Talk:Land grabbing

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 August 2021 and 17 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Campaigner8.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:53, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Have added a link to water grabbing callachulpa(talk) 15 March 2012

Hi, I have recently made substantial edits and changes to the land grabbing page on 22 Aug. 2011. While I am new to Wikipedia (editing), I attempted to use wikilinks and citations accurately and effectively to reflect the content. If you have any feedback and/or comments, please respond below. Gngu (talk) 18:16, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality

This article seems to have serious neutrality problems. As far as I can tell, any purchase of - or investment in - land is framed as a "land grab". This makes it an absurd polemic. Even the title is wildly non-neutral considering the rather prosaic matter of investment in land as food prices go up... bobrayner (talk) 12:53, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I've tried to reframe some of the terms more neutrally but the article is still heavily reliant on a small cherrypicked subset of sources. If somebody just googled for "land grab", that's understandable, but there are lots more sources out there which cover agricultural investment in more neutral terms... bobrayner (talk) 13:09, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I added the "Definitions" section a while back in response to some of your feedback -- these definitions reflect some of your criticisms, as well as address some of your concerns. I would like to stress that "land grabbing" in the context used by researchers, does not deal with just agricultural investment as a whole, but rather a narrow subset: large-scale investments in land following 2007-08. Thus, the sources are inherently narrow due to the recent timeframe, and the issues with large-scale investment in land from 2007-08 are a lot different than run-of-the-mill investments in land (which is why there is not a lot of talk about agricultural investment in general). Obviously, the people most interested in writing about large-scale investments in land since 2007-08 have particular interests that color their analysis. However, the primary source referenced in this document is produced by the World Bank, which I consider to be a fairly neutral (even a generally pro-investment/privatisation) source, and whose report was actually heavily criticized by some activists for not being critical enough of large-scale investments in land. gngu (talk) 13:43, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Another comment building off of my previous is also to defend the article's sources and current presentation. The article cites from researchers and civil society organizations in order to attempt to capture the current discourse around large scale land investment since 2007-08, which has been markedly hesitant (or in some cases resistant) towards large-scale investment. While I understand that this resistance to investment may not conform with your own beliefs about the benefits or drawbacks agricultural investment, I believe that it is important to chronicle why the term "land grabbing" has become so popular, why the term "land grabbing" is used the way it is today, and why large scale land investment since 2007-08 has become such a big issue for researchers and organizations -- which is because of the resistance to large scale investment in land. Without the various criticisms and responses to large scale land investment, including the use of the term "land grabbing" (whether justified or not) to characterize this investment, the use of the terminology "land grabbing" to refer to land investment post-2007-08 would not exist today. Thus, this article by nature pays increased attention towards these criticisms against large scale land investment since 2007-08, because these have intrinsically shaped the way that the term "land grabbing" is used today. From my own experience, I have found it hard to find academic literature that specifically supports large-scale land investment specific to the time period from 2007-08 to the present. The primary support for specific post-2007-08 investment comes from quotes from some ministers and government officials. However, if you feel that there are reliable, well-researched sources that have been overlooked (specifically regarding post 2007-08 large scale land investment), please feel free to research and include them. gngu (talk) 14:23, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Very well said, gngu. And the term 'land grabs' is increasingly used, including in mainstream academic sources such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. IjonTichy (talk) 17:54, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Section on improper usage?

What do other editors think about having a section which covers the improper, politically-motivated usage of the term inappropriately? Often when the President of the United States moves to protect large areas of public property from being handed over to corporate developers and mining/logging companies, Republican voters will call that a "land grab" as a derogatory term -- which is entirely inappropriate.

Common social usage in contemporary politics among non-intellectual demographics might warrant its own section here. Damotclese (talk) 22:34, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Agriculture in Malawi photo

I don't see correlation between land grabbing and the photo. I have removed it.--Shadychiri (talk) 05:31, 18 December 2016 (UTC)