July 16, 2025
Nearly fifteen years after the adoption of the milestone land tenure guidelines (VGGT Land tenure) and almost twenty years after the first International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD), land inequality remains a significant and pressing issue. Around the world, the farmers and communities who deliver food security and steward ecosystems are being forced off the land – destroying livelihoods and driving poverty and hunger. In addition to conventional land grabs, huge swathes of farmland, forests, coastal lands, and Indigenous Peoples’ territories are now being snapped up for carbon offsets and other forms of ‘green grabbing’ – as part of an unprecedented global land squeeze. The spread of industrial agriculture is also ramping up the pressures on smallholders and other land users.
Traction for these issues is now growing, and the coming year offers major opportunities to bring land back to the top of the political agenda. In February 2026, the Government of Colombia will host the Second International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20), with representatives from over 100 countries.
The recent webinar, Land Reform at a Crossroads, co-hosted by IPES-Food and the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC), gathered together the broader community of people working on land inequality and food systems, to discuss perspectives and opportunities of engaging with the ICARRD+20 conference
Rewatch the webinar