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Land Grabbing in Latin America
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Transcript of Land Grabbing in Latin America
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Land grabbing in Latin America: another natural resource curse?
Agostina Costantino
Abstract
In recent years there has widespread in Latin America a phenomenon that, at first, had
emerged in African countries.
Faced with the explanations of multilateral agencies regarding that these investments are
directed towards resource-rich countries, in this paper we argue that this explanation seems
insufficient. Our hypothesis is that the rich endowment of natural resources in our region
cannot explain why is rising the transfer of land to foreign investors, as a natural curse, by
contrast the deepening of development models based almost exclusively on the exploitation
of these resources seems to be the key, so that the role of states in this process would beessential. In fact, the emergence of many governments self-called progressive orleftish
in the region has not reversed the structural dependency of the natural resources extractive
development model, but in fact it has deepened it.
Key words
Land grabbing; Latin America; accumulation pattern; natural resources; new extractivism
1) Introduction
After the 2008 global crisis (which emerged in the financial sector but had structural causes,
with clear effects on the food and energy sectors), growing concern arised about a
phenomenon that had first manifested itself in many African countries: the "land grabbing".
This phenomenon refers to the acquisition (purchase or lease) of large extensions of land by
foreign investors (government or private). In Latin America the concern about it begins
around 2010 with a regional report prepared by FAO.
The process of land grabbing in Latin America has some features that differentiate it
from most studied processes in other places, including African countries (S. Borras, Kay, &
Gomez, 2012). Among them, a remarkable one is that flex crop production (crops that have
multiple and flexible uses, like fuel and human or animal food) demanded by the world
market causes land grab in African countries since the 2008 crisis, while in Latin America
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began to be mass produced since the late nineties. The emergence of many self-called
progressive or leftish governments in the region has not reversed the structural
dependency of the natural resources extractive development model, but in fact it has
deepened it. Although theyve introduced some variations (as the greater role of the state, for
instance), these governments are leading to processes classified as "new extractivism"
(Gudynas, 2009), "the commodities consensus" (Svampa, 2013), "postneoliberalism"
(Sammartino, 2010), "rentier populism" (Arenas, 2010), etc. What these authors are pointing
out is that this primary export-led development model is the funding basis for many of the
social policies implemented in these countries, so far that, instead of questioning Latin
American countries external integration as commoditys providers, South America's
progressive governments have deepened these relationships with the justification that the
extractivism is a necessary condition for development and for poverty reduction.Some authors, in a pretty simplistic way, classify countries between "landgrabbers
countries, poor in natural resources" and "landgrabbed countries, rich in natural resources"
(Deininger & Byerlee, 2011), stating that foreign land investment would only be guided to
countries that are rich in natural resources (fertile land, water, etc..). What we discuss in this
paper is whether this explanation is enough to understand why has land grabbing increasingly
widespread in Latin America -what we shall call here the "direction" of land grabbing. Our
hypothesis is that the rich endowment of natural resources in our region cannot explain why
the transfer of land to foreign investors is rising, as it poses the problem as a natural curse, to
which policy should only stare aside. On the contrary, the deepening of development models
based almost exclusively on the exploitation of these resources seems to be the key to
understand this process, so that the role played by the states is an essential one.
This paper is structured as it follows: we present the main causes of the rise of land
grabbing worldwide in section 2, while in the next section we present the main debates about
the causes of the "direction" of land grabbing. In section 4, we make an exploratory exercise,
trying to assess the relevance of the explanatory variables in the works discussed in the
previous section. Finally, the essay finishes with some final comments and a whole
consideration.
2) Land grabbing: drivers
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Scholars usually group the explanatory drivers of land grabbing in two groups: the economic
ones and those related to public policy.
Among the first, it is often remarked the rise in food and raw material prices
experienced since the late nineties, which makes investment in agriculture increasingly
profitable. According to Cotula (2012), these investments include the entire agricultural
value chain, from the direct control of the land to the provision of services or the production
of fertilizers. Another explaining driver of the land grabbing that could be considered
primarily economic is the phenomenon of financialization of agriculture, understood as the
major attraction that started having land as an investment option not only for agribusiness
companies but by financial operators interested in rising returns and reducing risks (Cotula,
2012; HLPE, 2011). The reasons for this financialization are, on the one hand, related to the
increase in land value due to the increase in food prices mentioned above and, on the otherhand, to the search for portfolios risk reduction after the 2008 crisis. The land is seen, in this
sense, as a safe asset with higher expected returns.1 The GRAIN organization has released a
list of land investments in pension funds from public and private high-income countries such
as the United States, Denmark, New Zealand, Switzerland, Germany and the UK, showing
the enormous dynamism of this activity (GRAIN, 2012).
