An international team of Scientists have conducted a global assessment of land and water grabbing.

Their findings were published as over 100 international charities and development organisations came together to launch the Enough Food for Everyone IF campaign. As part of the campaign, the coalition has called for an end to land grabbing practices, as well as increased transparency and an end to corporate tax dodging.

As world food and energy demands grow, nations and some corporations are increasingly looking to acquire quality agricultural land for food and biofuel production. Some nations are gaining land by buying up property – and accompanying water resources – in other, generally less wealthy countries. This 'land grabbing' "can put strains on land and water resources in impoverished countries where the land, and needed water, has been “grabbed” for commercial-scale agriculture," according to researchers from the University of Virginia

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This week, scientists from the Univeristy of Virginia, working with colleagues in Milan, published the first global quantitative assessment of the water-grabbing phenomenon, which has intensified in the last four years largely in response to a 2007-08 increase in world food prices.

In July last year, Washington DC-based sustainable development organisation Worldwatch Institute released a report in which it revealed that, although the pace at which agricultural lands worldwide have been bought up by foreign or transnational private investors had fallen since the peak levels of 2009, the consolidation of agricultural land into a few private hands was continuing above 2005 levels, threatening food security for many of the Earth's most vulnerable people.

University of Virginia Environmental Sciences professor Paolo D’Odorico said "Over less than a decade, the rates of land and water grabbing have dramatically increased. Food security in the grabbing countries increasingly depends on 'grab-land agriculture,' while in the grabbed countries, local populations are excluded from the use of large parcels of land. Even just a fraction of the grabbed resources would be sufficient to substantially decrease the malnourishment affecting some of the grabbed countries."

According to figures from Oxfam, the charity leading the IF campaign, every ten minutes governments and multinational corporations will 'grab' areas of land 25 times the size of the Olympic stadium.

The international study shows that foreign land acquisition is a global phenomenon, involving 62 grabbed countries and 41 grabbers and affecting every continent except Antarctica. Africa and Asia account for 47 percent and 33 percent of the global grabbed area, respectively, and about 90 percent of the grabbed area is in 24 countries. Countries most affected by the highest rates of water grabbing are Indonesia, the Philippines and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The highest rates of irrigated water grabbing occur in Tanzania and Sudan. 

Countries most active in foreign land acquisition are located in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Europe and North America. Overall, about 60 percent of the total grabbed water is appropriated, through land grabbing, by companies in the United States, United Arab Emirates, India, United Kingdom, Egypt, China and Israel.

Professor D’Odorico said that in most cases such land acquisitions also entail a switch from natural ecosystems – such as forests and savannas – or small-holder agriculture run by local communities, to large-scale commercial farming run by foreign corporations. Such switches, although they are associated with bringing new technologies into regions, are highlighted as irresponsible investment by the UN and UK Food Group, as opposed to initiatives which are responsive and empowering to local communities.

In the case of land grabbing, local populations are excluded from the direct use and management of their land, water resources and any new technologies. The changes often also herald the destruction or damage of local ecosystems, as opposed to local small-holder farmers, which D’Odorico said are often in a better position to be good stewards and managers of their land and water. His statements are in keeping with the findings of the world-bank funded IAASTD report, which was commissioned by the World Bank and compiled by 400 scientific experts.

The professor continued, "By losing control of part of their land and water, in many cases local people are giving up to wealthier nations their most precious natural resources – resources that could be used now or in the future to enhance their own food security." This is impacting on the ability of countries such as Sudan and Tanzania to develop 'breakbasket' regions, in areas benefitted by rain or river flow, due to lack of responsible investment by companies seeking profit over development goals.

Commenting on his team's findings, Professor D’Odorico echoed calls made earlier in the month by the UN, stating that governments and the UN organisations themselves must ensure any investment in regions at risk of land grabbing is done responsibly, with local communities involved in decision making and the observation of land rights. His study was released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.