Behind the landgrabs: the new hunger barons

As the world plunges deeper into a food crisis, a small number of wealthy investors, investment funds and transnational companies are grabbing more of the world’s farmlands, and the water that goes with it, leaving everyone else with less, or none at all.

Addax Bioenergy of Switzerland, for example, has taken over 10,000 hectares of fertile land in Sierra Leone, where malnutrition affects one-third of the population, to grow sugar cane for ethanol exports. The investment is expected to generate USD 53 million in annual returns – but less than a dollar per month to each person affected by the project.

To help pull back the curtain on the land grabbers and facilitate action, GRAIN has produced a slide presentation on these investors and the network of governments, corporations and development banks that are facilitating this massive destruction of land and livelihoods. View it here