What rural dwellers in the Global South experience as land grabbing, tends to be seen in the Global North as ‘agricultural investment’. The World Bank has been at the forefront of a drive to legitimate these investments, convening to win support for a code of conduct based on Responsible Agricultural Investment (RAI) principles. Many key civil society groups reject the proposal for a code of conduct, objecting to the top-down process by which it was formulated and arguing that it was more likely to legitimate than prevent land grabbing.

Executive Summary:

Abstract:

Abstract: "Land-grabbing is occurring at a significant extent and pace in Southeast Asia; some of the characteristics of this land grab differ from those in regions such as Africa. At a glance, Europe is not a high profile, major driver of land-grabbing in this region, but a closer examination reveals that it nonetheless is playing a significant role. This influence is both direct and indirect, through European corporate sector and public policies, as well as through multilateral agencies within which EU states are members.

Organised by the Land Deals Politics Initiative (LDPI) in collaboration with the Journal of Peasant Studies and hosted by the Future Agricultures Consortium at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex...Rich site with full texts of more than 170 papers and presentations from the Conference

As the economy thrives, we examine the plight of Ethiopians forced from their land to make way for foreign investors...the growth seen in agriculture, which accounts for almost half of Ethiopia’s economic activity and a great deal of its recent success, is actually being driven by an out of control ‘land grab', as multinational companies and private speculators vie to lease millions of acres of the country’s most fertile territory from the government at bargain basement prices...

A site with a large number of links to resources, including the papers of the 2011 International Conference on Global Land Grabbing..."FAC has been exploring what needs to be done to get different forms of agriculture – food/cash crops, livestock/pastoralism, smallholdings/contract farming/large holdings – moving on a track of increasing productivity and competitiveness.

The
Government
of
Myanmar
has
demonstrated
their
interest
and
commitment
to
promoting
and

protecting
breast
feeding
and
to
improve
Maternal,
Infant
and
Child

Health
and
Nutrition
with
the

launching
of
Scaling
Up
Nutrition(SUN)
Movement

in
2013

... In December 2015, representatives of governments, civil society organizations, Indigenous Peoples’ groups, and the private sector met in Paris for the 21st
Conference of Parties (COP 21) of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The aim of this meeting was to determine a global path forward that would limit the rise in global temperature to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and allow countries to reach peak greenhouse gas emissions as soon
as possible.

Set against the backdrop of escalating food prices
and worsening food insecurity, the issue of land
becomes more relevant and urgent. The facts and figures
speak of a great irony. More than half a billion people
in Asia suffer from hunger and food insecurity, and too
often these are the small food producers, who comprise
farm laborers, tenants and small farmers. The region is
home to 75% of the world’s farming households, 80%
of which are resource-poor, and lack access to productive
land.

This chapter aims to overcome the gap existing between case study research, which typically provides qualitative and process based insights, and national or global inventories that typically offer spatially explicit and quantitative analysis of broader patterns, and thus to present adequate evidence for policymaking regarding largescale land acquisitions. Therefore, the chapter links spatial patterns of land acquisitions to underlying implementation processes of land allocation.

Includes recent political and policy developments, research findings and conclusions, a wider national picture, changing the discourse, a challenge to the private sector, South Africa faces a choice. Argues that South Africa’s current land reform model is largely informed by an outmoded vision of the role of agriculture and the rural areas in South African society, so is overloaded with expectations it cannot fulfil. Land reform is now predominantly an urban challenge.