Guested edited by Gustavo de L. T. Oliveira, Ben M. McKay and Juan Liu
The conjunction of climate, food, and financial crises in the late 2000s triggered renewed interest in farmland and agribusiness investments around the world. This phenomenon became known as the “global land grab”, and sparked vibrant debates among social movements, NGOs, international development agencies, and various government agencies and academics worldwide. This special issue addresses four key areas that are moving the debate “beyond land grabs”. These include: (1) the role of contract farming and differentiation among farm workers in the consolidation of farmland; (2) the broader forms of dispossession and mechanisms of control and value grabbing beyond “classic” land grabs for agricultural production; (3) discourses about, and responses to, Chinese agribusiness investments abroad; and (4) the relationship between financialization and land grabbing. Ultimately, we propose new directions to deepen and even transform the research agenda on land struggles and agroindustrial restructuring around the world.
Beyond land grabs: new insights on land struggles and global agrarian change Gustavo de L. T. Oliveira, Ben M. McKay and Juan Liu
Land grabs, farmworkers, and rural livelihoods in West Africa: some silences in the food sovereignty discourse Adwoa Yeboah Gyapong
Bitter sugarification: sugar frontier and contract farming in Uganda Giuliano Martiniello
Access to land and the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil in Colombia Christelle Genoud
Landed value grabbing in the terroir of post-socialist specialty wine A. June Brawner
Expulsion by pollution: the political economy of land grab for industrial parks in rural China Hua Li and Lu Pan
Grounding Chinese investment: encounters between Chinese capital and local land politics in Laos Juliet Lu
Unpacking the finance-farmland nexus: circles of cooperation and intermediaries in Brazil Bruno Rezende Spadotto, Yuri Martenauer Saweljew, Samuel Frederico and Fábio Teixeira Pitta
Network companies, land grabbing, and financialization in South America Andrea P. Sosa Varrotti and Carla Gras
Juan Liu
Dr Juan Liu is an associate professor of political ecology and agrarian studies at the College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University (COHD-CAU) and a researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB). Her research interests include energy transitions, migration and the left-behind population, land politics, and political economy/ecology of agriculture, food and environment, etc.
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