The Farmers Revolution?

Small-scale agricultural producers are estimated to provide 70 percent of the world's food supply. The United Nations has said that traditional agroecological farming practices and small-scale agriculture are key to feeding the world in the face of global climate crisis. From Nigeria to Tanzania and many points in between, small-scale farmers say they have not been consulted when big agribusiness, working under the G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition come to push farmers off their land.

Farmers in rural Bagamoyo district in Tanzania have been ordered off their land after EcoEnergy, a Swedish-owned company, leased more than 20,000 hectares from the government to produce sugar cane. They were not consulted, says says Josephat Mshigati, the head of programmes and policy for Action Aid in Tanzania. Those who were ordered off the land were taken to another area, which created more problems, he says. “They were settled in areas that are not really productive, so for them to invest in producing food, that is another challenge we see. They could be offered all kinds of jobs, there are jobs in the factories,” he says.“But the salaries of those people are very low. So that is another vulnerability… the salary you get, it is hard to buy food,” he adds. 

A coalition of almost 100 social movements, grassroots groups, and civil society organizations are raising alarm about the New Alliance on Food Security and Nutrition meeting secretively in Cape Town, South Africa, and are calling for governments to withdraw support for initiative. The G8-led, agribusiness-funded New Alliance is pushing for the approval of laws in 10 African countries that favor agricultural giants like Monsanto at the expense of small farmers and local food security. According to a statement by the civil society coalition Wednesday, policies supported by the New Alliance “facilitate the grabbing of land and other natural resources, further marginalize small-scale producers, and undermine the right to adequate food and nutrition.”

An example of New Alliance's corporate-friendly policy is Ghana's proposed Plant Breeders Bill, or so-called “Monsanto Law,” which would effectively tighten the corporate control of seeds and limit the traditional ability of small farmers to save and share seeds. Other New Alliance-backed proposals in Nigeria and Tanzania threaten to displace thousands of small farmers in massive agribusiness landgrabs to make way for foreign-owned corporate plantations.

Despite the New Alliance claiming a commitment to “reducing poverty and hunger,” its policies actually exacerbate hunger by slashing the rights and access to resources of Africa's small-scale producers for the benefit of foreign agribusiness corporations since it was launched in 2012.

The problem of the New Alliance way is that it does not reflect the ideology of the small-holder farmer, says Nick Dearden, the head of Global Justice Now, a natural resources campaigner, where there’s little or no role for small farmers. “What it’s about is that you’ve got to scale up technological input, you’ve got to allow big corporations, mostly based here in the west, into your countries, and you’ve got to start exporting more food to the west, and richer parts of the world, rather than protecting small farmers,” he says. Dearden says that most food produced for Africans is grown by small-scale farmers. “We know it’s possible. For me the interest of those pushing New Alliance isn’t really in eradicating hunger. It’s in the profit margin of the companies that happen to be headquartered in their countries.” Dearden says that countries need to protect small farmers with regulatory frameworks within the country to prevent more land grab problems throughout the continent, and not rely on a small handful of companies to be able to provide the needs of everybody globally. “I just don’t think it’s feasible in a world where you have such massive inequality as we see today for a company to make profit by feeding those who are most in need of food, that’s to say, the poorest,” he adds.

“The New Alliance is not addressing hunger or food security, but it is providing huge opportunities for big agribusiness companies to restructure food production across Africa to their own advantage,” said African Center for Biosafety Director Mariam Mayet in statement. “Countries in Africa need to develop their own agricultural policies that are effective in meeting the needs of small scale farmers and food sovereignty, rather than being cajoled into having big industrialized agriculture imposed on them through coercive aid mechanisms like the New Alliance.” Mayet added. 

Last month, an independent audit on U.K. foreign aid slammed the New Alliance, characterizing it as “little more than a means of promotion for the companies involved and a chance to increase their influence in policy debates.” In 2013, over 100 African civil society groups called the New Alliance a “new wave of colonialism” opening African markets to transfer agricultural control away from local farmers into the hands of transnational corporations.

