Unveiling the drivers of large-scale land acquisitions in Asian countries

Society, Economy and Environment

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7366491
AutoresLuigi Orsi (0000-0002-7621-0878), Lorenzo Zanchi (0009-0007-4831-2088), C Mazzocchi (0000-0001-6685-8841, autor de correspondencia)
Año2024
Volumen11
Número1
Páginas63-85
Fecha de publicación2024-02-08
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaRegional Studies Regional Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2168-1376 • E-ISSN: 2168-1376
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/21681376.2024.2306862
OpenAlexW4391652660
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas63

The rapid surge in large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) has been triggered by the convergence of food, financial and environmental crises in the late 2000s. Since the 2008 commodity price spike, several Asian countries have become preferential targets for LSLAs carried out by foreign companies and governments. The rising interest in Asian farmlands and natural resources arose in a complex set of political transitions and socioeconomic dynamics that have shaped the whole continent in the last decades. This study relies on a dataset built on different data sources, from 2003 to 2021 for a total of 14,724 million hectares involved in LSLAs in Asia. The southeastern region is the most targeted one, with Indonesia and the Philippines as the principal host countries. The main investors are intraregional and, especially in private or stock-exchange listed companies, are from China and Malaysia, who intend to produce palm oil or rubber. Results partially confirm the initial hypothesis, showing that the endowment of land and water resources in host countries is positively related to the amount of land acquired. Findings also show that investors are looking for free market areas, with low trade barriers and low fiscal pressure, where the protection of workers’ rights is lower than that in their homeland

Business · Economic geography · Economics · Geography · Natural resource economics · Scale (ratio · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management · Land Rights and Reforms