---
title: food security without the land grab
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/food-security-without-the-land-grab
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/food-security-without-the-land-grab.md
subtitle: "a deed buys the right to farm. it does not buy the aquifer. fund the condition, not the title."
category: nature-finance
---

# food security without the land grab

*a deed buys the right to farm. it does not buy the aquifer. fund the condition, not the title.*

Foreign farmland investment is how a state that cannot grow enough of its own food tries to secure it: buy farms, agribusinesses, and supply chains in countries with more farmland and water. Under every such deal sits something no deed can buy outright — an aquifer that recharges at its own pace, and soil that took centuries to form.

For the Gulf states, the mandate is real. They import up to about 85% of their food, and their sovereign funds and state vehicles carry that dependency as policy. The roadblock is that ownership abroad is the very thing host countries increasingly push back on.

Nothing here is investment, legal, or tax advice.

:::johnson
**fund the aquifer, not the deed.** — Food security is a dependency. The deed is only one way to hold it, and the one that draws the most fire.

[read the series hub →](/guide/sovereign-wealth-fund-risks?from=guide)
:::

## what foreign farmland investment is

**Foreign farmland investment** is the purchase or long-term lease of agricultural land, or of the companies that farm, trade and process food, by investors from another country. In the sovereign version, the investor is a state fund or state-owned company, and the goal is less a return than a supply line that keeps moving when markets tighten.

The recent deals are serious and large. SALIC, owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, completed the first tranche of its Olam Agri purchase on 27 April 2026: 44.58% for US$1.88 billion, taking it to 80.01% of a business valued at about US$4.0 billion, with an option on the rest within three years. ADQ in Abu Dhabi owns half of Al Dahra, an agribusiness with farmland across more than twenty countries.

These are not reckless bets. Owning origination, storage and logistics is a rational answer to a question a food-importing state cannot avoid: what happens when the exporters close the gate? [Food security is an ownership question](/guide/food-security-is-an-ownership-question?from=guide) — that post owns the four pillars. This one asks a narrower thing: what exactly does a sovereign buyer own when it buys a farm, and is that the thing it depends on?

## the backlash is about water and soil, not paperwork

**Arizona, 2023.** The state cancelled Fondomonte's lease in Butler Valley and declined to renew three others. Fondomonte, a subsidiary of the Saudi dairy company Almarai, grew alfalfa there to feed cattle in Saudi Arabia. The governor's office said the farm had pumped "unchecked amounts of groundwater" while in default on its lease; the company said it would appeal. The lease was a legal right. The groundwater was the thing people cared about.

**The United States, more broadly.** Under USDA's foreign-holdings reporting, foreign persons, from many countries, held an interest in about 46 million acres of US agricultural land at the end of 2024 — about 3.6% of private agricultural land once long-term leases are included, though the share depends on the denominator. Nearly half of it is forest. Holdings rose by 3.1 million acres in 2024, and many states have passed foreign-ownership restrictions since 2022.

**Elsewhere,** the same pattern shows up under a harsher name: land grab. Where tenure is customary, unwritten, or held by communities rather than individuals, a large foreign purchase can move the right to decide about a place away from the people who live on it. Host governments, farmers and Indigenous nations make that argument in their own words; we will not make it for them.

The common thread is simple. **A deed transfers the right to farm. It does not transfer the condition of the aquifer or the soil — and it can move the decision about that condition to someone far away.** That is the part that draws fire.

## the dependency is on the place, not the deed

| What the buyer needs | What a deed gives | What it does not give |
|---|---|---|
| A harvest next year and in twenty years | The right to plant and sell | Recharge of the aquifer under the field |
| Stable supply through shocks | Control of one farm's output | The health of the catchment and soil the district shares |
| Political permission to keep operating | Legal title | Local consent, which can be withdrawn |
| A defensible story at home and abroad | An asset on the balance sheet | Evidence the place is better, not worse, for the purchase |

A food-importing state depends on the productive condition of a living system: the water table, the soil, the pollinators, the catchment above the irrigation intake. Ownership is one way to hold exposure to that condition. It is also the way most likely to trigger the backlash that ends the arrangement.

