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At the moment, the grabbing of Africa’s land is shrouded in secrecy and proceeding at an unprecedented rate, spurred on by the global food and financial crises. GRAIN, a non-profit organisation that supports farm families in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems, works daily to try to keep up with the deals on its farmlandgrab.org website.[vi]

Apart from the African governments and chiefs who are happily and quietly selling or leasing the land right out from under their own citizens, those who are promoting the new wave of rapacious investment include the World Bank, its International Finance Corporation (IFC), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and many other powerful nations and institutions. The US Millennium Challenge Corporation is helping to reform new land ownership laws – privatising land – in some of its member countries. The imported idea that user rights are not sufficient, that land must be privately owned, will efface traditional approaches to land use in Africa, and make the selling off of Africa even easier. GRAIN notes the complicity of African elites and says some African 'barons' are also snapping up land.

another big plan is buffeting Africa’s farmers. It’s the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which claims it is working in smallholder farmers’ interests by 'catalysing' a Green Revolution in Africa. Green Revolution Number Two.

Exporting crops for overseas consumption while Africans go hungry is a historical pattern all too familiar on the continent. It is certainly not the hope of 21st century African agriculture.

Both Namibia and South Africa are moving towards expropriation of land as a necessary means to correct this economic apartheid. Southern Africa is learning from the negative experience of land grabs in Zimbabwe, yet the commodity market approach can be similarly inequitable and destructive of livelihoods.

‘Agroecology [sustainable mixed cropping] is a knowledge-intensive approach. It requires public policies supporting agricultural research and participative extension services. States and donors have a key role to play here. Private companies will not invest time and money in practices that cannot be rewarded by patents and which don’t open markets for chemical products or improved seeds.’[7]

There are about 18 recognised farming systems in Africa that can be grouped as a maize-dominated system, a cereal/root crop system, a root crop system and an agro-pastoral millet/sorghum system, all within overall mixed cropping. Part of Africa's food heritage, this genetic wealth offers important contributions towards making Africa a well-nourished continent.

Stories of stolen genetic treasures echo across the continent. Like traditional story tellers, when a botanist or agronomist ends his or her account of the latest theft, another joins in to give yet another account, often in voices of anguish and despair.

Today, the North American Tuli Association promotes the breed as follows: ‘NATA intends to expand their activities by spreading the benefits of the Tuli cattle to many countries within the Western hemisphere….the Tuli breed can provide the missing link to bridge the gap in cattle genetics, the gap being adaptation to heat and nutritional stress combined with carcass merit.’[10] Neither the government of Zimbabwe nor the foreign cattle associations consulted with the local communities or recognised their contribution in any way. NATA has even usurped the name of ‘tuli.’

A major discussion in the process of domesticating farmers' rights will be determining the relationship between individual rights of private property and social rights of farmers.

The WTO gives no recognition to social rights, only to private property rights, while the CBD, the ITPGRFA and the AU Model Legislation all recognise the rights of groups (farmers and communities) as equal to those of individuals (persons and corporations).

The AU model legislation also directly addresses the issue of biopiracy, such as the Tuli cattle case, by adopting the CBD principle of prior informed consent (PIC)

Because the wealth of the existing biodiversity is the basis for the future of agricultural Africa, it is essential that those who care about this wealth, and work toward improving its potential for use, are acknowledged.

land is intimately linked to identity. It is central to the production and reproduction of community. Land thus ensures cultural continuity.

Although all forms of land tenure recognized by the Ugandan constitution are underpinned by patriarchy, she sharply noted, research from the ground indicates that the often demonized customary land tenure is relatively far beneficial to women when it comes to ensuring their access to land. At the risk of appearing a pro-patriarchy apologetic she aptly states: ‘Customary land tenure systems and production relations have in-built social insurance mechanisms … meant to ensure that the land needs of everybody in the community, including the needs of vulnerable members of society – aged, widowed, orphans, etc, are met.

Customary tenure arrangements are also designed to support livelihood systems. This is not the case for other tenure systems which support highly individualized and commercialized lifestyles. As long as women’s membership to a production unit is intact under customary tenure systems, therefore, they can have access to land, social networks and mutual support systems as well as common property resources which supports their efforts to fulfill their obligations for household food production, whether they are married, widowed or unmarried.’[4]

By reducing “the land question to a question of livelihoods and agriculture only” they fail to grasp that in South Africa as in other African countries “there is more to the land question which has to do with fundamental claims of legitimacy over ownership and control of the country at large”.[7]

This blind spot, and the persistence denial of the failure of ‘willing seller-willing buyer’ and ‘use it or lose it’ land reform models in South Africa, needs an eye salve from Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP). Unfortunately the debate on the merits and demerits of FTLRP has been coloured if not tainted by the preoccupation on the despotic regime of President Robert Mugabe. Yet when one scratches the surface on the ground it is easy to see how such selective engagement had been informed by a similar myopic discourse on land use for agriculture.

