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displacement
US Pension Fund TIAA Linked to Brutal Land Grabs and Evictions of Farmers in Brazil
The 10 largest transnational landowners in the world control an area larger than Japan, according to a new report. This accumulation fuels human rights abuse, inequalities, and environmental destruction, and underlines the need for redistributive policies.
Jun 03, 2025
Angelim is a small rural community in Piauí, northeastern Brazil, where small-scale farmers and artisans have lived for generations. Their way of life dramatically changed a few years ago when a company arrived, claiming it had purchased the land. Residents report being threatened by armed men. They have faced forest clearances and the destruction of native vegetation that is essential for their livelihoods and way of life. New monoculture plantations began to dry up the wetlands. The plantations also used pesticides, polluting the ecosystem and threatening residents’ health and livelihoods.
Angelim is located in the municipality of Santa Filomena and is just one of many communities affected by land acquisitions by Radar Propriedades Agrícolas, a company formed in 2008 as a joint venture between U.S. pension fund TIAA and Brazilian agribusiness giant Cosan. In recent years, Radar has acquired more than 3,000 hectares in Santa Filomena, adding to the land it already owns throughout the Matopiba region, which includes the Brazilian states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí, and Bahia—the latest frontier of industrial agriculture in Brazil.
Elite Group
This region sits in the Cerrado, one of the world’s most biodiverse areas, home to 12,000 plant species (35% endemic) and 25 million people, including Indigenous Peoples and small-scale food providers. But 40-55% of the Cerrado has already been converted to commercial tree plantations, large agro-industrial monocultures, and pastures for cattle production. Land grabs, speculation, and deforestation are displacing communities and damaging the environment. One of the major players in this expansion is TIAA and its asset management company, Nuveen.
Tackling land inequality is crucial for a more just and sustainable future.
As revealed in our new report, TIAA is one of the world’s largest landowners and has almost quadrupled its landholdings since 2012. Managing 1.2 million hectares across 10 countries, it ranks 7th among the world’s top 10 transnational landowners, who together control 404,457 square kilometers—an area the size of Japan.
Others in this elite group include financial investors like Blue Carbon from the UAE, Australia-based Macquarie, and Canada’s Manulife; agribusiness giants Olam and Wilmar from Singapore; Chilean timber company Arauco; and U.K.-based Shell via Raízen, a Brazilian subsidiary.
Global Land Grabbing and Concentration Trends
This accumulation of land in the hands of a few transnational companies is part of a global trend of land grabbing that surged after the 2008 financial crisis. Since 2000, transnational investors have acquired an estimated 65 million hectares of land—twice the size of Germany. This has accelerated a dynamic of land concentration, which has resulted in 1% of farms controlling 70% of global farmland, a trend that jeopardizes the livelihoods of 2.5 billion smallholder farmers and 1.4 billion of the world’s poorest, most of whom depend on agriculture.
As the case of the Angelim community shows, land grabbing and land concentration have devastating consequences for communities and ecosystems. Like U.S.-based TIAA, virtually all the top global landowners have reportedly been implicated in forced displacements, environmental destruction, and violence against local people.
Land concentration exacerbates inequality, erodes social cohesion, and fuels conflict. But there are deeper consequences as well: The fact that vast tracts of land, located across different state jurisdictions, are brought under the control of distant corporate entities for the sake of global supply chains or global financial capital flows runs diametrically counter to the principles of state sovereignty and people’s self-determination. In particular, it undermines states’ ability to ensure that land tenure serves the public good and enables the transition to more sustainable economic models.
“Net Zero” Fueling Evictions
The question of who should own and manage land becomes even more pressing in light of climate change and biodiversity loss. Transnational landowners are associated with industrial monoculture plantations, deforestation, and other extractive practices. In contrast, up to 80% of intact forests are found on lands managed by Indigenous Peoples and other rural communities. Moreover, small-scale food providers practicing agroecology support higher biodiversity, better water management, and produce over half the world’s food using just 35% of global cropland.
Ironically, the environmental value of community-managed land has sparked a new wave of land grabs. So-called “green grabs” (land grabs for alleged environmental purposes) now account for about 20% of large-scale land deals. Since 2016, more than 5.2 million hectares in Africa have been acquired for carbon offset projects. The global carbon market is expected to quadruple in the next seven years, and over half of the top 10 global landowners now claim participation in carbon and biodiversity markets. “Net zero” has become a pretext for expelling communities from their lands.
From Deregulation to Redistribution
While global land policy debates in the past 10 years have focused on limiting the harm of land grabs on people and nature, the scale and severity of these trends demand a shift from regulation to redistribution. Neoliberal deregulation, as well as trade and other economic policies, have fueled the massive transfer of land and wealth to the corporate sector and the ultra-rich. Redistributive policies are needed to reverse this trend.
