In october 2008, the NGO GRAIN published on its website an article which describes and analyses from information gathered in newspapers and on the web massive grabbing of agricultural lands worldwide.

GRAIN hightlights that the phenomenon is not really new. However, under the present situation (high prices of stapple food, high prices of oil, financial crisis), things are moving very fast, and this is new.

"Sovereign funds" of countries that affirm to want to guarantee their food self-sufficiency and investment funds are part of the new actors that are purchasing or renting thousands of hectares.

GRAIN’s work had the enormous merit to be the first to publicly denounce phenomena that are radically changing the agricultural situation in many countries. It has been extensively quoted in the press worldwide.

It is available on the GRAIN s internet page www.grain.org, but we wanted it to be also downloadable on our website.

GRAIN put on line and has been updating a blog on this same topic. You can find in this bolg the information used in the article as well as new cases identified since its publication. Blog of Grain on the monopolization of the earths.

Since then, new studies trying to better understand the nature of the phenomena and their range have been initiated by different organizations. See articles and links of this section.