Each country that is shaded represents where a "land grab" has occurred. A "land grab" is defined by GRAIN* as a large-scale land purchase or lease made by foreign investors. According to GRAIN, since 2006, there have been 416 land grabs in 66 countries covering nearly 35 million hectares (86.5 million acres).

The different shades of the map show the intensity of the land grabs in each country, with dark red representing more hectares grabbed and cream representing less hectares grabbed. Click a country for more information on how much land was grabbed and on which countries were purchasing or leasing the land, as well as what the final use for the land was (e.g. agribusiness, construction, finance, industry, real estate, etc.).
Source: GRAIN

Map created by Varun Mangla / Circle of Blue with contributions from Aubrey Ann Parker and Jordan B. Bates of Circle of Blue and technical assistance from Rebecca Shapley of Google Fusion Tables.

*Disclaimer: The landgrabbed and landgrabber information is based on a database provided by GRAIN — a Barcelona-based, 21-year-old international non-profit research and policy organization that advocates for small farmers around the world — which employs eight people and operates on a $US 800,000 (600,000 euros) annual budget, scouring the Internet, news reports, news releases, investor alerts, government announcements, and company news to amass its up-to-date online compendium of land deals. GRAIN's respected online database is widely regarded as the first stop for serious research on the global market in farmland, however, GRAIN acknowledges that its data may not, in specific instances, provide precise verification of every detail included in its database on global land transactions. Read more about a question raised by Circle of Blue on the precision of Grain's "land grab" term in the case of one Australian land grab here.