Tackling land inequality is crucial for a more just and sustainable future. However, only very few countries implement land policies and agrarian reform programs that actively attempt to redistribute and return land to dispossessed peoples and communities.
The international human rights framework requires states to structure their land tenure systems in ways that ensure broad and equitable distribution of natural resources and their sustainable use. The tools at the disposal of governments include redistribution, restitution, and the protection of collective and customary tenure systems, as well as measures such as ceilings on land ownership (including by corporate entities), protection and facilitation of use rights over publicly owned land, and participatory and inclusive land-use planning. These efforts must also be matched by redistributive fiscal policies, such as progressive land and property taxes, which remain regressive or ineffective in most countries today, thus perpetuating inequality and enabling wealth concentration.
International Cooperation
Because land grabbing is driven by global capital and the accumulation of land across jurisdictions by transnational corporations and financial entities, international cooperation is essential. The upcoming International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) in Colombia in February 2026 offers a critical moment for governments to agree on measures that end land grabbing, reverse land concentration, and ensure broad and sustainable distribution of natural resources.
To be effective, these discussions should connect with initiatives on a global tax convention and an international mechanism to address sovereign debt, empowering states to have the fiscal space to implement human rights-based, redistributive policies and just transitions. Also important are binding legal provisions that prevent transnational corporations from using the power of their money to bend national rules in their pursuit of profits.
In a world facing intersecting crises—climate breakdown, food insecurity, persisting poverty, and social inequality—and a reconfiguration of the global balance of power, there is an opportunity to move away from neoliberal policies that have benefited very few, and to create a more just and sustainable global future for all.
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Intensifying Israeli Onslaught Has Displaced 180,000 Palestinians in Just 10 Days
"They call places safe, then attack them," said one Palestinian aid worker. "I'd rather stay home with my family and face whatever comes, at least we all die together, rather than be separated."
May 27, 2025
A United Nations group said Tuesday that Israel's renewed ground offensive and continued airstrikes in the Gaza Strip displaced roughly 180,000 Palestinians in just 10 days this month, leaving desperate, starving families with nowhere to turn as Israeli forces target shelters and other civilian infrastructure.
The estimate from the International Organization for Migration's Global Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) Cluster came a day after the Israeli military bombed a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City, killing dozens.
CCCM said Tuesday that direct attacks on shelters for displaced people "have become common" in recent weeks as Israeli forces have moved ahead with Operation Gideon's Chariots, an expansion of Israel's devastating assault on the besieged Palestinian enclave. The official death toll from Israel's assault, which began in the wake of a Hamas-led attack in October 2023, surpassed 54,000 on Tuesday.
"Since the collapse of the cease-fire on 18 March, nearly 616,000 people have been displaced—multiple times, some as many as 10," said the U.N. group. "During the cease-fire, over half a million people went back to their homes, mostly in the north, to try to rebuild their lives. That fragile progress has now been reversed, as intensified military operations are once again displacing families away from the areas they had only recently returned to."
Citing humanitarian partners on the ground, CCCM noted that roughly 80% of the Gaza Strip is either under a displacement order or marked as a "no-go" zone, making most of the enclave's population vulnerable to Israel's ground and aerial onslaught.
"My sibling died in a 'safe' zone after they bombed it," one Palestinian aid worker told CCCM. "They call places safe, then attack them. I'd rather stay home with my family and face whatever comes, at least we all die together, rather than be separated."
CCCM also raised alarm over a newly launched aid scheme led by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private organization with ties to the U.S. and Israeli governments.
"These arrangements risk circumventing established humanitarian coordination mechanisms, undermining humanitarian principles, and putting civilians at further risk by promoting displacement without essential protection or adequate access to lifesaving services," the U.N. organization said.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor echoed that warning, saying in a statement that "all available information about the new Israeli mechanism clearly indicates that it is designed as a tool of coercive control over the Gaza Strip's civilian population."
"It limits families to just one aid parcel per week under highly restrictive security conditions, thus violating the principles of non-discrimination, adequacy, and continuity in humanitarian aid," the group said. "Such limited distribution is not a genuine humanitarian response, but a deliberate policy aimed at barely managing hunger, rather than actually alleviating it."
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'A Failure of Humanity': Acute Food Insecurity, Child Malnutrition Climb for Sixth Straight Year
"In a world of plenty, there is no excuse for children to go hungry or die of malnutrition. Hunger gnaws at the stomach of a child. It gnaws, too, at their dignity, their sense of safety, and their future," said the head of UNICEF.
May 16, 2025
Both child malnutrition and acute food insecurity rose for the sixth consecutive year in 2024, when more than 295 million people across 53 countries and territories endured severe hunger, according to a global report released Friday.
"This Global Report on Food Crises is another unflinching indictment of a world dangerously off course," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres wrote in the foreword of the annual publication, produced by the European Union-funded Food Security Information Network in partnership with U.N. agencies and other entities.
