Mapping China's firms' outward FDI in agriculture: Land grabbing or win-win

As China being a populous emerging country with a large demand on the food, China's firms' OFDI in agriculture was always criticized for land grabbing or new colonialism. Drawing on second-hand materials and in-depth interviews with China's firms and officials in charge of agriculture both domestically and abroad, this article investigates the dimensions of China's agricultural OFDI. The impetuses for driving China's enterprises to invest in agriculture overseas are diverse and exploiting the lands is just one. Until now, only a very small part of the agricultural products growing abroad was sold back to China, and a large part was sold in the local market or exported to the third market, and therefore China's firms' agricultural OFDI has little direct but a little indirect help to guaranteeing China's food security. China's firms maybe compete with the local growers, but the growing presence of China's firms with advanced technology will yield the benefits of competition: an expansion of local supplies while providing cheaper technologies that can be copied by local farmers.