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Running out of farmland? Investment discourses, unstable land values and the sluggishness of asset making

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  • Oane Visser

    (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Abstract

This article critically analyzes the assumption that land is becoming increasingly scarce and that, therefore, farmland values are bound to rise across the globe. It investigates the process of land value creation, as well as its flipside: value erosion and stagnation, looking at the various mechanisms involved in each. As such, it is a study of how the financialization of agriculture affects the process of land commoditization. I show that, for farmland to be turned into an asset, a whole range of conditions have to be fulfilled, presenting a typology of asset making in the context of farmland. Asset making, like commoditization, is a process of assemblage, and it is less straightforward and less stable than generally assumed. Further, I argue that ‘asset making’ is not a one-way process. The article is based on an analysis of global data on land values and the case of farmland investment in post-Soviet farmland (Russia and Ukraine).

Suggested Citation

  • Oane Visser, 2017. "Running out of farmland? Investment discourses, unstable land values and the sluggishness of asset making," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(1), pages 185-198, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:34:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s10460-015-9679-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-015-9679-7
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Klaus Deininger & Derek Byerlee & Jonathan Lindsay & Andrew Norton & Harris Selod & Mercedes Stickler, 2011. "Rising Global Interest in Farmland : Can it Yield Sustainable and Equitable Benefits?," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2263.
    2. Derek Hall, 2013. "Primitive Accumulation, Accumulation by Dispossession and the Global Land Grab," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(9), pages 1582-1604, October.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Jennifer Clapp & S. Ryan Isakson, 2018. "Risky Returns: The Implications of Financialization in the Food System," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 49(2), pages 437-460, March.
    2. Sarah Ruth Sippel, 2023. "Tackling land’s ‘stubborn materiality’: the interplay of imaginaries, data and digital technologies within farmland assetization," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(3), pages 849-863, September.
    3. Oane Visser, 2021. "Persistent farmland imaginaries: celebration of fertile soil and the recurrent ignorance of climate," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 38(1), pages 313-326, February.
    4. Lars Isenhardt & Stefan Seifert & Silke Hüttel, 2023. "Tenant Favoritism and Right of First Refusals in Farmland Auctions: Competition and Price Effects," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 99(2), pages 302-324.
    5. Justyna Agnieszka Franc-Dabrowskaa, 2019. "Crawling financialization in Central and Eastern Europe using the example of Agriculture," Economia agro-alimentare, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 21(3), pages 677-696.
    6. Michaela Böhme, 2021. "‘Milk from the purest place on earth’: examining Chinese investments in the Australian dairy sector," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 38(1), pages 327-338, February.
    7. Sarah Ruth Sippel & Oane Visser, 2021. "Introduction to symposium ‘Reimagining land: materiality, affect and the uneven trajectories of land transformation’," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 38(1), pages 271-282, February.
    8. Madeleine Fairbairn & Jim LaChance & Kathryn Teigen De Master & Loka Ashwood, 2021. "In vino veritas, in aqua lucrum: Farmland investment, environmental uncertainty, and groundwater access in California’s Cuyama Valley," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 38(1), pages 285-299, February.
    9. Borras, Saturnino M. & Franco, Jennifer C. & Moreda, Tsegaye & Xu, Yunan & Bruna, Natacha & Afewerk Demena, Binyam, 2022. "The value of so-called ‘failed’ large-scale land acquisitions," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    10. Frantz Gheller, 2018. "Governing large-scale farmland acquisitions in Québec: the conventional family farm model questioned," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 35(3), pages 623-636, September.
    11. Sarah Ruth Sippel, 2018. "Financialising farming as a moral imperative? Renegotiating the legitimacy of land investments in Australia," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(3), pages 549-568, May.
    12. Alexandra Langford & Geoffrey Lawrence & Kiah Smith, 2021. "Financialization for Development? Asset Making on Indigenous Land in Remote Northern Australia," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 52(3), pages 574-597, May.

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