Land Grab

Across Africa, more than 117 large-scale land deals totalling about 22 million hectares, an area the size of the U.S. state of Utah, have been recorded in the last 12 years, according to data from the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). Agribusinesses, investment funds and government agencies piled into developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, when oil prices peaked in 2007-08, leading to a surge in prices of food. Cheap land to grow food crops and bio-fuels to enhance food and energy security has become essential as populations expand. There is plenty of land in Africa, with only 5 percent of an estimated 550 million hectares of arable land in central Africa being cultivated, according to the FAO. Prices were lower than in other developing countries, the terms were favourable, including no import duties on machinery, and full repatriation of products and profits. Critics say millions of indigenous people and small farmers being forcefully removed from their ancestral land with little consultation or compensation. The FAO confirmed in a recent reportng that "there is little or no monitoring of the land use in terms of sustainability and social responsibility of the investors".

Ethiopia has earmarked some 11.5 million hectares of land for overseas firms to invest in agriculture. Millions of small farmers and herders in Ethiopia have been moved from the land offered to investors and relocated under "villagisation" programmes, often with threats and assaults, according to rights groups, including GRAIN and the Oakland Institute. The new villages where they are resettled often lack basic resources including adequate food, agricultural support, and health and education facilities, according to activists.

"There is lots of vacant land available that is not taken by any farmers. We believe in encouraging private investors with the capacity to develop large amounts of land," Fitsum Arega, director of the Ethiopian Investment Commission said.

In Ethiopia, where all land is state-owned, traditional tenure systems exist alongside modern systems. Several regions, including Gambella, where Karuturi had leased land, have no formal tenure and boundaries are agreed by local customs. In regions where villagisation took place, none of the inhabitants had legal titles, said a Human Rights Watch report. The relocations may have "life-threatening consequences", with shifting cultivators - who move from one location to another - made to plant crops in a single location, and pastoralists abandoning their cattle-based livelihoods, it said

"These large-scale plantations and farms are displacing people who have lived there for generations, without creating jobs for the locals or enhancing food security," said Anuradha Mittal, executive director of California-based advocacy group Oakland Institute, which has studied these deals. "It is a horrific abuse of rights."

Most deals were cloaked in secrecy, and jobs for locals were often only low-paying manual work, activists say. Most deals also encompass fertile lands which are inhabited, rather than marginal or infertile land as promised by officials. Most of these deals have also failed to achieve the objectives of enhancing food and energy supply and stimulating development in the local communities,

"This is the land where indigenous communities have farmed and grazed their animals, and depended on for their livelihoods. This is the land where their ancestors lie," Mittal said. There is "irrefutable evidence that the locals have been forcibly evicted from their homes and lands. They have been intimidated, beaten, and even arrested for demanding their right to their land," she said. Mittal said African nations must scrap these deals entirely to protect the rights of local communities. 

It is "wishful thinking ... that large-scale land deals can be beneficial to local communities if done properly," she said. "We have looked at hundreds of land deals all across Africa - and have yet to see the benefits accrue for the local populations impacted, or even for national economies. This is a failed development paradigm," she said.

 Tanzania has imposed caps on the size of land given to investors, and last year began a programme to seize land left undeveloped by investors and return it to poor farmers, in a bid to quell conflicts.

http://news.trust.org/item/20171128120855-guttc/