The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) recently released its report entitled Land Squeeze. It finds that land ownership is being consolidated in the hands of a few powerful actors, squeezing out smaller farmers, pastoralists, Indigenous Peoples, and others who rely on traditional farmland.
Since 2000, land around twice the size of Germany has been snatched up globally in transnational deals, according to IPES-Food’s report. Approximately 87 percent of these land grabs occurred in regions of high biodiversity. The top 1 percent of world’s largest farms now control 70 percent of land, leaving smaller-scale farmers behind.
Nettie Wiebe, an organic farmer, professor of ethics, and a co-author of the report, tells Food Tank that the report addresses how the land squeeze is playing out in different parts of the world, instead of simply focusing on one region.
Wiebe recalls that some experts initially felt that a global study of this kind was too difficult because each region needs its own analysis. But, she says, “it is a global phenomenon that is going on in every continent, in every context.” Wiebe believes the report is unique because it “outlines both the global trends and acknowledges how complex and diverse [the issue] is.”
Land consolidation is often rooted in colonialism, imperialism, and patriarchy, Wiebe says. But, the report also touches on newer concepts. She tells Food Tank that it “unravels the idea that land needs to be used efficiently,” and stresses that empty land is not always wasted land—it may be performing an essential function.
The report highlights four drivers contributing to land consolidation globally. Land grabbing, or the large-scale appropriation of land, is one of the main causes, which can compromise the land’s original agroecology. Fertile, productive, and biodiverse lands tend to be most at risk of being acquired. The report’s authors also find that deregulation and policies favoring rapid resource extraction are accelerating land grabbing.
Green grabbing, in which governments and businesses take land for projects including wind farms, tree-planting, carbon offsetting and sequestration, or clean fuel generation has also exacerbated the land squeeze. These conservation approaches often exclude local land users, leading to a loss in food diversity and a rural exodus over time, the report argues. The building of national parks, for example, may displace communities; and land-use regulations for conservation may hinder a community’s way of life.
Wiebe tells Food Tank that many environmentalists want to protect biodiversity. But “if you don’t integrate the actual reality on the ground of who already lives there, and what kind of food is being grown there, then you get these perverse outcomes that actually undermine the project of food security, biodiversity and cultural diversity.”
Expansion and encroachment are further contributing to the problem, as farmland is used for non-agricultural purposes, such as mining projects. In addition, rapid urbanization is leading to megadevelopments including housing, commercial buildings, and roads, causing land conflicts, destabilization, and community disintegration. A report by the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification finds that between 2000 to 2030, up to 3.3 million hectares of the world’s farmland will have been swallowed up by expanding megacities.
A global shift in food systems, including more industrialized agriculture practices and increased use of agrichemicals, is an additional contributor to the land squeeze. This reconfiguring of food systems employs carbon-intensive technologies, which can degrade soils and cause deforestation.
The driving forces behind the land squeeze can co-exist and overlap, often compounding the issues they cause, Wiebe says. And while she recognizes that “we want to be as productive as we can be”, she adds that “we also don’t want to kill our soils or pollute our waters while doing it.” Without considering the potential harm to land, “efficiency can lead to catastrophe.”
Wiebe acknowledges that developing a solution to address these different drivers of land squeezing is challenging. But the report offers several recommendations. One solution is to integrate land rights into community governance and environmental and agricultural policies, so that land is treated as more than just an asset or property, and afforded special legal status in constitutions as a basis of the right to food, and the cornerstone of livelihoods, identities, and cultures.
The report also encourages community-led and decentralized conservation and renewable energy initiatives that take small-scale, traditional practices into account. Additionally, the authors stress the importance of cracking down on abusive carbon off-set approaches and embracing real zero targets by tackling offset markets, unverified carbon credit schemes, and other speculative capital injections into land. And they repeat the overall goal of integrating the approach to land, environmental, and food systems governance, to foster sustainability.
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