Global Land Grab Research Articles

What happened when the land grab came to Southeast Asia?

This introduction to the collection seeks to determine to what extent the specialist regional literature on agrarian and environmental transformations in Southeast Asia has responded to land grab studies, and how scholarship on Southeast Asia contributed to the broader field. We argue that at the centre of land grab studies is what Mara Goldman calls a ‘standardized package’ that we use to explore the ways that the field of land grab studies has been taken up in the Southeast Asian literature; the places and topics that receive the most attention and those that tend to be deemphasised and underrepresented; and efforts to critique and ‘decentre’ the global land grab and processes of land grabbing in the existing literature and in the contributions to this collection. We suggest that Southeast Asian scholars contributed to the dynamism of the field by pushing for greater nuance, context and historical specificity, and integration of longstanding academic theories and concerns. These efforts are part of the productive tension between opening up the range of topics and processes under study on the one hand, and maintaining unity and centring of the field on the other, that has been fundamental to land grab studies.

Transforming Adversary to Ally: Mobilizing Corporate Power for Land Rights

The past decade has witnessed a surge in land grabs, or the large-scale transfer of land to investors in violation of the local populations’ free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC). An estimated 15 million people have been displaced annually as a result, with the Global South bearing the brunt of the loss. The attendant human rights violations have been devastating. From starvation to loss of income, false imprisonment to extrajudicial killings, the far-reaching impacts of land grabs can wreak havoc on a population for generations to come. Transnational corporations (TNCs) are the primary culprits behind such grabs. Conventional wisdom dictates that they have a financial incentive to steal land, but recent developments in the world of “corporate social responsibility” have called this into question. Ironically, TNCs’ mounting influence over governments means they may be the only actors that can safeguard land rights for future generations, and in turn, roll back the tide of global land grabs. This article explores the prospects of transforming TNCs into land rights champions, and advocates for civil society organizations to target companies as allies in a field where they have so often aligned as adversaries.

A Contribution to a Better Understanding of Global Land Grabbing’s Impact on Employment and Environmental Threats

A Contribution to a Better Understanding of Global Land Grabbing’s Impact on Employment and Environmental Threats

Community forest concessionaires: resisting green grabs and producing political subjects in Guatemala

In 2005, Guatemalan community forest concessionaires achieved a remarkable legislative victory that reversed a green land grab in the Maya Biosphere. The fight over this space, the Mirador Basin, provides valuable contributions to analyses of global land grabs, grassroots politics and power relations underpinning environmental governance. First, the fight for the Mirador Basin illustrates how green land grabs create new natures, rather than simply enclosing existing green spaces. Second, it contributes to recent scholarship detailing land-grabbing practices of resistance, acquiescence and incorporation ‘from below’ by describing how Maya Biosphere community forest concessionaires were able to reverse a green grab. Lastly, I argue this successful reversal largely rests on the articulation and mobilization of a new rights-bearing subject – the forest concessionaire. Struggles for land in the Maya Biosphere illustrate that practices and relations of green governance do not always create disciplined, neo-liberal, green subjects. Rather, community forestry has provided a political platform turning reserve residents into influential actors participating in the re-territorialization of power in contemporary Guatemala.

Agricultural Investment in Ethiopia: Undermining National Sovereignty or Tool for State Building?

ABSTRACTThe media discourse on recent agricultural investments — frequently referred to as the ‘global land grab’ — has been quick to label these deals as ‘neo‐colonial’, implying that these kinds of investments undermine national sovereignty. For the most part, the emerging academic literature on the ‘land grab’ has not critically examined this assumption. This article draws on the literature on state building and agrarian relations in Africa to construct a framework that can be used to analyse the impact of agricultural investment on state–society relations and state sovereignty. The article then uses this framework to examine the case of Ethiopia, illustrating how the Ethiopian state has directed investors to peripheral lowlands and, in doing so, has enhanced, rather than diminished, state sovereignty. As such, while the erosion of sovereignty is certainly one possible outcome of agricultural investment, it is by no means the only one, and is an assumption that should be subjected to critical analysis.

