This book deals with recent reports of large-scale acquisitions of farmland in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere, by both domestic and foreign interests. Although agricultural investment is to be welcomed, history as well as current concerns suggest that such development may lead to social inequalities, rural poverty and environmental degradation. Analysis of several hundred reported acquisitions (purchases, long leases, transfers, etc.) in 2008–2009, and detailed investigation in 14 countries ranging from Ethiopia to the Ukraine, suggest that many such projects have failed (as yet) to produce many actual outcomes, let alone successful and generally beneficial ones, and that the technical, economic and social risks associated with such investments are ‘immense’. Nevertheless, there are obvious opportunities for improving food security and rural poverty via reduction of yield gaps and for bringing public benefits through education, organization and infrastructure. While for many countries improving small-farmer productivity will have a much larger impact on poverty reduction than large-scale land acquisition, some countries do offer opportunities for exploitation of land with unused agro-ecological and economic potential, at low environmental and social cost. In five chapters, the case is made for an ‘evidence-based multistakeholder approach’, involving stronger and more transparent land governance and more equal partnerships such as contract farming and benefit-sharing by smallholders.