Why Do Land Grabs Happen? Because They Can

May 28, 2016 | Michael Kugelman
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In January, over the objections of indigenous groups that live there, the government of Ecuador sold oil exploration rights to 500,000 acres of the Amazon to a consortium of Chinese companies. Whenever we hear about stories like this, there is a tendency to think: How can this happen? How can obscenely rich investors run roughshod over the land, livelihoods, and rights of impoverished local communities, and with utterly no consequences?

It’s a question I used to ask myself quite often as I began researching my book, The Global Farms Race, a study of how wealthy nations and investors acquire mammoth-sized expanses of precious agricultural land in some of the world’s most food insecure countries.

The answer is sobering: It happens because it can.