Gerben Nooteboom & Rosanne Rutten - Large scale transnational investments in farmland

Gerben Nooteboom & Rosanne Rutten present their research programme that analyses the drivers, mechanisms and social consequences of large-scale (trans)national investments in farmland in Indonesia and the Philippines. The recent global 'rush for land' (purchase or long leases of large tracts of land, primarily by corporate investors) for the production of food, feed, biofuel feedstock, and for financial speculation, has raised much public debate on the perceived evils of 'land grabbing.' There is growing concern for the tenuous control of land by smallholders, women, and indigenous communities in the context of liberalized rural economies. The programme responds to the need for thorough, in-depth, localized studies to understand the social dynamics that shape the land deals and their influence on the rural poor.