Companies in the business of selling farmland to billionaires and pension funds are peddling it as a green;sustainable and socially responsible investment. This propaganda is working. The digital land records and massive quantities of data that big tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon are vacuuming up from farmersfields make it easier for the companies to scour the planet for profitable farmland deals. They can also use satellite technologies and drones to monitor their farms from a distance. But the world’s farmland is finite.

In this introductory video to the Global Programme Responsible Land Policy answers are given to what it wants to achieve, how it works and why land rights are so important. The Global Programme is commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), co-funded by the European Union and works in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Laos, Madagascar, Peru (completed in 2021), Uganda and Paraguay (completed in 2018).

The Support to Responsible Agricultural Investments (S2RAI) Project promotes internationally recognized principles and guidelines to ensure food and land tenure security for communities in the context of large-scale commercial land investment as well as strengthen the institutional frameworks and coordination structures at federal and regional levels in relations to responsible agricultural investment in Ethiopia.

This guide provides companies involved in wind and solar projects with information and strategies to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for adverse human rights impacts that they cause, contribute to, or are directly linked to through their operations, products, or services, by virtue of their business relationships. It may also be useful for investors, business partners, government actors, civil society organizations, communities, and other stakeholders.

This is the PDF version of an online data story about the impacts of the VGGT, published by Land Portal on 4 October 2022.

Investment in agriculture is widely recognized as crucial for economic growth, poverty reduction and improved food and nutrition security. Although several estimates have been made of how much investment is needed in agriculture to achieve production or food security goals, no source to date has attempted to estimate the total amount of public and private investment that is actually made in agriculture. This paper does so using the most up to date and comprehensive international datasets available.

Land is the bridge between companies’ environmental and social sustainability agendas, and it is foundational to both. To implement their commitments on climate change, net zero emissions, human rights, women’s empowerment, and farmer livelihoods, companies must focus on land in agricultural value chains: who controls it, who can access it, who has rights to it, and who enjoys the benefits derived from it (‘land inequality’).

The land rush has remained, and is likely to remain, a significant global phenomenon despite waning international media attention. The scope of the phenomenon is likely to be wider than previously thought.

Most tea in Laos is produced by smallholder farmers, who benefit from highly suitable growing conditions and strong demand for sought-after varieties from the vast Chinese market. However, the sector faces many challenges to achieve its full potential. A key barrier in the northern provinces has been the tendency towards monopsony trade concessions, in which the production of a whole district can be under exclusive control of one buyer.

This resource accompanies Phase 1, Task 1, Step 1 of the Model Guidebook for Business Enterprises. It provides examples of business enterprise policies that tend to promote socially responsible investing and work toward ensuring the equitable sharing of investment benefits by women and men in affected communities. At every level of the supply chain, and at every step of the investment process, responsible policies will reflect best practices and international standards discussed in the guidebook.

The “Responsible Governance of Investments in Land” (RGIL) project in Lao PDR fosters investment quality promotion to ensure that agriculture and forestry investments in land are productive, contribute to sustainable land management and respect the rights and needs of local populations.

The “Responsible Governance of Investments in Land” (RGIL) project in Lao PDR fosters investment quality promotion to ensure that agriculture and forestry investments in land are productive, contribute to sustainable land management and respect the rights and needs of local populations.