Abstract
The worldwide increase in population and consumption has produced a growing demand for food and energy in the rich and developing Countries. The resulting intensification of land investments, to cope with this need, has in many cases produced investments without transparency rules and it hasn’t created real development for local people. The aim of this paper is to identify, through a cluster analysis, homogeneous groups of investor Countries in order to understand the role of the EU Member States in the context of land grabbing. The results show that the strategies adopted by the investors are driven by the need to achieve energy security and reduce CO2 emissions in order to cope with the problems of food security and to adopt the proposals and the objectives of the European Union Policy for Sustainability. In particular, the acquisitions of EU Member States are driven by the need to provide enough food for the exponential growth of the population and to reduce the energy deficit in view of the achievement of the objectives set out in the “Europe 2020”.
Highlights
The land grabbing phenomenon has prompted a lively and wide-ranging scientific debate about its alarming spread and the implications for economic, political, ethical, and social issues
Every action and commitment made by the European Union (EU) in policies to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the fight against climate change and in food and energy policies have a common denominator: soil resources (European Commission 2008, 2010a, b; United Nations 1992a, b, 1998)
Scheidel and Sorman (2012), the energy security threats are the drivers to acquire land for the expansion of energy systems, especially in the presence of low availability of arable land. This result helps to explain the common behaviour of many investors of the EU Member States area, which are almost entirely characterised by energy deficits and have committed to achieve the European objectives of utilizing at least the 20 % of renewable energy before 2020
Summary
The land grabbing phenomenon has prompted a lively and wide-ranging scientific debate about its alarming spread and the implications for economic, political, ethical, and social issues. The land grabbing covers several European Union (EU) Member States, as investors and, more recently, as recipients. Regarding EU investor Countries, the relationship between land grabbing and European policies for agriculture and environment is very close. Every action and commitment made by the EU in policies to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the fight against climate change and in food and energy policies have a common denominator: soil resources (European Commission 2008, 2010a, b; United Nations 1992a, b, 1998). The achievement of international goals for decarbonisation has pushed for the use of renewable energy and biofuels but the Carroccio et al Agricultural and Food Economics (2016) 4:12 context has created a lively discussion on the intended use of the land. Biofuels are among the stronger competitors in the usage of arable areas for foods (European Commission 2006, 2010a, b; FAO 2013)
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