> **Food security is a dependency on a living place. Paying for that place's condition is a way to hold it that does not require owning the ground.**

## how ensurance holds the dependency instead of the land

[Ensurance](/guide/what-is-ensurance?from=guide) is a system of accounts and instruments for natural assets. It gives the living base its own address, and lets anyone who depends on it pay into that address in the open.

**An agent for the place.** The aquifer recharge zone, the catchment above the intake, the soil of a farming district: each can be represented by an agent with its own account. The agent is the address; the place is the subject. An agent should be opened with the people who hold the place, never over their heads. Where tenure is customary or Indigenous, their consent and terms come first, and they can say no.

**A certificate that carries no title.** A certificate is a record of a hold on a named agent, one to one, priced on the cost of protecting the place. Ensurance has two kinds. A *policy* carries legal title. A *line* carries none. A foreign sovereign that wants to support a farming district's water and soil can hold lines: nothing about the land's ownership moves, and no land transfer is involved. The certificate is not a claim on the land, not debt, and not a security over anyone's farm. [What a natural capital certificate actually holds](/guide/what-a-natural-capital-certificate-actually-holds?from=guide) goes deeper.

**Proceeds to the place first, then its keepers.** Money that reaches the agent's account funds the natural asset first — recharge works, soil cover, the riparian strip — and then the people who keep it: farmers, the water users' association, the land steward. Those are local people with names.

**A value you can read.** RealValue, the natural capital accounting engine, values the living work of a place (ecosystem service value per acre per year, times condition, across 15 stocks and 19 flows) and sets it beside the price of protecting it. A fund's board and the host government's public can both see what the payment buys.

**A dependency that is public.** Every flow to the agent's account sits on a public ledger, addressed to the place it serves. The foreign payor is visible as a payor, not as an owner. It may change the conversation from "who bought our land?" to "who is paying to keep our water?" Host communities will say which it is.

| | Buying the farm | Funding the condition |
|---|---|---|
| What moves | Title or a long lease | Money, into the place's own account |
| Who decides about the land | The foreign owner | Whoever already does — the owner, the community, the state |
| Screening exposure | Often high: foreign land and food deals draw review in many places | Our judgment: lower, because no title moves. Counsel decides, not us |
| What the payor gets | A farm's output | A healthier supply base, on the record |
| Story abroad | Land grab, water export | A named payor for named water |

Supply contracts still matter. A sovereign buyer still needs offtake, storage and logistics. Funding the condition sits underneath those, on the living base they draw on. It does not replace them.

## the objections, honestly

**"We need tonnes, not stewardship."** Yes. Tonnes come from a soil and a water table. A buyer that funds the condition of a sourcing region protects next decade's tonnes.

**"Host governments may not want foreign money in their watersheds either."** Some will not, and that is their decision. What changes is the shape of the ask: money arrives with no title attached, into an account the host side can see, and the decisions about the place stay where they were. That may be easier to say yes to. It is no guarantee.

**"Does this work at sovereign scale?"** One place, one agent, one account at a time. Groups and pools aggregate many places. [Why a sovereign fund cannot buy nature at scale](/guide/why-a-sovereign-fund-cannot-buy-nature-at-scale?from=guide) takes that question on directly.

## why it matters now

In the US sources above, the direction is more scrutiny of foreign land and water holdings, not less. A state whose food security depends on farms abroad faces a choice between holding more title and drawing more screening, or finding a way to hold the dependency that host countries can accept. Paying for the condition of the places it relies on, in public, with the money reaching local stewards, may be one of those ways.

It also points food-security money at places where it is needed: the [aquifers being drawn down](/guide/ogallala-aquifer-natural-capital-crisis?from=guide), the [soils washing off the field](/guide/who-pays-to-keep-the-soil-on-the-land?from=guide), the [recharge work that refills them](/guide/managed-aquifer-recharge?from=guide).

