Harvard Stole Brazilian Land. It’s Time To Make Amends.

Harvard’s controversial expansion into Allston has attracted plenty of scrutiny — and for good reason. But thousands of miles away, another land grab with devastating consequences has flown relatively under the radar.

According to a 2018 report by activist group Genetic Resources Action International, Harvard has acquired over two million acres of farmland worldwide, wreaking havoc on local communities and ecosystems.

Perhaps no country has been affected by Harvard’s land grabs more than Brazil, home to nearly half of the University’s farmland acquisitions. To make amends, the University must provide full transparency about its remaining farmland investments both in Brazil and elsewhere. But transparency isn’t enough: Harvard must make reparations to communities impacted by its land grabs.

The story of Harvard’s holdings in Brazil begins after the 2008 financial crisis, when Harvard seemed to identify farmland and other natural resources as a stable financial asset. Over the following years, the Harvard Management Company became one of Brazil’s largest foreign farmland holders. Using shell companies to avoid restrictions on foreign land purchases, the University acquired one million acres of land — some illegally.

For the families who had lived and relied on that land for generations, Harvard’s investments carried devastating consequences. Some residents reported being forced off of their land by men carrying guns. Others found their communities overwhelmed by pesticides that destroyed crops, polluted waters, killed fish, and increased health risks.

Nowhere has the devastation been more widespread than the Cerrado region, where Harvard’s endowment has amassed nearly 750,000 acres of land. In 2020, a Brazilian court found that 200,000 of those formerly public acres were obtained illegally by an HMC subsidiary.

The Cerrado is the world’s most biodiverse tropical savannah, a major water source for Brazil, and home to over 80 indigenous ethnic groups and slave-descended communities. Yet the region has been heavily deforested by agriculture investment and fires, many deliberately started by agribusiness companies to expand arable land.

On Harvard’s land in the Cerrado, evidence suggests that such fires have raged. Some villagers and local advocates believe the situation has worsened after Harvard’s company took control. In areas legally required to be protected reserves, farms sitting on Harvard land have been completely burned.

In light of legal challenges to these investments and protests in both Brazil and Cambridge, Harvard has scrambled to distance themselves from the fiasco, desperate to sell off its most controversial holdings.

Allowing Harvard to pass its farms and subsidiaries into different hands does nothing to halt the cycle of destruction. Harvard’s initial grabbing of vulnerable areas has sparked a cycle of natural resource extraction to be continued by new agribusiness companies or other holders.

Although Harvard has distanced itself from some of these holdings, University faculty and staff remain indirectly invested in such practices, whether they know it or not. Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America, the pension fund for Harvard faculty, is one of the largest players in corporate farmland investment both globally and in Brazil — and Harvard’s partner in illegal Brazilian land grabs.

Such investment practices exist in untenable contradiction with the teachings of our University.

While our College claims to inspire “every member of our community to strive toward a more just, fair, and promising world,” its funds have been used to displace rural communities and destroy ecosystems thousands of miles south of Cambridge. Such catastrophes can only be avoided entirely with a full shift away from the uninhibited pursuit of profit and toward a limited, mindful investment practice.

Short of this sweeping transformation, however, Harvard can start with transparency.

To amend the opacity of Harvard’s farmland holdings around the world, the University must adopt a path laid out by advocacy groups. Harvard must provide a publicly accessible inventory of its past and present farmland holdings, including the dollar amount spent acquiring the land, the involved fund managers and agricultural partners, and the consequences for local communities.

Only through such an accounting can Harvard affiliates and advocates devise a clear course of action for repairing harm to impacted communities and ecosystems — especially since land sales have eradicated any means of recourse. Based on this accounting, Harvard should provide monetary reparations. Such reparations should include the value of the land seized and lost resources, such as once-clean rivers now polluted.

As for any remaining farmland holdings, simply passing off problematic properties to another company for continued extraction is unacceptable. Ecosystems impacted by destructive agricultural practices, such as forests and critical water sources, must be restored and returned to the communities that have long relied on them.

Our University has pioneered a form of asset management that sees land and the environment as an opportunity for a return on investment. For people and planet, this reckless speculation has been disastrous. Accepting the demands of advocates for transparency and reparations will be a key first step toward a more accountable, responsible future for our University.

Harvard may have abandoned many of its farms in Brazil, but it cannot abandon its responsibility.

Kayla P.S. Springer ’26 is a Social Studies concentrator in Pforzheimer House and an organizer with Stop Harvard Land Grabs.