Investing in agroecology requires a drastically different model than the agribusiness-led version many Governments are currently pursuing

This is the question addressed by researchers and activists at a recent IDRC Workshop on Large-scale Land Acquisitions (LSLAs) and Accountability in Africa, in Dakar, Senegal on 24-25 November 2015.

The fact that China does not now depend on Africa in any meaningful way for food does not mean this will continue to be the case.

If Africa remains a food deficit region, exporting significant quantities of food to China grown on Chinese-financed investment projects will raise serious questions.

Oil palm, billed as a way to improve local economic opportunity and reduce poverty in the tropics, may not live up to that billing, a recent report shows. On the front lines of oil palm expansion, the indigenous forest-dwelling Arfak people of West Papua Province, Indonesia believe they are not the beneficiaries of the palm’s promise.

Circle of Blue have put together an interactive map of land grabs by country and by sector.

Since the financial and food crises of 2008, the World Bank Group has incentivized and facilitated land grabs in several countries in Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia.

This brie?ng is meant to show the fundamental ?aws and short-comings of both the RAI initiative and of the RAI principles themselves, principle by principle.

There is too much at stake when governments give up land, water, and livestock to large-scale foreign investment. NGOs and funders have to listen and respond to the needs and accomplishments on the ground, and keep local food systems truly local.

The worldwide financial crisis has reportedly stalled several agricultural deals between Gulf countries and overseas partners, including two between Bahrain and Pakistan.

On 8 July 2009, almost a hundred development practitionners from all over the world convened in Utrecht to participate to the DPRN Expert Seminar “Commercial Pressures on Land: rethinking policies and practice for development”.

The strategy for Lombard Odier is to create nature-based investment assets by deploying capital into monoculture coffee plantations near forests and to re-forest them, creating shaded, biodiverse agroforests.

Forests in Cambodia have seen large-scale deforestation with rubber and cassava plantations, illegal logging and other economic interests, but despite the criminalisation, communities are fighting back

The most widely publicized threat to the Amazonian rainforest is deforestation. Less well understood is that public lands are being converted to private holdings in a land grab we’ve been studying for the past decade.

As more communities are refusing to allow the destruction and contamination of their land, water, soil and air, these struggles deserve to be counted.

China’s investment in foreign agriculture totaled $26 billion in 2016, with investments in 100 countries. But this may just be the tip of the iceberg. A new report by the United States Department of Agriculture to understand both the scale and purpose of foreign investment in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries.

Inclusive approach in concert with Mekong region partners forges unprecedented access to data and information on land

Are foreign investors really snatching up as much of Africa as they can? It’s not that simple, Foreign Policy reports.

The policies promoted by the New Alliance facilitate the grabbing of land and other natural resources, further marginalize small-scale producers, and undermine the right to adequate food and nutrition

The approach taken by Ethiopia and India to reaching development goals and fulfilling environmental promises by leasing or buying large tracts of fertile land affects land, water and indigenous people.

A delegation from the Ministry of Agriculture is preparing to visit Sudan later this year to examine the possibility of growing wheat on as many as 470,000 hectares of Sudanese land.

What should be done about land grabs, and who should do it, remains a topic of intense debate on the international stage.

"Africa will be more food insecure if these investments go to other parts of the world and Africa has to turn to those places to buy food," according to Dr Ousmane Badiane of IFPRI

Cientos de organizaciones de la sociedad civil, incluyendo movimientos de agricultores y ganaderos, grupos de mujeres y organizaciones no gubernamentales, harán un llamamiento internacional contra el acaparamiento de tierras en el marco de la reunión sobre agricultura del G20, celebrada en París el 22 y 23 de junio.

Des centaines d'organisations de la société civile notamment des mouvements paysans, des groupes de femmes et des organisations non-gouvernementales, lanceront un appel mondial contre l'accaparement des terres agricoles lors de la rencontre du G20 sur l'agriculture qui se tiendra à Paris les 22 et 23 juin.

Trying to compensate for the absence of legitimacy of these massive land deals by getting investors to adhere to a few principles is deceitful.

Amid much talk about the need for "codes of conduct" to help regulate this new phenomenon, I found myself wondering whether Cecil Rhodes would have signed such a code. He probably would, and have then gone on to completely disregard it.

A new report argues that the EU has become the world's largest net importer of agricultural produce, and therefore the largest user of agricultural land that is not its own.

Organisations call for a halt to IFC’s financing of industrial agriculture as it undermines the diversified, agroecological food systems that support food sovereignty

Pension fund giant TIAA is investing its clients’ funds in farmland and agribusinesses tied to environmental and human rights abuses in Latin America.