La burbuja de la tierra fértil

Today’s food and financial crises have, in tandem, triggered a new global land grab. On the one hand, “food insecure” governments that rely on imports to feed their people are snatching up vast areas of farmland abroad for their own offshore food production. On the other hand, food corporations and private investors, hungry for profits in the midst of the deepening financial crisis, see investment in foreign farmland as an important new source of revenue. As a result, fertile agricultural land is becoming increasingly privatised and concentrated. If left unchecked, this global land grab could spell the end of small-scale farming, and rural livelihoods, in numerous places around the world.

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Fresh magnet for private investors

While governments may have food security agendas, the private sector has a very different one: making money. The food crisis coupled with the broader financial crisis has turned control over land into an important new magnet for private investors. We’re not talking about typical tras*national agribusiness operations, where Cargill might invest in a soya bean crushing plant in Mato Grosso in Brazil. We’re talking about a new interest in acquiring control over farmland itself. There are two main players here: the food industry and, much more significantly, the finance industry.

“The single best recession hedge of the next 10 or 15 years is an investment in farmland” – Reza Vishkai, head of alternatives at Insight Investment, July 200813

Within food industry circles, Japanese and Arab trading and processing corporations are perhaps the ones most involved in overseas farm acquisitions rights now. For the Japanese firms, this strategy is being woven into their organic growth (see Box 2). As for the Middle Eastern firms, they are riding on the wave of their governments going out and opening doors in the name of the food security paradigm.

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