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TWN
Info Service on Sustainable Agriculture Corporate Land Grab Fuelling Inequality, Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss Massive tracts of land in the Global South are being bought up by international investors and ultra-rich corporations, fuelling growing wealth inequality. This is part of a global land rush. Since 2000, corporations and financial investors have acquired an estimated 65 million hectares of land. Today, 70% of global farmland is controlled by the largest 1% of giant industrial-scale farms. The world’s ten largest transnational landowners together control 404,457 km², an area the size of Japan. This concentration has grave implications for food security, threatening the livelihoods of 2.5 billion smallholder farmers and 1.4 billion of the world’s poorest people, most of whom rely on agriculture for survival. It is also driving violence, forced evictions, and environmental destruction while contributing significantly to climate change. Moreover, industrial-scale monocropping, often carried out on this acquired land, is a major driver of climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem destruction. To address these trends, the report underlines the importance of corporate accountability, while advocating for two key redistributive strategies: progressive fiscal policies and agrarian reforms. With
best wishes, ________________________________________________ PRESS RELEASE GLOBAL LAND GRAB HIGHLIGHTS GROWING INEQUALITY FIAN
International The accumulation of vast amounts of land by a small group of global corporate landowners is fueling inequality and accelerating the climate crisis, according to a new report which calls for land redistribution and global tax reforms to reverse this dangerous trend. Massive tracts of land in the Global South are being bought up by international investors and ultra-rich corporations, fueling growing inequality – part of a wider global trend of wealth transfers away from the poor and working people. The report from FIAN International and Focus on the Global South, Lords of the Land: Transnational Landowners, Inequality and the Case for Redistribution, puts the spotlight on the world’s ten largest transnational landowners – who together control 404,457 km², an area the size of Japan. This is part of a global land rush. Since 2000, corporations and financial investors have acquired an estimated 65 million hectares of land – twice the size of Germany. Today, 70 percent of global farmland is controlled by the largest 1 percent of giant industrial-scale farms. Forced displacements This concentration has grave implications for food security, threatening the livelihoods of 2.5 billion smallholder farmers and 1.4 billion of the world’s poorest people, most of whom rely on agriculture for survival. It is also driving violence, forced evictions, and environmental destruction while also contributing significantly to climate change. Virtually all the top global landowners named in the report have been implicated in reports of forced displacements, environmental destruction, and violence against communities. One of the main players is the US pension fund TIAA, which has acquired 61,000 hectares in Brazil’s Cerrado region, one of the world’s most biodiverse areas. In the Cerrado, approximately half of the land has been converted into tree plantations, large agro-industrial monocultures, and pastures for cattle production — amid reports of violent land grabs, deforestation and environmental destruction which already shows signs of impacting the climate. TIAA almost quadrupled its global landholdings between 2012 and 2023 — from 328,200 hectares to 1.2 million hectares. Inequality Land concentration undermines state sovereignty and peoples’ self-determination, with distant corporations controlling vast tracts of land across multiple jurisdictions. The industrial-scale monocropping, often carried out on this land, is a major driver of climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem destruction, preventing just transitions to more equitable and sustainable food systems and economic models. These developments reflect a broader global trend of rising inequality and wealth concentration. Since the mid-1990s, the richest 1% of the world’s population has captured 38% of all additional accumulated wealth, while the poorest 50% have received only 2%. An estimated 3.6 billion people, or 44% of the world population, now live on less than US$ 6.85 a day, below the threshold for a dignified life. Because land grabbing is largely driven by global capital and the accumulation of land across jurisdictions by transnational corporations and financial entities, international cooperation is essential. The upcoming International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20) in Colombia early next year offers a critical opportunity for governments to agree on measures that end land grabbing, reverse land concentration, and ensure broad and sustainable distribution of natural resources. In a world facing intersecting crises – from climate breakdown and food insecurity to entrenched poverty and social inequality – and amid reconfiguration of the global balance of power, now is the time to move away from neoliberal policies that have benefited very few, and to create a more just and sustainable global future for all. ————————————————————————- LORDS OF THE LAND: TRANSNATIONAL LANDOWNERS, INEQUALITY AND THE CASE FOR REDISTRIBUTION Philip