The impact of agricultural investments on state capacity: A comparative analysis of Ethiopia and Ghana

The first wave of research on the ‘global land grab’ largely focused on the international drivers of investment and impacts of individual projects in host countries. More recent studies have acknowledged the important roles played by both host states and societal organisations in these deals. However, there has been little attempt to analyse how processes of agricultural investments also transform the state itself. The present paper builds on theories regarding the social roots of state power and the literature on the links between land and authority, to construct a framework that can be used to explore these linkages. The central argument of the paper is that in situations of overlapping authority between state and societal organisations—which is common in Africa—increased agricultural investment requires infrastructure development and can provoke changes in power relations between state and society that have important implications for state capacity. We illustrate this by examining the recent investment trends in two countries that have figured prominently in the ‘land grab’ literature but where land tenure regimes and state–society relations take markedly different forms—Ethiopia, where a ‘strong’ state has actively promoted agricultural investments as part of a developmental and state-building project that has enhanced its territorial control; and Ghana where chiefs have taken advantage of increased demand from investors in an attempt to (re-)assert their authority over land vis-à-vis the state and other societal organisations.

Conference Report: Land Grabbing, Conflict, and Agrarian-Environmental Transformations: Perspectives From East and Southeast Asia, 5-6 June 2015, Chiang Mai University

It was an extraordinarily emotional moment for an academic conference when the Cambodian human rights activist Hong Chinda1 informed the audience that her family had just been evicted from their land once again by the Cambodian authorities. This time, the incident happened during her absence, while she was attending the conference on Grabbing, Conflict and Agrarian-Environmental Transformations: Perspectives From East and Southeast Asia2 and only shortly before she addressed the 240 international participants of the conference in her speech. Hong Chinda's case is just one of the countless examples of conflict over land in the Southeast Asian region. Her testimony is a reminder of the importance of this conference, which was a follow-up to the related international academic conferences organized by the Land Deal Politics Initiative (LDPI) at University of Sussex (UK) in 2011 and at Cornell University (USA) in 2012. Established in 2010, the LDPI is a network of academic research institutions and individuals that aims to provide in-depth and systematic enquiry into the global land grab in order to have deeper, meaningful and productive debates around causes and implications (LDPI, n.d.).Academic interest in what is now globally known as land grab followed the sudden increase in large-scale, cross border land acquisitions in the Global South that began around 2007 (Hall, 2013, p. 95). A briefing of the international nongovernmental organization GRAIN, titled SEIZED! The 2008 Land Grab for Food and Financial Security, was reportedly one of the first publications highlighting the issue (GRAIN, 2008). While acknowledging that land grab is nothing new and has been ongoing for centuries (most noticeably since the colonial period), GRAIN claimed that the world food crisis and the bigger financial crisis triggered a new boom in investment in land for both outsourced food production and as a new source for profit (GRAIN, 2008). If the conference in Chiang Mai was to draw one single conclusion, it was that the problems over land are rapidly increasing rather than decreasing, offering a rather gloomy outlook.The report from GRAIN already identified China as one major global player involved in land grabbing. China had been outsourcing part of its food production well before the global financial crisis in 2008 as part of its general go abroad strategy (GRAIN, 2008). Unsurprisingly, China's influence also featured prominently at the conference in Chiang Mai where numerous case studies related to China's investment in mainland Southeast Asia were presented3. Prominent examples included country cases such as the Lao PDR and Cambodia where Chinese companies control a major share of agricultural land. Fewer studies were presented on Vietnam and Myanmar, with the latter representing one of the latest investment frontiers for foreign capital (again with China as top investor) - a topic that remains narrowly researched. Remarkable was the lack of contributions on Thailand, reflecting the criticism expressed by Thai activist Prue Odochao during his speech at the conference. He criticized that few Thai academics are committed to helping the thousands of rural communities in Thailand still under threat of eviction from land declared as forest area. This situation, according to Odochao, has not improved since the current military government took over power in a coup in May 2014. To remind the audience of the very dangerous life still faced by activists in Thailand, Prue Odochao reported the case of his friend, Pholachi Rakchongcharoen (also known as Billy) - a Karen human rights activist who went missing in April 2014 after trying to defend his community against Thai National Park authorities (Amnesty International, 2014).With over 80 papers presented at the 24 parallel panels, the conference covered a broad range of issues. Even so, the panels managed to stay focused and concise, providing much room for discussion due to strict time management. …

Between two hypes: Will “big data” help unravel blind spots in understanding the “global land rush?”

