Land grabbing in Eastern Europe: global food security and land governance in post - Soviet Eurasia

While ‘land grabbing’ in Africa by China, and other populous, high-income Asian countries such as South Korea got quite some attention, land grabbing in post-Soviet Eurasia has gone largely unnoticed. However, as this paper shows, recently also in the latter region foreign state and private companies are accumulating vast expanses of farm land. The paper discusses the factors which make post-Soviet Eurasia such an attractive area for international investment, with arguably much more potential than most areas in Africa or Asia. Second, the process of land accumulation and acquisition of farms is described. Both domestic as well as international accumulation of land is dealt with, placing this in the domestic context of agricultural development and institutions. Furthermore, the main actors (investors) involved in land grabbing are distinguished (according to their country of origin and legal or institutional form). Third, the paper outlines the main obstacles (and points of contention) concerning the emergence (and effectiveness/performance) of domestic and especially international, agro-holdings in the region, and will present some preliminary findings around the question whether this development is a necessary step towards agricultural modernization, or that there are substantial disadvantages to land grabbing.