1 “Land grabbing in Argentina: tendencies and consequences” Matilde Carabellese Introduction. Over the last years there has been increasing attention of the scientific community and civil society to the recent phenomenon of the purchase and/or leasing by governments and foreign companies of vast areas of farmland in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The phenomenon itself is not new, but in recent years it has reached such proportions as to bring about doubts and worries. According to the latest estimates elaborated by the World Bank the lands subject of a settlement / award amount to about forty-five million hectares, even though other observers believe that the figure is much higher. Many different actors are involved in the “new” land rush. On the demand side, the International Food Policy Research Institute argues that the Gulf states - poor in arable land and water resources, but rich in capital – are at the forefront of new investments in farmland overseas, but also China, India and South Korea are looking for opportunities to produce food abroad 1 . Nevertheless also Europe 2 and North America are directly or indirectly involved in land grabbing: indirectly, by increasing demand for agrofuel production, they have increased demand for land by private finance institutions; besides «six European countries are among the biggest investors in terms of outwards Foreign Direct Investment stock in agriculture (in descendent order Italy, Norway, Germany, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and France)» 3 .On the supply side top investment target is said to be Africa, followed by Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. As regards the nature of the land transfers, Cotula et al. highlight that in Latin America and Eastern Europe the investors have a tendency to purchase land, but the government-allocated leases seem to be much more common in Africa 4 . This fact leads to think that there may be a link between the kind of land acquisition and the land tenure; in other words, where private ownership is much more guaranteed, investors prefer to buy land rather than rent it. Despite complexity of the land rush, «the phrase ‘global land grab’ has become a catch-all framework» 5 , but it is important not to simplify «what appear to be variegated and complex processes of agrarian change, some of which reflect historical continuity, while others of which may involve qualitative redirections in processes of agrarian change or the intensifications or speeding up such processes» 6 . In fact, even though media attention has focused on farming investments, the increasing demand on land is a result of a wider set of factors. The land rush for food, feed or fuel export play an important role, but in some contexts this perspective is too narrow and it does not adequately explain the current “foreignization” of space. In order to overcome this problem Annelies Zoomers adopts a broader perspective of this complex phenomenon by proposing 1 IFPRI, “Land Grabbing” by Foreign Investors in Developing Countries: Risks and Opportunities, IFPRI Policy Brief 13, Washington DC, April 2009. 2 The European Union (EU) uses over 16 million hectares of farmland every year to feed its livestock and fuel its cars. This is equal to the total combined arable farmland of Germany and Hungary. 3 FIAN, 2010, “Advancing African Agriculture” (AAA): The Impact of Europe’s Policies and Practices on African Agriculture and Food Security, July 2010, p.5. 4 Cotula, L., Vermeulen, S., Leonard, R., and Keeley, J., Land Grab or Development Opportunity? Agricultural Investment and International Land Deals in Africa, Rome/London, Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN / International Fund for Agricultural Development / International Institute for Environment and Development, 2009.http://www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?o=12561IIED . 5 Borras S. Jr and Franco J., Towards a Broader View of the Politics of Global Land Grab: Rethinking Land Issues, Reframing Resistance, ICAS Working Paper Series No. 001, May 2010. 6 Hall R., The Many Faces of the Investor Rush in Southern Africa: Towards a Typology of Commercial Land Deals, ICAS Working Paper Series No. 002, February 2011, p.4.