The past several years have seen a huge number of publications, conferences and campaigns on “land grabbing” or large-scale acquisition of land, most often in Africa. Land-grabbing became a fiercely debated issue and the attention rapidly evolved into a real hype which has generated a wealth of knowledge. This global land grab awareness has coincided in time with the “big data” discussion which is one of the most hyped terms today in both academia and business, suggesting that the availability of datasets of increasing volume, velocity and variety can help to better understand reality.This article aims to critically review to what extent the availability of huge amounts of information about the land grab debate, including new sources of big data, has helped to untangle land grabbing and – more particularly – raising new questions and formulating new hypotheses that have been overlooked in the past. What is the value of digital methods and data driven research through online platforms for identifying knowledge gaps and proposing solutions? Our article shows the value of big data in uncovering new realities but also challenges to not become overwhelmed – while making more efforts than ever to look at the quality – and reliability – of information. Keep doing empirical research – and keep our feet on the ground while also learning from “virtual space” – is a sine qua non – for keeping track and making sensible interpretations. In many cases, however, there is a discrepancy between what is reported (big data) and what is important.

Introduction to symposium on labor, gender and new sources of agrarian change

How are labor processes reconfigured by contemporary patterns of agrarian change? Recent scholarship problematizes classical understandings of ‘‘agrarian transition,’’ going beyond the question of how capitalism transforms peasant-production systems to encompass broader sources of social and economic change in rural areas (Kelly 2011). Recent events such as the surge in global land grabbing, the expansion of bio-fuel production, the introduction of new agricultural biotechnologies, as well as anthropogenic climate change have created new and unanticipated implications for labor processes, prompting scholars to recognize multiple forms of agrarian change that are not solely reducible to capitalist commodification. In this context, agrarian political economy has largely abandoned linear narratives of social change in favor of more contingent, empirical assessment of labor dynamics (Bernstein 2010; Oya and Pontara 2015). Recent work focuses on how land grabbing and other forms of agrarian crisis compel rural populations into increasingly diverse— and precarious—livelihood strategies, often combining small-scale farming, wage employment and informal entrepreneurship in new ways (Kay 2008; Li 2011; Du Toit and Neves 2014). Many scholars examine how changing markets and processes of certification in the global agrofood system alter forms of labor control and resistance on large-scale farms or plantations (Selwyn 2012; Gibbon et al. 2014; Besky 2014). A related body of literature addresses how recent forms of agrarian change impact labor practices on small-scale farms, including studies of contract farming (Baglioni 2015), redistributive land reform (Chambati 2011) and the adoption of new agricultural practices, policies or technologies (Stone 2007; Sitko 2008; Jakimow 2014). Despite the breadth of recent scholarship on labor and agriculture, prominent sources of rural transformation and their implications for labor remain under examined. These include the dissemination of genetically modified staple crops, the use of information communication technologies, and the development of informal land markets. This symposium addresses this gap by examining how rural labor practices shift in response to the introduction of agricultural biotechnology, the spread of cell phones, and a decline of sharecropping in favor of commercial contracts among smallholders. The articles included here uncover how these technologies and practices can accelerate patterns of social differentiation, threaten ecological sustainability, and intensify struggles over labor and decisionmaking within households. In so doing, they challenge the & Lincoln Addison laddison@mun.ca

LGAR - Land grabs and agrarian reform

One of the key responses to the global food crisis that hit the headlines in 2008 was a significant change in land ownership in many countries as a result of large-scale land acquisitions carried out by governments, investors, and corporations. This global land grab, or what some refer to as agricultural investment, is leading to fundamental shifts in agricultural production, land use, and labour relations. Peasant and farm organizations, rural communities, and social movements in the global North and global South are actively resisting these forces, structures, and processes of further accumulation by dispossession.

