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Abstract
The increasing demand for agricultural products and the
uncertainty of international food markets has recently drawn the attention of
governments and agribusiness firms toward investments in productive
agricultural land, mostly in the developing world. The targeted countries are
typically located in regions that have remained only marginally utilized
because of lack of modern technology. It is expected that in the long run large
scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) for commercial farming will bring the
technology required to close the existing crops yield gaps. While the extent of
the acquired land and the associated appropriation of freshwater resources have
been investigated in detail, the amount of food this land can produce and the
number of people it could feed still need to be quantified.