Seufert, Sofía Monsalve, Luciana Rolón, Shalmali Guttal [EXCERPTS ONLY] Key Messages
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The report investigates the rising concentration of global land ownership and control among a small group of transnational corporate and financial actors. The report is a collaboration between FIAN International and Focus on the Global South, and aims to connect the dots between land grabbing, increasing land inequality, financialization, and the urgent need for redistributive land policies. It presents the first systematic attempt to identify the world’s ten largest transnational landowners, examines the consequences of their landholdings for communities and ecosystems, and argues for transformative reforms grounded in human rights and food sovereignty. Rising Land Inequality and the Global Land Rush The report starts by detailing the unprecedented rise in global inequalities, particularly the increasingly unequitable distribution of income and wealth. The massive and accelerated transfer of wealth to the corporate elite, to the detriment of working people, is the expression of an economic order that rewards the rich and privileged while penalizing the poor and marginalized. Rising land inequality is both a driver and an expression of this trend. Especially since the 2008-09 global financial crisis, land and other natural resources became a prime target for corporate and financial investors. The result was a surge in transnational land acquisitions, with approximately 65 million hectares – approximately twice the size of Germany – changing hands since 2000. This land rush, coupled with long-standing trends of land concentration, has led to a stark imbalance: 1% of farms now control 70% of the world’s agricultural land. In addition, various forms of land grabbing have doubled land prices worldwide since 2008, placing enormous strain on rural people and communities. Land grabbing and rising inequality are not isolated phenomena, but the result of systemic trends rooted in capitalism and state policies, particularly neoliberalism. In recent decades, financialization has reshaped land tenure and use: institutional investors such as pension funds, insurance companies, and asset managers now view land as an investment asset. These actors rely on speculative profits, often ignoring social or environmental consequences. At the same time, they often use opaque investment webs to obscure their operations and avoid accountability. Land, Food, and Climate Justice Land grabbing and land inequality must be understood in the broader context of hunger, climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. Land – whether agricultural, coastal, forested, or rangeland – is essential to food sovereignty and the right to food and nutrition for small scale food producers, Indigenous Peoples, and rural communities. These groups produce over half the world’s food using just 35% of global cropland, making control over natural resources central to local and healthy food systems. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN), dispossession and inequality in food systems are major drivers of persistent hunger and malnutrition. Tackling these requires a human rights-based approach that ensures fair resource distribution and accounts for the cumulative effects of intersecting crises. Land grabbing and inequality also contribute to deforestation, water depletion, and soil degradation, while displacing communities who sustainably manage up to 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity. Small-scale food production supports significantly higher levels of biodiversity compared to industrial farming. The traditional knowledge and seed systems of Indigenous Peoples and rural communities are vital to sustaining this diversity. An increasing wave of “green grabs” – land acquisitions for environmental purposes – is worsening these issues, often occurring without local consent and leading to further dispossession. Carbon offsetting and emerging biodiversity markets have become major drivers of dispossession of rural populations. Reversing land inequality and addressing its root causes is essential to achieving social, climate, and environmental justice, securing the right to food, and enabling just transitions toward sustainable economic systems. Tracking Land Ownership and Inequality in a Fragmented Data Landscape Reliable data on land ownership and distribution remains fragmented due to the complexity of tenure systems and varying national practices. Land registries and cadasters, often supported by institutions like the World Bank, provide formal ownership records but frequently fail to capture overlapping, customary, or communal land rights. While digitization may improve access to such data, it risks excluding collective and customary tenure rights and marginalized rights holders. Foreign ownership registries, like those in Argentina, Australia, and the USA, offer partial insight into transnational land control but face limitations in transparency and data completeness. Agricultural censuses, conducted by national authorities with FAO support, shed light on farm size and land use. They reveal deep inequalities: smallholders represent 84% of farms but operate only 12% of agricultural land globally. Gender disparities and corporate land accumulation are also evident. The Gini