José Graziano da Silva, the FAO's director general, has compared the land grab deals in Africa to the “wild west,” saying a "sheriff" is needed to restore the rule of law. Large land deals have accelerated since the surge in food prices in 2007-08, prompting companies and sovereign wealth funds to take steps to guarantee food supplies. 

This study of large land acquisitions in developing countries published by the International Land Coalition (ILC) finds more evidence of harm than benefits.  More than 40 organisations collaborated on the Global Commercial Pressures on Land Research Project, which synthesised 27 case studies, thematic studies and regional overviews. The report also includes the latest data from the ongoing Land Matrix project to monitor large-scale land transactions, and covers a full decade of land deals from 2000-2010. Those deals amount to more than 200 million hectares of land – or eight times the size of the United Kingdom.

In September, Wilton Park hosted a conference on ‘Global Land Use: Policies for the future’. The conference was the second in a series on ‘Agriculture, food and land use: the international policy challenges’.