Raymond Enoch, the chairman of the Centre for Environmental Education and Development in Jalingo, Taraba state in Nigeria explained “For you to just come into my community and say you want to do something that will change my life, you really need to discuss with me and convince me that what you want to do is to my own benefit…better than what I am doing now… Farmers can freely produce their food, and freely produce their food for domestic market consumption. At least to some extent now, farmers are free to embark on farming without being molested by agribusiness.”

http://www.english.rfi.fr/africa/20150603-where-s-farmer-s-consent-g8-new-alliance-hurts-africa-says-activists

Real estate developers V. small farmers.

Spinach, carrots, kale, cabbages, tomatoes, maize, legumes and tubers are plentiful in the village of Ngangarithi, a landscape awash in green, intersected by clean, clear streams that local children play in. Ngangarithi, home to just over 25,000 people, is part of Nyeri County located in the Central Highlands, nestled between the eastern foothills of the Abadare mountain range and the western hillsides of Mount Kenya. Farmers who have lived here for generations not only grow enough food to sustain their families, they also feed the entire community, and comprise a vital link in the nation’s food supply chain. Taking away their land, they say, will have far-reaching consequences: central Kenya is considered one of the country’s two breadbaskets – the other being the Rift Valley – largely for its ability to produce plentiful maize harvests.

The community’s worst fears came to pass this January, when several smallholder families “awoke to find markers demarcating land that we had neither sold nor had intentions to sell.” The markers, in the form of concrete blocks, had been erected at intervals around communal farmland, fields that able-bodied young men in the village had to use machetes and hoes to dig them out. Now a powerful real estate developer in Nyeri County had placed these markers on the perimeters of the land it intended to convert into commercial buildings. Kenya’s real estate market has witnessed a massive boom in the last seven years. Kenya is now the fifth largest economy in sub-Saharan Africa behind Nigeria, South Africa, Angola and Sudan.”

The villagers took to the streets to demonstrate against what they perceived to be a grab of their ancestral land. The developers had attempted to cordon off a stream that the village relied on for fresh water. The villagers’ determination to resist developers has caught the attention of experts closer to the policy-making nucleus in Nairobi, many of whom are adding their voices to a growing debate on the meaning of sustainability.

“We cannot have people coming here and driving us off our land,” a resident named Paul Njogu told IPS. “We will show others that they too can refuse to be shoved aside by powerful forces.” “I was given this land by my grandmother some 20 years ago,” he added. “This is my ancestral home and it is also my source of livelihood – by growing crops, we are protecting our heritage, ensuring food security, and creating jobs.” He continued “I am not fighting for myself but for my children. I am 85 years old, I have lived my life, but my great-grandchildren need a place to call home.”

Big business are currently on a spree of identifying and acquiring whatever lands possible, by whatever means possible. It is a lucrative industry, with many winners. The biggest losers, however, are humble farmers who comprise the bulk of this country of 44 million people – according to the Ministry of Agriculture, an estimated five million out of about eight million Kenyan households depend directly on agriculture for their livelihoods. The land rush also represents a threat to an ancient way of life.

David Owiro, programme officer at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a local think tank, told IPS, “Kenya’s land and property market is growing exponentially.” His analysis finds echo in a report by HassConsult and Stanlib Investments released in January this year, which found that the scramble for land in this East African nation is due to the fact that land has delivered the highest return of all asset classes in the last seven years, up 98 percent since 2007. Land prices in the last four years have risen at twice the rate of cattle and four times the rate of property, while oil and gold prices have fallen over the same period, researches added. Advertised land prices have risen 535 percent, from an average of 330,000 dollars per acre in 2007 to about 1.8 million dollars per acre today. According to Owiro of the IEA, a growing demand for commercial enterprises and high-density housing in the capital and its surrounding suburban and rural areas is largely responsible for the price rise. The resident population of Nairobi is two million, it swells during the workday to three million, as workers from neighbouring areas flood the capital. This commuter workforce is a major driver of demand for additional housing.

