‘Large swathes of land being swallowed up each year’ - 65m ha of farmland in Europe bought up in land grabs and ‘green deals’

Land ownership in Europe is being transferred from farmers to large financial actors through waves of ‘land grabs’, according to a new study.

The study finds that agribusinesses, investors and foreign governments are finding new ways, including ‘green grabs’, to appropriate farmland for their own use amid a newly revived push to ‘feed the world’ hot on the heels of Covid and the war in Ukraine has sparked a renewed push to secure land.

“Large swathes of land are being swallowed up each year,” the study released by global think tank International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES Food) found. It said the 65m ha of land have been bought through transnational deals: “Land around twice the size of Germany has been snatched up in deals worldwide since 2000, with 87pc of land grabs occurring in regions of high biodiversity.”

A 2020 study by the International Land Coalition study found that 1pc of the world’s largest farms now operate 70pc off the world’s farmland. The concentration of farmland is particularly severe in Europe, North America, Europe, and Latin America. While land prices doubled worldwide, since 2008, they tripled in Central-Eastern Europe.

In the UK, an influx of investment from pension funds and private wealth contributed to a doubling of farmland prices between 2010 to 2015. IPES Food finds that US investors have doubled their stakes in farmland since the pandemic with agricultural investment funds rising ten-fold from 2005 to 2018.

“The integration of smallholders into corporate value chains is allowing agri-food companies to gain effective control over farmland and impose production choices and conditions – often locking farmers into unsustainable land use and precarious livelihoods.”

Around 45pc of all farmland investments in 2018, worth $15 billion, came from pension funds and insurance companies. From 2005 to 2017, pension, insurance and endowment funds invested $45 billion in farmland.

The study also found that ‘green grabs’ now account for 20 pc of large-scale land deals: “Political attention is finally being paid to critical environmental challenges. However, some of the solutions being advanced in the name of tackling the climate are generating enhanced competition for land, and thus additional threats to the most affected groups.”

“Governments and large corporations are appropriating huge swathes of land through conservation schemes that exclude local land users and small-scale food producers, including carbon and biodiversity offsets, ‘biodiversity net gain’ initiatives, rewilding schemes, and large-scale tree planting schemes.”

IPES Food found that governments' pledges for land-based carbon removals alone add up to almost 1.2 billion ha, equivalent to total global cropland. Carbon offset markets are expected to quadruple in the next 7 years.

“Carbon and biodiversity offset markets are facilitating huge land transactions and bringing farmland and forests under the control of major polluters. By 2023, carbon offset markets were already valued at $414 billion globally. Fossil fuel giant Shell has set aside more than $450m for offsetting projects,” found the study.

They also found that 32m ha of land have been bought by Blue Carbon, a UAE-based firm through agreements with the governments of Kenya, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Zambia, Liberia and Papua New Guinea.

A panel of experts who worked on the report warn, “As demand for land continues unchecked, the ‘land squeeze’ is inflaming land inequality and making small and medium scale food production increasingly unviable – leading to farmer revolts, rural exodus, rural poverty and food insecurity. Farmers and Indigenous peoples are losing their land while young farmers face significant barriers in accessing land to farm.”

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