LGAR - SYNTHESIS - Land grabbing: New actors in a longstanding process

Land is a complex component of the global food system. There is no one definitive function of land; we can stand on it, build on it, grow food on it, extract from it, divide it, and identify with it. Not surprisingly, rising investment in farmland in the wake of the 2007–08 food crisis—popularly referred to as the global “land grab”—has been a contentious issue in the global politics of food and agriculture. There has been no shortage of exchange between scholars, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and civil society on the issue. The preceding papers in this section by Akram-Lodhi, Brent, and Wolford covered, among other things, three distinct issues within the ongoing discussion of global land grabs: dispossession, the agrarian question(s), and access to and control over resources. They also discussed some possible paths forward.

FS - Repeasantization, agroecology and the tactics of food sovereignty

From the dawn of the 21stcentury, we have seen and experienced at the global and local levels several severe world food crises, the advancement of global land grabbing and land speculation phenomena, the further entrenchment of the agribusiness model of agriculture and land/resource management, the repression and criminalization of peasant social movements, an increased forced migration of rural peoples, and the intensification of the global climate crisis. At the same time, food sovereignty, as a transformative methodology, political project, and social vision introduced by the peasant social movement La Vía Campesina, has become the banner of struggle for social movements, civil society organizations, and grassroots groups the world over.

Knowing the subterranean: Land grabbing, oil palm, and divergent expertise in Indonesia’s peat soil

So-called global land grabbing is not only a response to socio-ecological shifts but can also generate substantial subterranean and atmospheric biogeochemical changes. As land acquisitions for agricultural development play out in Indonesia, the country’s peatlands have been a key to rapid and expansive oil palm development. Oil palm production in tropical peatlands, however, requires soil drainage through hydrological engineering, which stimulates carbon dioxide emissions. Research on the quantities and mechanisms of those carbon emissions has been central to generating scientific consensus stipulating peatland conservation and rehabilitation, rather than agricultural development. Yet, alternate scientific knowledge networks have generated what I call divergent expertise, which supports a peatland management strategy of continued development despite ecological risk. This divergent expertise raises questions of how land is made suitable for large-scale acquisition and investment for agricultural development, and how to manage the biogeochemical crises that can ensue when land is incorporated into land grab regimes.

From Pangaea to Partnership

Over the past decade, the rise of what has been called the Global Land Grab suggests the return of rural development as a privileged (if problematic) site for accumulation, modernization, and growth. In this paper, I analyze a set of rural development efforts in Mozambique, a country seen by many as the potential heart of a new African food regime. I build a framework for understanding contemporary dynamics by drawing on the triple metaphor of fields: first, I build on the sociological concept of field as strategic social space; second, I bring together disparate disciplinary fields, including political economy, development, science and technology studies, and agrarian studies; and third, I situate the paper on fields as cultivated ground, the literal arena in and on which rural development takes place. The paper is narrated through four stories that illuminate the relationships and dynamics within and across different “strategic action fields.” These stories highlight the role of knowledge and power within distinct but related fields of rural development and suggest the importance of seeing them as in contestation even when they are not necessarily in conversation.

From Pangaea to Partnership

Over the past decade, the rise of what has been called the Global Land Grab suggests the return of rural development as a privileged (if problematic) site for accumulation, modernization, and growth. In this paper, I analyze a set of rural development efforts in Mozambique, a country seen by many as the potential heart of a new African food regime. I build a framework for understanding contemporary dynamics by drawing on the triple metaphor of fields: first, I build on the sociological concept of field as strategic social space; second, I bring together disparate disciplinary fields, including political economy, development, science and technology studies, and agrarian studies; and third, I situate the paper on fields as cultivated ground, the literal arena in and on which rural development takes place. The paper is narrated through four stories that illuminate the relationships and dynamics within and across different “strategic action fields.” These stories highlight the role of knowledge and power within distinct but related arenas of rural development and suggest the importance of seeing fields as in contestation even when they are not necessarily in conversation.

