Buying Up The World's Farmland Is Resulting In A Backlash

"Madagascar's land is neither for sale nor for rent," said its new president

The Backlash Begins Against The World Landgrab -- The Telegraph

The neo-colonial rush for global farmland has gone exponential since the food scare of 2007-2008.

Last week's long-delayed report by the World Bank suggests that purchases in developing countries rose to 45m hectares in 2009, a ten-fold jump from levels of the last decade. Two thirds have been in Africa, where institutions offer weak defence.

As is by now well-known, sovereign wealth funds from the Mid-East, as well as state-entities from China, the Pacific Rim, and even India are trying to lock up chunks of the world's future food supply. Western agribusiness is trying to beat them to it. Western funds - many listed on London's AIM exchange - are in turn trying to beat them. The NGO GRAIN, and farmlandgrab.com, have both documented the stampede in detail.

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My Comment: The value of farmland will only increase with climate change, a growing population, and a shift towards western diets. Anyone who is in the agri-business knows this, hence this burst in the purchasing of cheap farmland in the Third World.