The original North-South dynamic to this ‘global land grab’ is developing into a North-South-South dynamic with economically powerful non-Northern countries now getting involved.

This phrase – ‘global land grab’ – has become a catch-all to describe and analyse this explosion in transnational commercial land transactions. The reaction to this trend by state, corporate and civil society groups has been varied, moving between the extremes of seeing it as a major threat to the lives and livelihoods of rural people, to seeing it as an economic opportunity for the rural poor worldwide.

LDPI aims to provide in-depth and systematic enquiry into the global land grab in order to have deeper, meaningful and productive debates around causes and implications.