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Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Profits before people: The great African liquidation sale - 0 views

pambazuka.org/...60010

gmos foodsecurity food genetically modified agriculture africa pambazuka international development crisis agribusiness security

shared by Arabica Robusta on 07 Nov 09 - Cached
  • So what do the world’s great investors have their eyes on in Africa, in addition to the usual natural resources – minerals, petroleum and timber – that they’ve always coveted? In a word, land. Lots of it. The land-grabbing 'investors' are purchasing or leasing large chunks of African land to produce food crops or agrofuels or both, or just scooping up farmland as an investment,
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 07 Nov 09
       
      Biofuels are a new context for expopriating as much arable land as possible.
  • 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]
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 07 Nov 09
       
      farmlandgrab.org
  • 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.
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  • 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.
  • Arabica Robusta on 07 Nov 09
     
    "it was all summed up clearly for me by members of COPAGEN, a coalition of African farmer associations, scientists, civil society groups and activists who work to protect Africa's genetic heritage, farmer rights, and their sovereignty over their land, seeds and food. All these knowledgeable people have shown me that the answer is quite straightforward: many of those imported mistakes, disguised as solutions for Africa, are very, very profitable. At least for those who design and make them."
Arabica Robusta

Innovations in access to land: Land grab or agricultural investment? - 0 views

farmlandgrab.org/14711

land grab tenure agriculture food crisis international development agribusiness foodsecurity security biofuels pambazuka

shared by Arabica Robusta on 08 Aug 10 - Cached
  • The second, usually supported by numerous farmers’ groups and non-profit organizations like La Via Campesina, the Oakland Institute, GRAIN and Food First, believe that these land grabs are exploitative and colonialist, kicking people off of their land and decreasing food security for “host” countries.
  • The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that in order to feed the anticipated 9.1 billion people in 2050, agricultural production worldwide needs to increase by 70 percent. Historically, the response to global hunger has focused on food aid and agricultural investment in chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and increasingly, genetically engineered seeds. More recently, governments of wealthy countries lacking in fertile, arable land or abundant water supplies have begun to buy or lease large tracts of land in poorer countries for agricultural production and export.
  • He emphasized the importance of land sovereignty and investments in smallholder agriculture to food security and indigenous identity, but also spoke about how foreign deals could be a “win-win” solution for those involved. He highlighted the need for more community-investor partnerships which “don’t require large-scale transfer of land rights. What is important is that they should be long-term. That they should balance profit with social responsibility. And they should be supported by governments, civil society organizations, and the private sector, to ensure that they are mutually beneficial.”
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  • To critics, voluntary guidelines and principles are just that: voluntary. At best, they present a mechanism to protect indigenous rights. But at worst they provide a smokescreen, behind which lies the exploitation of workers and their rights to food security and land tenure.
  • The campaign, spearheaded by NGOs GRAIN, Food First Information and Action Network (FIAN), Land Research Action Network (LRAN) and La Via Campesina, calls for an immediate end to land grabbing, claiming that it “denies land for local communities, destroys livelihoods, reduces the political space for peasant oriented agricultural policies and distorts markets towards increasingly concentrated agribusiness interests and global trade rather than towards sustainable peasant/smallhold production for local and national markets.”
  • In an interview with Nourishing the Planet, writer and activist Raj Patel denounced land-grabs as “modern forms of colonialism, except with colonialism there was the argument that the colonizers were bringing civilization to the people they were colonizing. This time around, they don’t bother with that justification. There’s not even the pretense of bringing civilization – now it’s just about efficiency.”
  • Patel noted that when people tout these land deals as an effective means to end hunger, they often ignore the fact that many deals are not growing food at all, but instead pursuing the rapidly expanding biofuels market. “When you’re talking about turning arable land into zones of cultivation for jatropha, you’ve a hard time arguing that anyone’s belly is going to be fuller as a result,” he said.
  • The issue of capturing water in these deals is also often not discussed, but it was mentioned in the April statement, as an example of the many factors that need to be included when assessing the value of the land being leased or sold.
  • The signatories of the April statement (of which Patel was one), demand true agrarian reform, which includes investment in research and training programs for small-holder farmers, overhauling trade policies, supporting regional markets, enforcing strict regulations to foreign direct investment, and promoting “community-oriented food and farming systems hinged on local people’s control over land, water and biodiversity.”
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