"From Gaza and Sudan, to Yemen, and Mali, catastrophic hunger driven by conflict and other factors is hitting record highs, pushing households to the edge of starvation," he warned. "Displacement has also surged, as violence and disasters rip families from their homes and condemn people of all ages to malnutrition and even death. Meanwhile climate extremes are growing in intensity—wreaking havoc on global food security, crippling harvests, and breaking supply chains."
"Hunger in the 21st century is indefensible."
Guterres argued that "this is more than a failure of systems—it is a failure of humanity. Hunger in the 21st century is indefensible...
Governments, businesses, and decision-makers must heed the clear warnings issued in this report."
In addition to the places Guterres spotlighted, countries that have the largest numbers or shares of people contending with high levels of acute food insecurity include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Myanmar, Namibia, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, and Zambia.
Last July, after over a year of civil war in Sudan, an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification panel declared a famine there, the first declaration since 2020. The IPC's Famine Review Committee has also warned of imminent famine in Gaza, the Palestinian territory that continues to endure a U.S.-backed Israeli military assault and humanitarian aid blockade, for which Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
The number of people enduring high levels of acute food insecurity rose by 13.7 million from 2023 to 2024. During that time, the number of people facing the worst level on the IPC scale—"catastrophe," or Phase 5—doubled to almost 2 million, "driven by conflict," the report states. "Over 95% of them were in Palestine (Gaza Strip) and the Sudan. South Sudan, Haiti, and Mali also had populations in this phase."
Over 35.1 million people in three dozen countries and territories experienced the next highest level, "emergency" or Phase 4, followed by around 190 million across 40 places who faced "crisis" or Phase 3. Another 344.7 million people in 39 nations were in Phase 2, or "stressed."
Some areas don't have IPC analyses. The publication notes that "in these cases, 68.2 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity" based on other reporting. While "conflict/insecurity" was the biggest driver of acute hunger last year, economic shocks and weather extremes also played major roles—and the report underscores "the interlinkages between drivers."
"For instance, conflict can exacerbate climate vulnerability by fueling environmental degradation and taking resources away from adaptation efforts," the report details. "Weather extremes can trigger or worsen conflict as groups compete over the changing availability and distribution of natural resources."
"Extreme weather events can cause economic shocks by damaging productive capital and infrastructure, disrupting economic activity, lowering productivity in agriculture, and diverting resources towards reconstruction," the report continues. "Economic shocks leading to unemployment and increasing levels of poverty can lead to social unrest, violence, conflict, and political instability."
This is the first Global Report on Food Crises to feature "nutrition crises" and "nutrition concerns." For the 53 countries and territories with data, 26 fell into the crisis category, and nearly all of them were in the IPC phase in which "at least 15% of children aged 6-59 months suffered from acute malnutrition."
"Around 37.7 million children suffered from acute malnutrition in the 26 countries/territories. Over 10 million of them had severe acute malnutrition. About 10.9 million pregnant and breastfeeding women in 21 of the countries were acutely malnourished," the report states. Sudan, Gaza, Mali, and Yemen "had the four most severe nutrition crises."
Catherine Russell, executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said in a Friday statement that "in a world of plenty, there is no excuse for children to go hungry or die of malnutrition. Hunger gnaws at the stomach of a child. It gnaws, too, at their dignity, their sense of safety, and their future."
"How can we continue to stand by when there is more than enough food to feed every hungry child in the world?" she asked. "How can we ignore what is happening in front of our eyes? Millions of children's lives hang in the balance as funding is slashed to critical nutrition services."
World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain also emphasized financial concerns, saying that "like every other humanitarian organization, WFP is facing deep budget shortfalls which have forced drastic cuts to our food assistance programs. Millions of hungry people have lost, or will soon lose, the critical lifeline we provide. We have tried and tested solutions to hunger and food insecurity. But we need the support of our donors and partners to implement them."
The Global Report on Food Crises reveals a staggering reality: 295 million people in 53 countries/territories faced high levels of acute food insecurity in 2024. At @fao.org we know that #AgricultureCan be the solution, but we need the right support. ➡️ bit.ly/4khEGCx #FightFoodCrises #GRFC2025
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— Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (@fao.org) May 16, 2025 at 6:11 AM
The report also has a section on displacement, which notes that "nearly all countries with food crises have large displaced populations, but data on their acute food insecurity status are only available in about a quarter of these countries, despite clear evidence regarding the specific challenges displaced people have in accessing food."
Last year, forced displacement in countries and territories with food crises continued rising, to 95.8 million people in 52 places, consisting of 71.8 million internally displaced persons and 24 million refugees.
Raouf Mazou from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said Friday that "as food insecurity worsens and humanitarian crises become more prolonged, we need to shift from emergency aid to sustainable responses. That means creating real opportunities—access to land, livelihoods, markets and services—so people can feed themselves and their families, not just today, but well into the future."
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