect the fallout from a growing number of media reports of land deals between investors and governments.

With the emerging land investments a new set of challenges emerges for the woman farmer.

An investigation into a large-scale tree plantation project by Swiss Church Aid HEKS/EPER and four Sierra Leone NGOs reveals that numerous farming families who own the land have apparently not agreed to the project in the manner prescribed by law.

India’s growing embrace of industrial palm oil threatens the nation’s rich diversity of oilseed crops. What are the risks for farmers, public health and the environment?