Claire Provost, writing for the Guardian:
Researchers estimate that more than 200m hectares (495m acres) of land – roughly eight times the size of the UK – were sold or leased between 2000 and 2010. Details of 1,006 deals covering 70.2m hectares mostly in Africa, Asia and Latin America were published by the Land Matrix project, an international partnership involving five major European research centres and 40 civil society and research groups from around the world.
That’s almost 5 percent of Africa’s agricultural land. Bad news for a continent that already has trouble growing enough food to feed its people.