Land taken over by foreign investors could feed 550m people, study finds
▻http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/27/land-grabbing-food-biofuels-crops
“Crucial to this debate is the knowledge of the magnitude of the phenomenon: how many people could be fed,” said Prof Maria Cristina Rulli from Politecnico di Milano in Italy, one of the research team. It found that, even accounting for the crops diverted to biofuels, the grabbed land could support 300m-550m people if yields were raised to the levels of industrialised western farming. Even without those yield increases, the land could support 190m-370m people, the researchers calculated.
“Policymakers need to be aware that if this food were used to feed the local populations it would be sufficient to abate malnourishment in each of these countries, even without investments aiming [increase] yields,” said Rulli.
Food appropriation through large scale land acquisitions
▻http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/6/064030/article
