International conference on Global Land Grabbing
Cornell University, Ithaca NY, October 17 – 19, 2012
Key Conference Foci:
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The purpose of this conference is to analyze and debate key issues pertaining to global
land deals, including:
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The role of land rights, governance and local and national politics;
Implications for labor, the environment and historically vulnerable groups;
Resistance and the growing struggle for alternatives to land deals; and
The potential for land deals to contribute positively to development through
increased production and smallholder incorporation.
The contours of agrarian change are critical to an understanding of contemporary land
grabs. As such, conference participants will address the following questions:
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What changes in broad agrarian structures are facilitating land deals?
Are land deals “new” or are they indicative of a return to old strategies of
accumulation and development?
What is the nature and extent of rural social differentiation – in terms of class,
gender, ethnicity – following changes in land use and land property relations as
well as organizations of production and exchange?
Background Facts:
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Over the past few years, the convergence of global crises in food, energy, finance and
the environment has driven a dramatic revaluation of land ownership in the developing
world. These processes have given way to global land grabs, or large-scale land
acquisitions – either through lease or purchase – by powerful transnational and national
economic actors from corporations to national governments and private equity funds.
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The pace and extent of contemporary land deals has been rapid and widespread. New
reports place the figures of global land acquisition between 50 and 700 million hectares
since 2008. Even the most conservative estimates suggest that land acquisitions have
increased tenfold over the preceding 40 years.
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Land deals are being negotiated for a variety of reasons and through a range of
strategies, as a means to meet mounting food, fuel, and resource needs; to mitigate
environmental challenges; and to reduce poverty and generate employment.
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Land acquisitions are also taking place as “green grabs,” or the appropriation of land and
resources for purportedly environmental means. In these instances, land acquisitions are
justified on the basis of their contributions to the enhancement of the environment
through activities such as biofuel production, forest conservation, carbon sequestration,
eco-tourism, and ecosystem services. Green grabs are occurring across the Global
South, but are particularly pronounced in East, West, and Southern Africa, in Southeast
Asia, and throughout Latin America.
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“Water grabs” – or the appropriation of water resources and processes – are a key
feature of global land deals and occur through the diversion of water resources,
conversion of wetlands into arable land, and disruption of hydraulic cycling by large
landowners, (trans) national companies, and governments.
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While there is a clear North-South dynamic that echoes the large-scale land deals that
underwrote both colonialism and imperialism, contemporary land grabs are also
occurring between nations and actors within the Global South, with economically
powerful countries, such as Brazil, India, China, South Africa and Qatar, becoming
significantly involved in everything from land acquisition to infrastructure development
and knowledge transfer.
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New research suggests that land grabs often have perverse effects on local
communities and national stability, expressed through a range of social and ecological
conflicts, including: the displacement of peasants and erosion of forest and aquatic
ecologies in Colombia; forcible dislocation of small-scale farmers in Brazil to “free” land
for investors; the loss of land amongst women farmers in Zimbabwe and the
consequential destruction of their livelihoods; and the recent murder of a Cambodian
journalist who exposed government land deals and illegal logging operations in
Cambodia.
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Global land deals, and associated development projects, are being contested at multiple
levels. National governments, transnational peasant organizations, NGOs, and local
communities are challenging large-scale land acquisitions in a variety of ways, including:
formal objections to international development projects such as Payments for Ecosystem
Services (PES) and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation
(REDD+); declarations of territorial rights to recognize local and indigenous people’s
legal rights to land and resources; and the re-framing the meanings, visions and
practices of agricultural production through food sovereignty movements.
Conference Details:
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Nearly 200 researchers from 32 countries will gather at the second International
Conference on Global Land Grabbing to be held at Cornell University between October
17 – 19, 2012.
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The conference will be held at the Robert Purcell Community Center on the Cornell
University campus in Ithaca, NY, from 9:00 a.m. Wednesday October 17 to 6:00 p.m.
Friday October 19 2012.
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Further information including the full program can be found at the conference website:
www.cornell-landproject.org.
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The International Conference on “Global Land Grabbing” is being organised by the Land
Deals Politics Initiative (LDPI) and hosted by Department of Development Sociology and
the Institute of Social Sciences at Cornell University. The Land Deals Politics Initiative
(LDPI) research network (see http://www.iss.nl/ldpi) promotes engaged research on the
recent explosion of (trans) national commercial and corporation-driven land transactions.
LDPI studies the politics of land deals based on detailed field-based research and policy-
oriented donor and NGO-led reviews, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia
and Latin America.
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Conference Organising Committee (LDPI):
o Wendy Wolford, Cornell, USA (local host)
o Saturnino (Jun) Borras Jr., International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague
and Editor, Journal of Peasant Studies
o Ruth Hall, PLAAS, South Africa
o Ian Scoones, IDS Sussex, UK and FAC Co=Convenor
o Ben White, ISS, the Hague
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General enquiries: landpolitics@gmail.org
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Media contacts:
o Nathan Oxley N.Oxley@ids.ac.uk
o Wendy Wolford www43@cornell.edu