Globalisation is affecting the very soil we live on, as international investors—Chinese companies, Gulf state monarchies, Western funds—are buying up farmland worldwide. Whereas governments of second and third world countries welcome the influx of money, critics see a threat: the loss of nations’ control over their harvests and their food sovereignty. As farmlands turn into global commodities, will nations preserve control over their own food production—or are they shortsightedly trading away their agricultural independence?
The Scale of the Sale
According to estimates, since 2000 transnational land deals brought over 50 million hectares worldwide into foreign hands—nearly three times France’s arable land. Chinese corporations gained control over 6.5 million hectares around the world from 2011–2020. Gulf states, like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, seeking food security, have acquired over 2.5 million hectares of land in Africa since 2000. First-world countries face this too: in the U.S., 18.5 million hectares are already in foreign hands, with 1 million hectares added per year. Concentration happens domestically, too: Funds chasing considerable returns on investment buy up U.S. farmland left and right. Bill Gates, now America’s biggest farmland baron, holds over 100,000 hectares alone, dwarfing some smaller countries’ estates, while there is little indication his appetite has been satiated.
Feeding Mouths or Feeding Markets?
Critics warn that foreign land ownership weakens nations’ resilience, as it threatens their populations’ food supplies in the long run. Yet its advocates highlight the economic benefits— Sub-Saharan Africa’s agri-GDP, for example, grew over 4% per year from 2015 to 2020, partly fueled by such foreign investments. But when foreign owners prioritise export crops like soybeans or palm oil over domestic staples, feeding distant markets first, where does this leave the local population?
Globally, 60% of acquired land grows crops for export, a number which is projected to rise to 70% by 2030. In Indonesia, foreign agribusinesses secured 1.2 million hectares, while indigenous communities faced worsening food insecurity and environmental degradation. In Ukraine, where foreigners already control an estimated 2.8 million hectares of farmland, 50 million tons of grain were exported in 2022, even as 20% of rural households faced food insecurity. Now, Ukraine’s sell-off really gets going, thanks to a “liberalisation of the farm-land sales market“.
