Land Grabbing and Industrial Agriculture

In recent years, investors from around the world have been focusing heavily on Africa in efforts to exploit the continent’s rich natural resources, often at the expense of local communities and the environment.

The trend of buying or leasing large areas of land in Africa to extract resources for export has been termed “land-grabbing” due to the speed and scale at which it’s taking place, as well as the opaque nature of some of the land deals that have been negotiated.
The UN has warned that these deals could severely undermine food security, hamper long-term economic development, and lead to the loss of important ecosystems.

The Congo Basin is the target of several international industrial-scale agriculture developers — including palm oil and rubber — who are looking to cash in on new operations in Africa. These plantations, however, often fuel wide-scale deforestation and spark social conflict.