Land grabbing

Land grabbing is like when big companies or even countries decide they want to buy or rent super-duper large pieces of land. We're talking about land that's bigger than many, many playgrounds put together! They do this to grow food or make things like fuel for cars.

Sometimes, they also need lots of water for these big farms, so they grab that too! It's a bit like someone taking over a whole park to build a giant toy factory.

People have been buying and selling big chunks of land for a very long time. But the kind of land grabbing we hear about now really kicked off after something called the 'food price crisis' in 2007 and 2008. Suddenly, people worried there wouldn't be enough food, and investors saw a chance to make money by growing food and fuel on huge farms, especially in places where land was cheaper.

When big companies grab lots of land, it can change things for the people who already live there. They might not have enough land to grow their own food anymore, or the water they need might be used for the big farms. It can also affect the types of food that get grown. Sometimes, the food grown on these big farms is sent to other countries, not to the people living nearby.

These big companies or governments make deals to buy or lease land. They might offer money to the people who owned the land before, or sometimes the deals are made with the government. The goal is usually to grow crops on a massive scale, like growing enough corn to fill thousands of school buses, or to produce biofuels, which are fuels made from plants.