Land Grabs

It's not necessarily a problem when wealthy companies invest in agricultural land in poor countries for commercial use. But when families are kicked off the land or less food is grown as a result, that's a very big problem indeed. Recent data indicates that at least 80 million hectares of land deals have been identified since 2001 – an area 20 times the size of the Netherlands.

And since the food price spikes of 2008, that's been happening more and more.

Demand for land has soared as investors look for places to grow food for export, grow crops for biofuels, or simply buy-up land for profit.

But in many cases, land sold as 'unused' or 'undeveloped' is actually being used by poor families to grow food. These families are often forcibly kicked off the land. Promises of compensation are broken. Often people are violently evicted by hired thugs.

Land is going for as little as 2.5 cents per hectare in South Sudan.

It's time to grow out of land grabs.

The way to grow

Getting to grips with land grabs is possible. But for it to happen, effective global action is necessary.

Governments need to provide secure access to land for smallholder farmers, and especially for women – who often do most of the work on the land, but face the biggest battle to call it their own.

Biofuels strategies need to be given serious thought, because any plan that takes crops off people's plates and puts them into people's car tanks obviously isn't working.

And investments need to be made with marginalized communities – as opposed to only profit margins – in mind.

For our world to grow together, we need to get land grabs under control.

What you can do to help

Help stop land grabs: Join Oxfam's campaign to fix the food system and and GROW justice.

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Latest land grabs update

Good news – at the end of December 2011, an independent process was announced to resolve complaints from communities in Uganda, where people claim they were kicked off their land as a result of a land grab.

Thousands of GROW campaigners have been pushing since October for  justice on this issue, which involves the UK-based New Forests Company (NFC) - and this is an important first step in making sure people’s voices are heard. Oxfam welcomes NFC’s agreement to participate. Their sustained engagement will be crucial for the process to work.