Transnational land deals

Transnational land deals greater than 200 hectares with a concluded contract according to area size under contract in the respective year based on Land Matrix data as of April 2020.

The global land rush – a big deal

Soaring food prices in 2007-08 and again in 2010, coupled with the instability of global financial markets, turned farmland into a new strategic asset, causing a land rush by international investors. These land acquisitions mainly targeted accessible, fertile cropland that had often previously been used by smallholders and communities. In 2009, the Land Matrix, an independent land-monitoring initiative, started to collect information on land deals for which public information is available. By July 2020, the database held information on concluded, intended and failed deals covering almost 82.5 million hectares. The infographic above shows 1,436 concluded deals for the years 2000 to 2019, covering 39.26 million hectares. A further 368 undated deals brings the total area of concluded deals to 51.29 million hectares. Although the infographic includes most types of investment, the majority of deals are for farming purposes. The peak of the land rush was 2008, both with respect to the size (7.1m ha) and to the number of deals (193 acquisitions), and from 2011 onwards, a clear downward trend is visible. Eastern Europe has been the main target region in terms of the total area of concluded deals, followed by Africa which has the largest number of concluded deals. The top target countries are Russia (12.3m ha), Indonesia (3.8m ha), Papua New Guinea (3.7m ha), Brazil (3.7m ha) and Ukraine (3.3m ha), followed by South Sudan and Mozambique with 2 milllion hectares respectively.