Land grabbing in Uruguay: new forms of land concentration

ABSTRACTThis article contributes to the global discussion on land grabbing with a study of the Uruguayan case. With focus on the phenomenon’s presence, magnitude, forms and causes, we identified intensification in the historical land concentration process headed by large-scale agrarian companies. This process is characterised both by qualitative and quantitative changes. Quantitative because it intensified land concentration by displacing family farmers and also part of the agrarian bourgeoisie; and qualitative because it caused the emergence of institutional landownership as a result of appropriation of ground rent and investment in land to hoard value and valorise assets.