Among the second kind of drivers, related to the public policy factors, it is often to
find mentioned the action of some governments, such as China and Saudi Arabia, in response
to the problem of food security arising from the volatility in food prices. In this regard, the
governments of some countries support land investments abroad (either directly from public
finance or through private investments) to ensure the supply of soybean, palm, rice, wheat
and sugar, among others (SM Borras, Hall, Scoones, White, & Wolford, 2011; Cotula, 2012;
HLPE, 2011). In addition to food security, public policies to support investment in overseas
land may also be motivated by considerations about business opportunities (such as "Going
Global" strategy which has China since 1999 to create business opportunities outside the
country) or geopolitics (for instance, chinese investment in Southeast Asia or Libyan
investments in Sub-Saharan Africa) (Cotula, 2012). A final political strategy that has a great
influence on the global land grab is the mandatory requirement set by the European Union to
1 Although the land has always been regarded as a safe asset within countries, the novelty is that now it has aglobal valorization.
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replace 5% of the fossil fuels used for transportation with biofuels by 2020 (BBC, 2012;
Swinnen, Vranken, & Stanley, 2006).
These are the main explanatory factors found in literature to explain why the problem
of land grabbing arose. Strikingly, they all refer to the incentives of land grabbers
(governments and companies) to make these investments at global level, but cannot
distinguish why investors target into particular countries to acquire land, and not others (and
why governments or individuals in recipient countries also adopt the counterpart strategy).
The factors above listed refer to the underlying causes of land grabbing phenomenon itself,
but do not explain why such land is grabbed in Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and Argentina and not
in Canada, USA and South Africa. Despite the importance of this question, there is very little
research about.
3) The reasons for the land grabbing "direction"
As noted, the purpose of this work is not to investigate the causes that explain why did the
phenomenon of land grabbing arose (which is already very well explained in the literature)
or its impact on recipient countries, but the reasons that explain why investors choose certain
countries (and not others) to acquire land. That is, we will try to explain the land grabbing
"direction", where investments are directed to.
3.1) Natural resources: the sole explanatory factor?
According to Deininger and Byerlee (2011), in their paper for the World Bank, countries that
attract the interest of investors are those where there is abundant land. They say land grabbing
is oriented to countries with adequate available land (as in many Latin American countries),
prescribing that if in these cases property rights are secure, markets function well, and areas
of high social or environmental value are effectively protected (possibly using market
mechanisms such as payments for environmental services), the role of the public sector will
be primarily regulatory.
The use of "natural resource endowment" as the sole explanatory variable of some
economic and political phenomena comes from a classic discussion on if these resources are
a "curse" or a "blessing" for the country that owns them. The positions regarding the role of
natural resources are diverse; we summarize those we consider to be most important.
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First of all, the neoclassical theory of trade (the "Heckscher-Ohlin model") states that
countries have comparative advantages in those goods that are intensive in the countrys
relatively more abundant factors (Wash, 1977). Therefore, it will be efficient and beneficial
to specialize in the production of these goods. With this same position, one can find some
ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) studies which insist
on the potential of the natural resource-based networks as platforms for development (Marin,
German Navas, & Perez, 2009, Perez, 2010). These are the underlying theories on the
explanations that pose land grabbing as positive for the country's development, explaining
by the sole abundance of suitable land for the production of goods in which the country has
comparative advantages (in this case, agricultural goods) (De Schutter, 2009; Deininger &
Byerlee, 2011; Swinnen et al., 2006; Yew, 2003).
Second, there is a huge literature production holding that the country possession ofabundant natural resources is necessarily a curse to its growth (Gylfason, 2004; Sachs &
Warner, 2001). They say that these countries tend to grow at lower rates than resource-poor
countries, as the "natural capital" expels foreign capital, social capital, human capital,
physical capital and financial capital. Even more, they encourage corruption and diminish
political freedoms. This is the "neoclassical" version of the problem known as "Dutch
disease", through which if a country experiences a price boom of some of its abundant
resources, appreciation in the exchange rate caused by capital inflows will decrease the
returns of other tradable sectors, whose production will no longer be viable. These theories
are the underlying explanations of land grabbing as a negative feature for a countrys
development, and they also explain this grabbing as a direct result of natural resource
abundance (Sauer & Pereira Leite, 2011).
