Earlier this week there was a report in the South China Morning Post saying that China was planning to farm three million hectares of Ukrainian land.
The Ukrainian agricultural firm involved in the plan — KSG Agro — has issued a statement disputing the news, arguing that it is only a smaller project of around 3,000 acres.
However, as Lily Quo of Quartz notes, such a deal would be part of a global trend in countries scared of food scarcity buying up global farmland.
Even if this report is a dud, it's not the first big overseas land project tied to China — there were reports earlier this year that said Ecuador was hoping to auction off three million hectares of rainforest to China for oil projects. What's more, Ukraine may well be a likely target for a China land deal. Roman Olearchyk of the Financial Times reports that "insiders" say China is eyeing a major farmland deal in the breadbasket of Europe, and it recently gave Ukraine a $1.5 billion loan.
So how absurdly large is three million hectares anyway?
