SID Nederland Weblog

The Global Land Rush Seminar: What’s real and what are the myths? Rushing for solutions

On Thursday March 24th a seminar took place at Utrecht University on Global Land Grabs, during which the latest issue of the journal ‘Development’ was launched. The Seminar was jointly organized by SID NL with IDS (Utrecht University), LANDac, and SID International.  

During the seminar several researchers presented their work and preliminary results. Consensus was reached that land acquisitions, and their local consequences, are real. Main actors are not just the large-scale investors from the Gulf States and China; Western investors and medium and small-scale domestic actors play important roles as well. There also is consensus about the fact that land grabbing should not be considered in isolation, but should be seen within the context of the larger processes related to neoliberal policies, resource scarcity, and globalization.

A full report on the seminar can be found here.