## frequently asked questions

### what is foreign farmland investment?

Foreign farmland investment is the purchase or long-term lease of agricultural land, or of food companies, by investors from another country. Sovereign funds do it mainly to secure food supply.

### why do sovereign wealth funds buy farmland abroad?

To secure food for countries that import most of what they eat. The Gulf states import up to about 85% of their food, and their state investors hold farms and supply chains abroad as a hedge against shocks.

### what is the land-grab criticism?

That large foreign purchases can move control of land and water away from the people who live on it, especially where tenure is customary or unwritten. Disputes are often about water, as in Arizona's 2023 decision on Fondomonte's leases.

### can a fund support food security without buying land?

Yes. It can pay for the condition of the water, soil and catchments its supply depends on. In ensurance that payment goes into the account of an agent for the place, through a line certificate that carries no title.

## next steps

If you hold a food-security mandate, start with your dependency, not your deeds: which aquifers, catchments and soils does your supply actually stand on? Then see [natural assets](/natural-assets?from=guide) and [certificates](/specific?from=guide) to see how a place gets its own account, and at [what ensurance offers governments](/solutions/governments?from=guide&topic=sovereign-wealth) and [investors](/solutions/investors?from=guide&topic=sovereign-wealth).

If you want to talk through a sourcing region, [get in touch](/contact?from=guide&topic=sovereign-wealth).

## sources

[Olam Group — completion of Tranche 1 sale of Olam Agri to SALIC, 27 April 2026](https://www.olamgroup.com/content/dam/olamgroup/news-press-releases/press-release-pdfs/27apr2026-olam-agri-sale-news-release.pdf) — 44.58% for US$1.88bn, 80.01% total, US$4.0bn implied value

[PIF newswire — SALIC raises stake in Olam Agri to 80%](https://www.pif.gov.sa/en/news-and-insights/newswire/2026/salic-raises-stake-in-olam-agri-to-80-for-stronger-role-in-global-food-supply-chains/) — SALIC is PIF-owned

[AgriInvestor — ADQ acquires 50% of Al Dahra](https://agriinvestor.com/abu-dhabi-s-adq-acquires-50-percent-stake-in-al-dahra-amid-food-security-push) — ADQ's stake

[CIDOB — Gulf states seek food security in Europe and the US](https://cidob.org/en/CIDOB-in-media/gulf-states-seek-food-security-europe-us-after-african-problems) — Gulf food import dependence

[AP via KSAT — Arizona to cancel leases allowing Saudi-owned farm access to state's groundwater, 3 October 2023](https://www.ksat.com/news/national/2023/10/03/arizona-to-cancel-leases-allowing-saudi-owned-farm-access-to-states-groundwater/) — Fondomonte, Butler Valley

[farmdoc daily — foreign ownership of US agricultural land, September 2026](https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2026/09/foreign-ownership-of-us-agricultural-land.html) — AFIDA figures and the denominator caveat

[Congressional Research Service — Foreign Investment in U.S. Agricultural Land: Current Issues (IF13255)](https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/IF13255.html) — state restrictions and reporting limits

## the series

- [the risks a sovereign wealth fund cannot sell](/guide/sovereign-wealth-fund-risks?from=guide)
- [the universal owner cannot sell the ground](/guide/the-universal-owner-cannot-sell-the-ground?from=guide)
- [the heritage fund that grows back](/guide/the-heritage-fund-that-grows-back?from=guide)
- [food security without the land grab](/guide/food-security-without-the-land-grab?from=guide)
- [why a sovereign fund cannot buy nature at scale](/guide/why-a-sovereign-fund-cannot-buy-nature-at-scale?from=guide)
- [a public account for the public wealth](/guide/a-public-account-for-the-public-wealth?from=guide)
- [what a national wealth fund could hold at home](/guide/what-a-national-wealth-fund-could-hold-at-home?from=guide)