Finally, the structural approach denies the previous two: natural resources, in
themselves, are not a curse or a blessing for the country that has them (ECLAC, 2012, Palma,
2005; Puyana & Thorp, 1998; Sinnott & Nash, 2010), as it is shown by the examples of
developed economies rich in natural resources such as Australia, Denmark, Finland, New
Zealand, etc. This means that natural resources do not necessarily represent a curse but can
serve as a basis for structural change. This is, in fact, a matter of economic policy. But to
change the production structure it is also required to challenge the regions inclusion in the
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world. This would modify both the orientation of financial flows to the region, as the fate
and direction of international trade (Boron, 2008; dos Santos, 1998).
The latter position on the role of natural resources for the countrys development will
be the basis for the hypothesis of this work: the land grabbing "curse" (or "blessing") is not
a necessary consequence of being a land (natural resources) rich country; the role of the state
and the power of economic forces (landlords, financial groups, etc.) in these countries is
essential to understand this phenomenon. Indeed, it is necessary to consider the nature of the
political economy or "the way in which rational actors motivated by self-interest, combine
forces and use the existing formal and informal institutions, to influence and affect in their
favor, the social outcomes"(Frieden, 1991, p. 15,16). The interactions between the orientation
of the economy and the exercise of political power within the states are what give the green
light to land grabbing. So, what other factors, besides the abundance of natural resources,could explain land grabbing in Latin America?
3.2) Other factors that could explain the land grabbing "direction"
Although they are not so many, there are some studies that focus on why investors are
directed to certain countries to acquire land.
Lavers (2012) explains land grabbing in Ethiopia as a result of the specific role played
by the government to achieve political and economic objectives. Visser and Spoor (2011)
found that the factors that explain land investment in post-Soviet Eurasia countries (Russia,
Ukraine and Kazakhstan) are low prices of land (10 to 15 times lower than in Argentina and
Brazil), the existence of infrastructure and that northern lands climate conditions are
expected to be agriculturally viable as a result of climate change. Similarly, Hall (2012) notes
that many South African producers are buying up land in other African countries financed
by foreign funds, and yet they do not go to any country. They go where there is cheap land,
water, labor and favorable tax conditions, in order to export to markets that seem more
lucrative (limited by the constraints of the funders).
In this regard, many of these studies point out the importance of both domestic
producers and the receptors states in the process of land grabbing. Cotula (2012) notes that
the role of domestic producers, as land grabbers as well as intermediaries and strategic
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partners for the international capital, is the continuation of a longer-term process in which
national elites have played the role of land "concentrators".
Regarding the role of state, Oxfam (2013) poses that land investors seem to choose
countries with "poor governance" (understood as poor state capacity to govern and decide
policies) in order to maximize profits and minimize paperwork and formalities. The study
measures governance through four indicators: voice and accountability, regulatory quality,
rule of law and control of corruption. The result was that 78% of the countries in which there
were land deals between 2000 and 2011 showed scores below average in these four key
indicators. In fact, in many cases, the amount of available land for investment did not appear
to be a significant factor in investment decisions. According to the article, weak governance
allows land grabbing because it helps investors to set aside rules and regulations that are
costly and time-consuming.Criticizing such studies that claim political instability and corruption as the explaining
factors of land grabbing, Borras et al. (2012) point out that studies about African countries
have treated states as "victims" of the grabbing process conducted by powerful governments
and foreign firms. Instead, the authors argue that states perform a contradictory task, driving
capital accumulation while, at the same time, trying to maintain a minimum level of political
legitimacy (for example, in the case of Argentina, this attempt to maintain legitimacy was
through the enactment of the Land Act). This contradictory role allows to understand some
reformist concessions when they occur.
In any case, we believe that states weakness or corruption are not the causes that
explain the direction of land grabbing, but are manifestations of a phenomenon that is earlier
in logical terms. This is what Gell (1973) names as "antecedent variable", which refers to
the existence of previous factors to both, dependent and independent variables; in this case
the relation between the two first variables takes place only thanks to the priority of a third
one. The next section presents the results of an exploratory exercise that will help us to outline
an explanatory hypothesis of our problem.
