The Bill Gates thing inspired me to look into this. Apparently it has been going on for a while.

Some highlights:

1. Check out this graph: "The gray bars indicate “imports” – where the country listed is buying another country’s land – while the red bars indicate “exports,” or countries that are selling their land." https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/URV7N24WAI4LLF5N2XVFYF74CQ.png&w=540 Top land buying countries: US, China, UK Top land selling countries: Ethiopia, Philippines, Madagascar, Sudan, Mozambique, Tanzania

2. Water availability seems to be a big motivator. "The PNAS study found that foreign investors frequently buy tracts of land that have ample supplies of freshwater, through either local rainfall or underground aquifers. Water has become especially valuable given that supplies are increasingly under strain in countries like China, India, and the United States." https://www.vox.com/2014/11/20/7254883/farmland-trade-land-grab

3. This is causing foreign countries to buy farmland in other countries, such as Saudi Arabia's 2016 purchase of farmland in California and Arizona. "Saudi Arabia grows alfalfa hay in both states for shipment back to its domestic dairy herds. In another real-life example of the world's interconnected economy, the Saudis increasingly look to produce animal feed overseas in order to save water in their own territory, most of which is desert." https://ca.movies.yahoo.com/saudi-arabia-buying-farmland-us-164056673.html

4. Also the anticipation of significant increases in global food demand. "According to most prognoses, there could be 9.1 billion people living on earth in 2050, about two billion more than today. In the coming 20 years alone, worldwide demand for food is expected to rise by 50 percent." https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-new-colonialism-foreign-investors-snap-up-african-farmland-a-639224.html

5. High tech "precision farming" is expected to dramatically increase profits. "Based on a global annual crop production value of $1.2 trillion in 2015 and our bottom-up estimate of technology-driven yield improvement of 70%, we estimate value generated of $800 bn if all of the technologies are fully adopted globally by 2050." https://www.gspublishing.com/content/research/en/reports/2016/07/13/6e4fa167-c7ad-4faf-81de-bfc6acf6c81f.pdf

6. the bottom line: “You can build new office buildings. You can build new apartment buildings, but it’s hard to create new farmland out of nothing,” David Rodgers, senior real estate research analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co. link https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2015/09/14/farmland-investment/72066736/