Resistance, acquiescence or incorporation? An introduction to land grabbing and political reactions ‘from below’

Political reactions ‘from below’ to global land grabbing have been vastly more varied and complex than is usually assumed. This essay introduces a collection of ground-breaking studies that discuss responses that range from various types of organized and everyday resistance to demands for incorporation or for better terms of incorporation into land deals. Initiatives ‘from below’ in response to land deals have involved local and transnational alliances and the use of legal and extra-legal methods, and have brought victories and defeats. The relevance of political reactions to land grabbing is discussed in light of theories of social movements and critical agrarian studies. Future research on reactions ‘from below’ to land grabbing must include greater attention to gender and generational differences in both impacts and political agency.

‘Pinstripes on the prairies’: examining the financialization of farming systems in the Canadian prairie provinces

Drawing on recent scholarship on the financialization of agro-food systems and the global land grab, this paper examines new forms of financial investment in agriculture in the Canadian prairie provinces. We examine the factors underpinning investor involvement in the sector, including its anticipated financial performance as well as processes of agricultural restructuring that, combined with government actions to liberalize farmland ownership, have facilitated the enrollment of land and labour into new financial vehicles. We focus in particular on the emergence of two new forms of investment vehicles – farmland investment funds and an exchange-traded farming corporation – comparing the business model and investment strategy of each. In doing so, we highlight the ways in which the new investment patterns may propel the restructuring of the agricultural sector, alter power relations among key actors, and introduce new logics into the farming landscape. Our findings allow us to comment on the relevance of the land grabbing frame for making sense of the financialization of agriculture in the global North.

The Role of Sukuk Financing for Sustainable Development of Smallholder Farmers

The greatest advance made by mankind was probably the agricultural revolution that has been developed into agricultural development along with population growth in the forms of agricultural expansion and agricultural intensification. The global land grab driven by the acquisition of land has caused radical changes in the use and ownership of land and has important implications for equitable and sustainable development in which local people have been moved to marginal locations. To ensure that the agricultural activities are sustained, a balance of three concepts of people, planet, and profit (3P) are critical to achieve long term social, environmental, and economic issues. One of recently popular instruments to fairly treat the people is an equity based Sukuk in which profit will be shared based on pre-agreed ratio between the investors and the people involved. In term of conservation of planet, strategy in selecting the agricultural commodities and the timing of harvesting are critical. An investment decision-making process by using agricultural appraisal process is established to ensure that the agricultural activities are financially profitable.

Rural geography III

Expectations and contradictions in the rural, played out through small-scale farming, the pervasive nature of globalization, discourses of food security, new productivism and escalation in global land grabs have been shown in previous reports to impact greatly on sustainable rural futures. The analysis continues here by exploring another often contradictory pathway, that of sustainable intensification. The bioeconomy and its nascent popularity in rural policy discourse is discussed before questions are posed about the ‘logic’ of sustainable intensification, its increasingly dominant positioning as a guiding principle, and its conceivable use as a rural policy instrument.

The Global Land Grab Meta-Narrative, Asian Money Laundering and Elite Capture: Reconsidering the Cambodian Context

The dramatic expansion of large-scale economic land concessions and acquisitions in the Global South has generated considerable concern amongst activists, journalists and academics recently. This has led to the increased prevalence of the term ‘global land grabbing’, which I argue represents a particular type of meta-narrative. In this article the global land grab meta-narrative is considered in relation to recent land alienation of Indigenous Peoples in the northeastern Cambodia province of Ratanakiri. While land grabbing is certainly a crucial problem, it is insufficient to explain the circumstances in Ratanakiri or in Cambodia more generally as ‘global land grabbing’. While foreign capital is associated with land grabbing in Cambodia, there are various other factors that also require consideration. Specifically, the role of Asian money laundering and elite capture requires increased attention. This article contributes to better understanding the particular ways that land dispossession plays out in particular places and contexts.