4) Differences between land grabbed and land grabbers countries: an exploratory
exercise
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As we have mentioned in the introduction to the problem, land grabbing is a not very long-
standing social phenomenon in the countries;2 therefore, most investigations are exploratory
and referred mainly to case studies (as discussed in previous section). One problem with these
approaches is that explanations of a phenomenon for a particular case may not be generalized
for all other cases. That is why we decided to conduct an exploratory test assessing whether
the variables mentioned by studies in paragraph 3 make a difference between land grabbed
and land grabbing countries. If this were so, these variables could give us a first
approximation to the hypotheses regarding the factors that explain the direction of land
grabbing to Latin America.
The explanatory dimensions used in many of these studies relate to: (i) the existence
of natural resources in land grabbed countries (Deininger & Byerlee, 2011; Deininger, 1999;
Hall, 2012), (ii) the existence of infrastructure in these countries (Visser & Spoor, 2011) and(iii) weak institutional and governance conditions (Oxfam, 2013). We add a fourth dimension
refers to the countriespattern of growth (GDP, external integration, sectorial distribution,
etc.), reflecting our hypothesis about the deepening of a development model based on the
natural resources exploitation.3 The variables selected for each dimension shown in Table 1.4
2 The most similar antecedent, historically and geographically limited, would be the XVIII-XIX centuryenclave economies, where foreign powers controlled the entire capital and resources involved in operations
in outlying regions (Cardoso & Faletto, 1986). However, this is a description of the context of colonial or newlyindependent economies: it would be an anachronism to compare without some cares.3 Although the semantic differences involved, for the purposes of the present discussion, we will useinterchangeably pattern of growth, development model and accumulation pattern. We offer a synthetic
definition later.4 We understand that variables included in the "governance" dimension have many problems since: (i) they aresubjective variables relating to the perception of people towards corruption, transparency, etc. in country; and(ii) we consider political variables involved in land grabbing are directly linked to economic issues and thereforecannot be studied separately (well return to this in the formulation of the hypothesis). Moreover, the absenceof such data for a large number of countries difficults the attempt to generalize differences.
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Table 1. Dimensions and variables in land grabbing by state of art
Dimensions Variables
NATURALRESOURSES
Agricultural area (has.)
Agricultural area per cpita
Freshwater resources renewable internal (billion cubic meters)
ECONOMY
GDP (2000 US$ constant prices)
GDP per cpita (2000 US$ constant prices)
Manufacturing, value added (% GDP)
Manufactured goods exports (% of merchandise exports)
Net capital account (BoP, current U.S. $)
Cost to export (U.S. $ per container)
INFRAESTRUCTUREQuality of port infrastructure (1 = very poor to 7 = good developmentand efficient by international standards)
Index ocean freight connectivity (maximum value in 2004 = 100)
GOVERNABILITY
Rating of property rights and government (1 = low to 6 = high)
Rating quality of public administration (1 = low to 6 = high)
Rating of policies and institutions for environmental sustainability (1 =low to 6 = high)
Rating of transparency, accountability and corruption in the publicsector (1 = low to 6 = high)
Taking advantage of the online database on land grabbing "Land matrix", we built
our own base including the variables mentioned in Table 1.5 In order to analyze the database,we have clustered countries into three groups: only land grabbed countries (refers to countries
that are grabbed but not hoard land in other countries); only land grabbers countries (refers
to countries that are hoarders but not grabbed by other countries) and countries we call
"mixed" (refers to countries that, besides of being grabbed, are grabbing in other countries).
The list of countries within the three groups is in Table 2, where we also include whether
mixed countries are net grabbed or net grabbers (as if the difference between the land
5 "Land Matrix" is a database constructed by several organizations (such as International Land Coalition, Centrede Coopration Internationale pour le Dveloppement Recherche Agronomique and Deutsche Gesellschaft frInternationale Zusammenarbeit, etc.) that includes information on land acquisitions for agricultural production,timber extraction, carbon trading, mineral extraction, conservation and tourism. Records are derived from avariety of sources, including information provided by the Land Matrix website, press releases, reports frominternational organizations and local NGOs and research projects in the field, web sites company andgovernment records.
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captured by other countries and the land captured by them in other countries is whether
positive or negative, respectively).