‘Needless to say, a number of scholars have never recognized this potential. On the contrary, they continue to speculate about “crony capitalism” (Patrick Bond) and the “destruction of the agriculture sector” (Horace Campbell), without having conducted any concrete research of their own, or properly interrogated the new research that has emerged.’[12]

The irony is that even the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), well known for being so quick to dismiss if not demonize any positive side of Zimbabwe’s radical land reforms, had to reluctantly swallow its pride and prejudice as it extensively quoted Scoones’ admission of being “genuinely surprised” by findings of their study on ‘Zimbabwe’s Land Reform: Myth and Reality’ that debunks these five myths perpetuated by “political and media stereotypes of abject failure” in Zimbabwe: (1) That land reform has been a total failure; (2)That most of the land has gone to political "cronies"; (3) That there is no investment on the resettled land; (4) That agriculture is in complete ruins, creating chronic food insecurity; (5)That the rural economy has collapsed.[14]

There has been a torrent of journalistic accounts on the success of the Zimbabwean farmers in transplanting commercial agriculture to Nigeria. Under titles like ‘White Zimbabweans Bring Change to Nigeria’, ‘White Zimbabwean farmers highlight Nigeria's agricultural failures’ , and ‘White farmers from Zimbabwe bring prosperity to Nigeria’. The impression is created of a massive transformation based on the ingenuity of the Zimbabwean farmers and without any support from Nigerian governments. But is this really so? The terms of the [Memorandum of Understanding] MOU which the Kwara State government signed with the Zimbabwean farmers, and developments surrounding the establishment of the farms, paint a different picture. It committed the State government to the provision of a series of services crucial for the development of the commercial farms. Crucially, it committed the government to provide land. The government undertook to clear choice land of the indigenous users’ right next to the River Niger. 1289 local farmers in 28 communities were uprooted from their farms to make way for the Zimbabwean farmers. The state set aside a total of N77m (US$513,333) as compensation for the displaced local farmers. Each of the initial 13 Zimbabwean farmers received a 25-year lease of 1000 hectares. The state's instrumentalist use of compensation and 'agricultural packages' (bicycles – 720 were distributed – , fertilizers, seed etc.) and the provision of long sought after communal infrastructure like electricity and additional classrooms in local schools helped to defuse local protests. [15]

When it emerged that Daewoo, the South Korean giant, had signed a 99-year lease granting it close to half of Madagascar’s arable land, protests broke out in Antananarivo, the country’s capital, eventually sinking both the deal, and the president.

as Heilberg told the German magazine Der Spiegel after closing the deal in Darfur, “When food becomes scarce, the investor needs a weak state that does not force him to abide by any rules.” Sudan, a dictatorship ranked among the five most corrupt countries on the planet, certainly qualifies. Heilberg’s deal was approved by the deputy commander of Sudan’s People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the official army of semi-autonomous southern Sudan. “This is Africa,” he recently told Rolling Stone. “The whole place is like one big mafia. I’m like a mafia head. That’s the way it works.”

Some African intellectuals bridle at Western criticism of the play on Africa. “They’re here because we want them here,” says Teshome Gabre-Mariam, one of Ethiopia’s top lawyers. “We can’t ignore the development potential of this venture. We have everything to gain, nothing to lose.”

n the face of empty granaries, Niger’s people have begun to develop a strategy for survival. ‘In Niger, women cover a desert-like environment in search of anthills in order to dig up and retrieve grains of millet, corn and other crops that the ants have collected,’ tells Charles Bambara, in charge of communications for Oxfam GB in Dakar. In the north of Mali, farmers, keen to allow their livestock to drink, have taken to using the water points actually intended for elephants (in a bid to protect the last pachyderms alive in the country).

The disorder of the world food crisis in 2008 did not become hazy, and this new peak comes to remind us that, in the Sahel, the crisis results from an endemic problem. This is a problem that, as the thrust of recurrent fever testifies, is more a question of structure than conjuncture, that these are the failings of agricultural policies that impose their own tough realities, and that the recommended solutions are not different from those pushed in the 1980s with the establishing of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) which sounded the death knell of Africa’s agricultural policies.

The reduced investment imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank had then destroyed the base of an agriculture geared towards food sovereignty. Industrial cultures were promoted which washed the soil (leading to greater soil erosion, the use of pesticides and chemical fertiliser) and disrupted the balance of the systems of production behind subsistence and the generation of complementary revenues on the strength of access to local markets. From this point it was a question of food security, no matter where stocks came from. This was the period in which food aid poured in. Africa was to produce no longer, with African stomachs wagered on agricultural surpluses from Europe, the US and elsewhere. As a result, since 1980 sub-Saharan Africa has been the only region of the world where average per capita food production has continued to decline over the last 40 years.[3]

African agriculture has suffered a series of difficulties which, over 30 years, have left it vulnerable to the smallest of changes on both the international market and climatically. Agricultural policies applied by states, under donors’ pressure, have in effect turned their back on policies which, formerly, assured technical assistance to producers, backed up by a price-stabilisation mechanism and subsidies for commodities.

