Between 2001 and 2011, according to the Okland Institute in California, just over two million square kilometers of countryside, an area slightly larger than Mexico, were sold or leased in developing states to governments and companies in rich countries. In 2010, the World Bank managed to identify (transactions are closed very discreetly) negotiations to take over 450,000 square kilometers, an area equivalent to that of Sweden. 70% of the total, in Africa. Land has ceased to be an asset that was passed down from father to son and had cultural significance, and has become just another financial instrument. In fact, a new generation of institutional investors – hedge funds, private equity instruments, pension funds and even elite universities such as Harvard or Vandelbilt – are using the fields with the same speculative zeal they would use for gold or currencies. By using this strategy, land acquisition has become globalized and has moved from Africa to also affect Europe and the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Between 2001 and 2011, according to the Okland Institute in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","category-88","description-off"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n