Table 2. List of countries and their classification according to their status of grabbing
Only grabbed countries Only grabber countriesMixed countries/net
outcome
Angola Austria ArgentinaNet
grabbed
Benin Belgium AustraliaNet
grabber
Bolivia Brunei Darussalam BrazilNet
grabbed
Cambodia Cote d'Ivoire Burkina FasoNet
grabber
Cameroon Canada ChinaNet
grabber
Chile Cyprus ColombiaNet
grabbed
Congo Denmark IndiaNet
grabber
Costa Rica Djibouti IndonesiaNet
grabbed
Democratic Republic of the
CongoEgypt Kenya
Net
grabbed
Ecuador Finland MalaysiaNet
grabber
Ethiopia France NigeriaNet
grabbed
Ghana GermanyRussian
Federation
Net
grabbed
Guatemala Iran (Islamic Republic of) South Africa Netgrabber
Lao People's Democratic
RepublicIsrael Turkey
Net
grabbed
Liberia Italy UgandaNet
grabbed
Madagascar Japan Viet NamNet
grabber
Malawi Kuwait
Mexico Lebanon
Mozambique Libya
Pakistan Luxembourg
Papua New Guinea Maldives
Peru Mauritius
Philippines Netherlands
Rwanda New Zealand
Senegal Norway
Sierra Leone Portugal
Solomon Islands Qatar
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Somalia Republic of Korea
Sudan Saudi Arabia
Suriname Singapore
Swaziland Spain
Ukraine Sweden
Zambia Switzerland
Zimbabwe Syrian Arab Republic
Thailand
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland
United States of America
To analyze which is the difference between different groups of countries we perform
several hypothesis tests of mean differences for each of the selected variables (Table 1)
comparing in pairs between the 3 groups. The result, as shown in Table 3, is that the onlyvariable that shows a statistically meaningful difference between the 3 groups of countries is
GDP per capita. That is, at least in general terms, the abundance of natural resources does
not appear to be a significant difference between grabbed and grabbers countries, so as it
happens with infrastructure or institutional issues. Therefore, these variables suggested by
the World Bank and other case studies (Section 3) do not appear adequate to explain the
direction of land grabbing. As we can see here, the relative wealth of the countries would be
the exception.
Table 3. Significant variables in testing mean differences among the three groups of countries
Mixed
countries
Only
grabbed
countries
Only
grabber
countries
Mixed
countries
There is nodifferences
GDP percapita*
Only
grabbed
countries
GDP percpita*
Notes: (*) The variable is significant at 10%.Source: Author's calculations based on World Bank (2013) and Land Portal (2012).
Further analysis of this variable is needed. The cross table below shows the land
grabbing classification of countries and the classification of countries according to income
level (World Bank), that is "low-income" countries (less than U$S 975 per capita); "lower
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middle income" countries (between U$S 976 and U$S 3,855 per capita); "upper middle
income" countries (between U$S 3,856 and U$S 11,905 per capita) and "high income"
countries (more than U$S 11,906 per capita).
Table 4. Cross table between land grabbing classification and income level of the countries
Low-income
Lower
middle
income
Upper
middle
income
High
incomeTotal (%)
Only
grabbed65,6 25,0 9,4 0,0 100
Only
grabber0,0 6,3 15,6 78,1 100
Mixed 40,0 26,7 26,7 6,7 100
Source: Author's calculations based on World Bank (2013) and Land Portal (2012).
As it can be seen in the table, the difference between groups of countries according
to income level is in fact significant: from the total of countries that are only grabbed, 90.5%
are low-income and lower middle income countries; on the contrary, 93.7 % of the only
grabbers countries are upper-middle and high income countries. Meanwhile, mixed countries
are a bit dispersed according to income level, but still 66.7% of them are low-income and
lower middle income countries. This coincides with the finding shown in Table 3 for which
there is no significant differences between countries that are only grabbed and mixed (not
just on GDP but also from any other variable).
Finally, as we noted too much dispersion within the groups in regard to theagricultural area (the standard deviation of this variable within each group was much larger
than the average), we decided to perform a new test but this time stratifying the groups of
countries according to this variable into 4 groups: countries with very low agricultural area
(less than 1 million hectares), countries with low agricultural area (between 1 million and 10
million hectares); countries with middle agricultural area (between 10 million and 100
million hectares), countries with high agricultural land (100 million hectares).
