Land grabbing in Central and East Germany

On December 10, 2019, the topic of one of the public lectures in the Master’s program in International Social Sciences was land grabbing in Central and East Germany. Lisa Eberberg from the Institute of Agricultural Studies of Braunschweig gave the talk.

Land grabbing takes place all over the world. In Ethiopia and many other African countries, foreign investors buy land and frighten away local farmers. The same happens in Europe: Entire regions become the property of the agricultural industry, are bought up, used extensively and exploited as the foreign investors are only focusing on return and profit maximization, with no ties to regional and family traditions. Land prices have also doubled or tripled in Germany, dimensions, the local farmer usually cannot keep up with. The structural change in agriculture in Europe is shown by scientific studies, such as those conducted by the Institute of Agricultural and Food Sciences at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Researchers are sounding the alarm.