coefficient, commonly used to measure inequality, has major shortcomings in the context of land due to its focus on individual ownership. New approaches, like a new conceptual framework and indicators proposed by the FAO, incorporate broader dimensions of land control, tenure security, and land quality. Crowdsourced and open-access databases like Land Matrix and LandMark help track land deals and community land rights, while Earth observation tools and community mapping add spatial and environmental layers. Despite progress, data remains insufficient to fully capture land concentration trends. Improving participatory approaches, which center communities as key data producers and integrate their perspectives, and integrating diverse data sources are essential for better monitoring inequality and informing policies that promote justice, transparency, and sustainable land governance. Unmasking the World’s Top 10 Transnational Landowners The centerpiece of the report is an attempt to identify the ten largest transnational landowners, who together control 404,457 km² – an area larger than Japan. These actors are:
The analysis of the ten largest transnational landowners reveals massive global land accumulation. This list represents only part of a broader trend of expanding corporate and financial land control, often lacking transparency and underreported. Several of the ten largest companies have substantially increased their land holdings over the past years. The top ten transnational landowners include agribusiness, forestry, energy firms, and increasingly, f inancial actors like TIAA/Nuveen, Macquarie, and Manulife, reflecting the financialization of land. Investments in carbon and biodiversity markets – “green grabs” – are a growing driver, often resulting in indirect dispossession. These entities are headquartered in both the Global North and South, yet most landholdings are located in the Global South, fueling resource extraction and economic inequality. Entities based in the Global South tend to directly exploit the land, while companies based in the North prioritize financial profit. Many are linked to human rights abuses, environmental degradation, and land grabbing. Their operations influence land markets beyond the properties they own, fueling speculation and displacement. Complex investment webs involving banks, institutional investors, and offshore entities obscure ac countability and ownership, hindering regulation and justice. This concentration of land ownership highlights systemic inequality and necessitates urgent reforms in land governance, transparency, and human rights protections. The Case for Redistribution The accumulation of land by transnational corporations and financial entities deepens land inequality, driving human rights violations, ecological degradation, and structural injustice. These actors control vast territories and undermine people’s self-determination and food sovereignty. Their dominance threatens ecosystems, marginalizes rural populations, and obstructs equitable development and climate justice. To address these trends, the report underlines the importance of corporate accountability, while advocating for two key redistributive strategies: progressive fiscal policies and agrarian reforms. Progressive taxation, especially on land, property, and corporate profits, is essential to redistribute wealth, support local budgets, and reduce social and environmental harm. However, current tax systems are often regressive, enabling elite accumulation and penalizing marginalized groups. Global coordination, especially through a proposed UN tax convention and current debates on financing for development, is necessary to tackle tax avoidance, illicit financial flows, and wealth extraction from the Global South. Redistributive tenure policies, including agrarian reforms, must reclaim land from corporate and financial control, prioritizing land access for women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, and small-scale food providers. These public policies must take into account the different historical and socio-cultural contexts and realities between geographies and encompass a range of measures that ensure a nation’s tenure system promotes a broad, equitable and sustainable distribution of land and natural resources. Crucially, they must align with agroecological transitions and be accompanied by rural development support and fiscal capacity, ensuring beneficiaries can sustain dignified livelihoods. The upcoming ICARRD+20 conference in 2026 offers a vital opportunity to coordinate national and international action. Grounded in human rights, these redistributive policies are necessary to reverse land inequality, strengthen democratic and participatory land governance, and build just, sustainable societies in the face of intersecting food, ecological and economic crises. Recommendations In response to transnational land accumulation, rising inequality, and ecological crises, the report ends with a set of concrete recommendations to states that promote corporate accountability as well as redistributive fiscal and tenure policies. It emphasizes the importance of international cooperation to address the challenges at hand. It further calls on the FAO and global institutions to enhance land inequality monitoring using participatory, rights-based methods that center marginalized communities.
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