Land seven and a half times the size of the New Zealand was sold off globally in the last decade, enough to grow food for a billion people. This is the equivalent to the number of people who go hungry in the world today. Already an area of land the size of Auckland is being sold to foreign investors every four days in poor countries. As the world’s leading standard-setter and a big investor itself, the World Bank should freeze its own land investments and review its policy and practice to prevent land-grabbing. In the past the Bank has chosen to freeze lending when poor standards have caused dispossession and suffering. It needs to do so again, in order to play a key role in stopping the global land rush.
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