Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
Notice (8): Undefined variable: urlPrefix [APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8]latest-news-updates/farmland-outsourcing-4332.html"/> LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Farmland outsourcing | Im4change.org
Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Farmland outsourcing

A high-level working group of the Government of India has approved the idea of outbound foreign direct investment by Indians in the production of pulses and oilseeds aimed at meeting domestic demand. This is not a new idea. Since arable land in India is fast shrinking and efforts to lift the output of pulses and oilseeds, besides some other essential commodities, are not bearing fruit, investing in land elsewhere for captive cultivation of these crops can be a good way of augmenting domestic supplies. But this may be an idea whose time has come and gone. Most other commodities-starved but cash-rich countries have already grabbed large chunks of available cultivable land in land-surplus countries. India, as usual, has arrived late. Moreover, popular and governmental resistance to such land acquisition in host countries, where this trend is seen as a return to the era of “banana republics”, has already made this option less attractive. It may, therefore, not be long before strong anti-land acquisition movements build up in such countries, making it difficult for aliens to acquire land. According to a conservative reckoning, over 20 million hectares of land, twice the size of Germany’s total cropland, had already been sold globally to overseas investors till last year. The wave of land acquisitions that began over a decade ago got a further boost following the spurt in global food prices from 2007-08 onwards. The countries which needed more food than they could potentially produce at home, such as China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and the like, explored and gathered every opportunity that was available for outsourcing food production. Japan, with very little agricultural land of its own, is believed to have created landholdings abroad measuring more than thrice the size of its own farmland.

Indian investment in foreign farmland acquisition has also been constrained by lack of finance. If such finance is forthcoming, more entrepreneurs may come forward to scout for land abroad. Overseas investment in land has both positive and negative impact on host countries. On the positive side, it brings income and new agricultural technology, helps expand local infrastructure and puts under-utilised assets to better use. On the negative side, there could be dispossession of local communities of their ancestral land and source of livelihood, causing social unrest, as has begun to happen in countries like Mozambique and Madagascar. With a view to making it a win-win deal, the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute recently came out with a draft code of conduct for foreign direct investment in agriculture, which addresses most concerns of detractors of this trend. It calls for, among other things, respect for existing land rights, sharing of benefits with local communities, and abiding by the national food security policies of the host countries, which essentially means that in case of food shortages, the local governments will have the first right over the produce.