About

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This website contains mainly news reports about the global rush to buy up or lease farmlands abroad as a strategy to secure basic food supplies or simply for profit. Its purpose is to serve as a resource for those monitoring or researching the issue, particularly social activists, non-government organisations and journalists.

The site, known as farmlandgrab.org, is updated daily, with all posts entered according to their original publication date. If you want to track updates in real time, please subscribe to the RSS feed. If you prefer a weekly email, with the titles of all materials posted in the last week, subscribe to the email service.

This site was set up by GRAIN as a collection of online materials used in the research behind Seized: The 2008 land grab for food and financial security, a report we issued in October 2008. GRAIN is small international NGO concerned about farmers' control over biodiversity and local knowledge. We see the current land grab trend as a serious threat to local communities, for reasons outlined in our report.

farmlandgrab.org is an open project. Although currently maintained by GRAIN, anyone can join in posting materials or developing the site further. Current contributors include Joan Baxter and Iliass Lamrini.

Please feel free to upload your own contributions. (Only the lightest editorial oversight will apply. Postings considered off-topic or other are available here.) Or use the 'comments' box under any post to speak up. Just be aware that this site is strictly educational and non-commercial.