scientificamerican | Fertile land is becoming scarce worldwide, especially for crops for
food, feed, biofuels, timber and fiber such as cotton. To produce those
goods, wealthy countries such as the U.S. and small countries with
little space are buying up or leasing large tracts of land that are
suitable for agriculture in other nations. Products are shipped back
home or sold locally, at times squeezing out native farmers, landowners
and businesses. In the past 15 years companies and government groups in
“investor” countries have grabbed 31.8 million hectares of land, the
area of New Mexico (column on right), according to the Land
Matrix Global Observatory's database of transactions that target low-
and middle-income countries. Crops are being produced on only 2.7
million of those hectares thus far (column on left). Overall, a large transfer of land ownership from the global south to the global north seems to be under way. Fist tap Arnach.
