The Global Land Grab - What is land grabbing? - The term ‘land grabbing’ re-emerged on the international stage in the context of a spike in global food prices in 2007-2008. The media spotlight was initially focused on new players like Saudi Arabia and South Korea potentially acquiring vast areas of land in developing nations like Madagascar and Ethiopia to grow food for their own people amidst a fear of food scarcity. Prominent international development think-tanks helped to reinforce this framing.

http://www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/download/landgrabbingprimer_0.pdf