We could go even further towards the worst of it and look at the development of biofuels and the extent to which more and more land is being diverted away from food production. Essentially, we will be growing to power cars rather than fill granaries. And in July this year, Burkina Faso has inaugurated its first industrial unit of production, while the country remains vulnerable in the face of a food crisis.

‘Today, in the smallest village, people eat bread, milk and coffee… This wasn’t part of our customs; we used to eat maize-based dough, sorghum and millet. But when you can’t live anymore from your field and you’re reliant on others (neighbours, food aid), you eat what you’re given.

The foundation of real food sovereignty lies in the promotion and consolidation of family agriculture, as well as the development of an agro-ecology which offers the best antidote to the wasting-away of fragile ecosystems at the mercy of deregulation.

The terms differ from country to country, with the bulk of Ghana’s leased land allocated for export, in contrast to Ethiopia’s mixed status, but the issue remains one of control and exploitation, whether it is over local food monopolies or exported crops.

over 100 known specialised land funds and investments firms have embarked on ‘private sector’ land grabs, including well-known entities such as Morgan Stanley. Facilitating this process is the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank group, ensuring for investors the ‘enabling environments’ and positive ‘investment climates’ required for the extractive industries, such as repatriation of profits and tax ‘competition’. From 1991-2002, deregulation proposed by IFIs composed 95 per cent of changes implemented in host countries.

development finance siphoned from Africa, whether through the extractive industries, or land grabs, are unlikely to be revealed as the IMF scrapped mandatory information exchange. Global watchdogs, such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) remained beholden to high-income nations as a ‘subsidiary’ unit in the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Meanwhile, the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB), founded and finance by the ‘big four’ accounting firms – maintaining units in secrecy jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands – prefers multinationals to self-regulate trade via arms length transfer. What this effectively does is enable multinationals, conducting 60 per cent of global trade within rather than between corporations, to determine the future of entire continents such as Africa, where primary commodities – extracted by corporations, account for 80 per cent of exports.

Studies by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) revealed, ‘Many countries do not have sufficient mechanisms to protect local rights and take account of local interests, livelihoods, and welfare. Moreover, local communities are rarely adequately informed about the land concessions that are made to private companies. Insecure local land rights, inaccessible registration procedures, vaguely defined productive use requirements, legislative gaps, and other factors all too often undermine the position of local people vis-à-vis international actors.’[1]

ony La Viña, Dean of the Ateneo School of Government and chair of the intergovernmental REDD negotiations at the climate conferences in Copenhagen and Durban, said: "The carbon markets, when up and running, need to support the forest stewardship of the people who live there, and not provide national governments with yet another tool to dispossess their citizens from the natural resources they have cared for and depended on for generations." According to the No REDD in Africa network, it is precisely because indigenous people and their rights are not factored into REDD principles that their implementation could lead to outright genocide.

A logical extension of current of neo-liberal hegemony, philanthro-capitalism sees unregulated markets not only as engines for creating wealth, but as the ultimate drivers of social change. In this view, governments are too bureaucratic and corrupt, and social movements too unruly and inefficient. Only the market can save us from… well, the market.

The villagers in Sauri are understandably happy with the results, but off the record they have criticized the non-inclusiveness of the top-down approach.[i] UN officials and scientists have also been reluctant to speak against Sachs on the record for fear of retribution.

The Millennium Villages siphon off money better spent elsewhere, and draw attention away from creative, grassroots approaches to local problems. Long-term solutions require sustainable low-tech methods that farmers can control, such as permaculture, seed banks, and green manure; as well as redistributive land reform and marketing boards to provide some security.

Millennium Challenge Corporation (no direct relation to the Millennium Villages project). Created in 2004, the MCC is a U.S. Government aid organization that has spent $5.5 billion since 2004 awarding contracts to private businesses in target countries. The MCC's focus on raising the overall GDP is being pursued with the same failed policies as the IFIs: aggressive privatization, foreign direct investment (predatory capital), and global integration.  One of the more contentious aspects for small farmers are land grabs by foreign investors, facilitated via MCC contracts for "Systematic Land Regularization and Improvement of Rural Land Allocation." A recent report by GRAIN reveals that the MCC has been using "Land Regularization" to change land ownership rules and gain access to tens of thousands of acres of land in three of the ECOWAS countries: Benin, Ghana, and Mali.