'Land grabbing' could help feed at least 300 million people, study suggests

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Crops grown on "land-grabbed" areas in developing countries could have the potential to feed an extra 100 million people worldwide, a new study has shown.

The improved infrastructure brought about by foreign investment could increase the productivity of subsistence farmlands in countries such as Indonesia and Papua New Guinea and could mean these lands can feed at least 300 million people around the world. This is compared to about 190 million people that could be fed if the land was left tended to by the local population.

The findings have been published today, 27 June, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters.

The large-scale acquisition of land by foreign governments and businessmore commonly known as land grabbingis a contentious issue, particularly in Africa where a large number of deals have taken place in regions facing food security problems and malnutrition.

Some argue that investment by foreign governments and business will drastically improve crop yields, generate new jobs and bring new knowledge and infrastructure to often deprived areas. Others highlight the fact that any food grown is often exported to other regions and argue that such deals can strip local communities of their land, water and natural resources, leaving them in a far worse state.

In their study, the researchers, from the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, and University of Virginia, US, quantified the maximum amount of food that could be produced from crops grown on acquired lands and the number of people that this could feed. They also compared the use of traditional farming techniques to industrialised agricultural methods, to come up with the yield gap.

To arrive at their results, the researchers used a unique dataset of all land deals, greater than 200 hectares, which had occurred after 2000. Each land deal included information regarding the spatial extent of the acquired land, the dominant crop, and whether a deal was concluded with a signed or oral contract, or just intended with an expression of interest.

The researchers calculated the potential maximum crop yield from each of these deals and then used the crop's food calories to determine the amount of people it could feed.

If all of the acquired lands were farmed to their full capacitya 100% closure of the yield gapthere would be a 308 per cent increase in rice production, a 280 per cent increase in maize production, a 148 per cent increase in sugar cane production, and a 130 per cent increase in oil palm production, the researchers calculated.

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'Land grabbing' could help feed at least 300 million people, study suggests