Global demand for arable land is rising, making Africa a key target for large-scale acquisitions to tackle food and energy challenges.

The investment arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has bought a fourth major Aussie cropping aggregation.

Rusting pipes in a barren field and unpaid workers are what remain after a U.S. company promised to turn a huge piece of land in Senegal — about twice the size of Paris — into an agricultural project and create thousands of jobs.

On March 25, 2025, the people living in Apouh A Ngog village in the Litoral Region of Cameroon witnessed a brutal and traumatising act of intimidation : heavily armed government forces, including heavily armed soldiers and gendarmes arriving to supervise the replanting of oil palms by staff of SOCAPALM, part of the multinational corporation Socfin Bolloré.

Le 25 mars 2025, les habitants du village Apouh À Ngog, dans la région du Littoral au Cameroun, ont été témoin d'un acte brutal et traumatisant: des forces gouvernementales composées de militaires, de gendarmes lourdement armées ont investi le village pour encadrer le replanting du palmier à huile par le personnel de la SOCAPALM, partie de la multinational Socfin Bolloré.

El periodista Jack Thompson investiga el caso del fallido proyecto agrícola de African Agriculture en Niéti Yone, Senegal, una historia que comienza con ambición, promesas de empleo y desarrollo... y acaba con deudas, tierras improductivas y una comunidad fracturada.

Part asset manager, part farmland operator, The Land Group acquires property and manages it with a variety of regenerative practices for institutional, family office, and fund investors. The firm currently has 40,000 hectares under operation in Uruguay and Paraguay.

New Agriculture manages the Lawson Grains portfolio on behalf of its investor, Canadian pension fund Alberta Investment Management Corporation, or AIMCo.

Perhaps no country has been affected by Harvard’s land grabs more than Brazil, home to nearly half of the University’s farmland acquisitions.

The Utah-based Mormon Church has added a large-scale dryland cropping operation in the renowned Golden Triangle region of northern New South Wales to its growing Australian agricultural portfolio.

Members of the Louis-Dreyfus family behind the eponymous global grain firm have sold their share of Russian agricultural firm RZ Agro, which farms on an area of over 100,000 ha in southern Russia, to co-owner Steppe Agroholding

Bolloré détient une partie du groupe agroindustriel Socfin, qui produit de l'huile de palme et du caoutchouc en Afrique et en Asie. Si le groupe est connu pour s'accaparer les terres, les violences sexuelles et sexistes qui en découlent le sont beaucoup moins. Enquête de Lola Keraron pour la Revue Silence au Cameroun.

Since 2021, Socapalm – majority-owned by Socfinaf, a Luxembourg holding itself part owned by the Bolloré Group – has been replanting palms to rejuvenate its plantation at Edéa, in Cameroon, creating tremendous difficulty for neighbouring villagers.

Depuis 2021, la Socapalm – qui est détenue majoritairement par la Socfinaf, une holding luxembourgeoise détenue en partie par le groupe Bolloré – replante des palmiers pour rajeunir sa plantation à Edéa, au Cameroun, créant d'énormes difficultés pour les communautés riveraines.

A fines de 2024, la Coalición Internacional para el Acceso a la Tierra (ILC) difundió ampliamente un nuevo informe. Afirma que los datos proporcionados por los aliados de ILC, además de fortalecer los sistemas de derechos sobre la tierra, pueden convertir el actual acaparamiento masivo de tierras para proyectos de compensación de carbono en una situación en la que todo el mundo gane. Esto es tan falso como absurdo.

As 2024 drew to a close, the International Land Coalition widely circulated a new report. The report argues that data supplied by ILC partners, combined with improved land rights, can turn today's massive land grab for carbon offset projects into a win-win situation. This is delusional and wrong.

Alors que l’année 2024 touchait à sa fin, la Coalition internationale pour l’accès à la terre (ILC), a largement diffusé un nouveau rapport. Ce document affirme que les données fournies par les partenaires de l'ILC, combinées à l'amélioration des droits fonciers, montrent qu’il est possible de transformer l'accaparement massif des terres lié aux projets de compensation carbone en situation gagnant-gagnant. Cette affirmation est illusoire et fausse.

Big farming projects in North Africa’s deserts are presented as a response to food insecurity. But aquifers will be depleted and costs will be high. While small farmers are pushed out, there's no guarantee that production will be for local people.

"Whether it is a farmer or an investor, they are now viewing land as an asset class to get rich off of speculation, not the productive capability of that land."

A new report on land grabbing exposes the vulnerability of farmers and citizens to arbitrary abuse of the law when developers and the state lay claim to their farms and homes for commercial gain.

Les élites nationales et les investisseurs étrangers en Afrique seront protégés par la ZLECAF. Mais ce ne sera pas le cas des communautés locales et leurs droits sur les #erres agricoles. Au nom du climat, la ZLECAF va renforcer le développement des marchés fonciers pour le carbone en Afrique.

National elites and foreign investors in Africa will be protected by the AfCFTA. But the same cannot be said for local communities and their rights over agricultural land. In the name of climate, the AfCFTA will boost the development of land deals for carbon in Africa.

Tajikistan leased around 18,000 hectares of its land to China for cotton, rice, grain, and corn cultivation for a 49-year contract. The agreement was part of a broader initiative to strengthen economic ties between the two countries.

Irrigation projects include a US$172mn, 23,000ha project with US-based Valley Irrigation , a €75mn, 13,000 ha project with Spain's Grupo Charmatin, and a US$100mn, 20,000 ha project with US-based Lindsay Zimmatic.

Institutional investors are driving movement in Australia's poultry farm property market, underscoring sustained demand for agricultural assets that offer steady, passive income.

Saudi Agricultural & Livestock Investment Co., controlled by the country’s sovereign wealth fund, is in advanced talks on a transaction that would value Olam Agri Holdings at about $4 billion.

A new agricultural hub is expected to be embodied in an Algerian-Saudi partnership in strategic agriculture and dairy cattle on an area exceeding 20,000 hectares in the wilaya of El Menea (Southern Algeria).

US court orders the IFC to pay nearly $5 million in reparations to members of Honduran land defense movements who faced violence at the hands of security forces linked to a Central American palm oil corporation that received a $30 mn World Bank loan in 2009.

Il est désormais clair qu’African Agriculture ne tiendra pas ses promesses de « développement » de la région. Sur son lit de mort, l’entreprise doit restituer ses terres aux communautés du Sénégal, du Niger et de Mauritanie.

The downfall of US-based firm African Agriculture is being closely watched by Senegalese communities who have struggled for years for the return of their lands.