The first important result obtained from this stratification is shown in Table 5. In the
comparisons made in the first two layers (very low and low agricultural area) shows that
there are more significant variables, besides GDP per capita, that account for the differences
between countries: variables related to countries natural resource endowments (agricultural
land and water), economic structure (manufactured exports) and the countries infrastructure
(connectivity index or sea port infrastructure quality). This means that the World Bank's
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claim that land grabbing occurs in those countries with abundant natural resources seems to
be right only for these strata. But lets have a look at what happened in the comparison of the
countries belonging to the higher strata of agricultural area.
Table 5. Significant variables in comparison to the strata of countries with very low (less than 1 million
has.) and low agricultural area (between 1 and 10 million ha.)
Mixed Only grabbed Only grabber
Mixed
Agricultural area(has.)**
Agricultural area (has.)***
GDP per cpita*** Freshwater resources***
Index ocean freightconnectivity ***
GDP per cpita**
Only
grabbed
Superficieagrcola
(has.)**
GDP per cpita***
PIB percpita***
Manufactured goods exports*
ndice deconectividadde cargamartima***
Quality of port infrastructure**
Notes: (*) Variable significant at 10%, (**) Variable significant at 5%, (***) significant at 1% VariableSource: Author's calculations based on World Bank Land Matrix.
Table 6 shows the significant variables in the comparison between groups of countries
for major agricultural area strata (high and very high). Notice that in this case the results
coincide with the first comparison made (the entire unstratified database): the only variable
that makes a significant difference between countries is GDP per capita, and in this case also
the total GDP.
Table 6. Significant variables in comparison to the countries within middle (between 10 and 100 million
ha.) and high (more than 100 million ha.) agricultural area strata
Notes: (*) Variable significant at 10%, (**) Variable significant at 5%, (***) significant at 1% VariableSource: Author's calculations based on World Bank Land Matrix.
Summarizing, when comparing countries with lower agricultural area we found that
there are many differences between countries, not only in terms of GDP per capita, but also
in terms of natural resource endowment and infrastructure. Now, with increasing agricultural
area these differences are blurred, with GDP per capita as the only difference between
grabbed and grabbers countries. In short, it seems that the explanations provided by the
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World Bank as generals are only valid for the case of countries with less agricultural area; in
other countries the existence of agricultural land seems insufficient to explain the land
grabbing. In fact, most of the case studies are African countries that have, on average, a lower
agricultural land than Latin American countries. That is, the explanation offered by the World
Bank seems to have had a serious error of sampling bias.
The finding of the income level as the fundamental difference between grabbed and
grabbers countries can give us some light in explaining the direction of land grabbing to Latin
America. While as an explanatory variable is still very general, it may be pointing the way
to give the explanation: both the amount and the form (structure) of the GDP of the countries
are part of the development model or pattern of accumulation conducted by these. A pattern
of accumulation refers to a specific operating mode of capitalist accumulation acquired over
a period of time and specific place (Osorio, 2008; Valenzuela Feijoo, 1990). This is the"footprint" that capital leaves while it searches its own accumulation: in what sectors it gets
done, how intense, how to distribute its results, how it fits into the global trade and finance,
etc. Changes the accumulation's pattern may be correlated to changes in the social structure
and the economic, political and ideological relationships between different social subjects.
"In this regard, the policy variable identification is critical to properly understand the
dynamics of a given pattern of accumulation." (Valenzuela Feijoo, 1990, p. 64). In this sense,
the pattern of accumulation is the visible result of the interaction between the intentions of
the capitalists and the constraints imposed by their own competence and their dispute with
the popular sectors (Briones, 1988).
In this sense, according to some scholars (Gudynas, 2009; Osorio, 2004; Svampa,
2013), the XXI century marked the deepening of a pattern of accumulation started decades
ago in Latin America, adopting new features, such as the economies reprimarization and the
heavy weight of activities that generate little value in the economic structures, and a greater
role of the state in extractive activities surpluses uptake (a condition of possibility for the co-
existence of this pattern of accumulation with progressive governments). ECLAC talks about
a perverse path dependence, where the increase in international prices tied to a primarized
production structure, exacerbating the latter to encourage investment in the same sectors
(ECLAC, 2012). Even more, it keeps other typical features of the previous stage, such as
permissive legislation, the "legal certainty" regarding the management and ownership of
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