In a country where 1.5 million people experience food insecurity every year, according to statistics pushing farmers further to the margins by separating them from their land makes little economic sense. Furthermore, encroachment by real estate developers into Kenya’s wetlands flies in the face of sustainable development, given that the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) has identified Kenya’s wetlands as ‘vital’ to its agriculture and tourism sectors, and has urged the country to protect these areas, rich in biodiversity, as part of its international conservation obligations. Already the impacts of real estate development are becoming plain: the difference between Ngangarithi village and the village directly opposite, separated only a by a road, has the villagers on edge. “On our side you will see it is all green: spinach, kale, carrots, everything grows here,” Njogu said. “But the land overlooking ours is now a town.”

Wilfred Subbo, an expert on sustainable development and a lecturer at the University of Nairobi, told IPS that a strong GDP is not synonymous with sustainability. “But a community being able to meet its needs of today, without compromising the ability of its children to meet their own needs tomorrow, [that] is sustainable development,” he asserted. According to Subbo, when a community understands that they can “resist and set the development agenda, they are already in the ‘future’ – because they have shown us that there is an alternative way of doing business.” Subbo concluded “Land is a finite resource. We cannot turn all of it into skyscrapers.”

The attempt to seize farmers’ land in Ngangarithi village reveals, in microcosm, the pitfalls of an economic  model that is based on valuing the profits of a few over the well-being of many.

The Land-grab in Ethiopia

The human cost of Ethiopia’s “villagisation” programme is laid bare by damning report from the California-based thinktank the Oakland Institute. The victims of land grabbing and displacement are given a rare voice in We Say the Land is Not Yours: Breaking the Silence against Forced Displacement in Ethiopia

The east African country has long faced criticism for forcibly relocating tens of thousands of people from their ancestral homes to make way for large scale commercial agriculture, often benefiting foreign investors. Those moved to purpose-built communes are allegedly no longer able to farm or access education, healthcare and other basic services. Agriculture makes up nearly half the GDP of Ethiopia, where four in five people live in rural areas. But since the mid-2000s, the government has awarded millions of hectares of land to foreign investors. The commune development programme, which aims to move 1.5 million rural families from their land to new “model” villages across the country, has faced allegations of violent evictions, political coercion, intimidation, imprisonment, rapes, beatings and disappearances. Such accounts threaten to dent the image of Ethiopia, a darling of the development community that has enjoyed double digit economic growth for the best part of a decade. The government has been criticised for brooking little opposition, clamping down on civil society activism and jailing more journalists than any country in Africa, except its neighbour Eritrea.

Opposition to the scheme is not tolerated, according to the witness. “People are intimidated – we are forced to say positive things about villagisation, but really we refuse to accept the programme. If you challenge, the government calls you the mastermind of conflict. One of the government officials was opposed to the government. They wanted to put him in prison. He escaped and is now in Kenya, living as a political refugee.”

“My village refused to move,” says one, from the community of Gambella. “So they forced us with gunshots. Even though they intimidated us, we did not move – this is our land, how do we move? They wanted our land because our land is the most fertile and has access to water. So the land was promised to a national investor.

Last year, we had to move. The promises of food and other social services made by the government have not been fulfilled. The government gets money from donors but it is not transferred to the communities.

The land grab is not only for agriculture, the interviewee claims, but the community has also seen minerals and gold being mined and exported. “We have no power to resist. We need support. In the villages, they promised us tractors to help us cultivate. If money is given to the government for this purpose, we don’t know how it is used.

The government receives money from donors, but they fill their pockets and farmers die of hunger.”

A witness from Benishangul laments: “This is not development. Investors are destroying our lands and environment. There is no school, [no] food security, and they destroy wild fruits. Bamboo is the life of people. It is used for food, for cattle, for our beds, homes, firewood, everything. But the investors destroy it. They destroy our forests. This is not the way for development. They do not cultivate the land for the people. They grow sorghum, maize, sesame, but all is exported, leaving none for the people.”

Another interviewee, from South Omo, says mandatory resettlement has stoked conflict among different ethnic groups. “There was no open consultation between the community and the government. If there was a common agreement based on joint consultations, perhaps the community might accept. But, the government dictates. We are scared that the highlanders will come and destroy our way of life, culture, and pasture land. What will we do? The government says we can keep two to three cattle, but this is a challenge. Our life is based on cattle, and we cannot change overnight. I keep cows, oxen, sheep, goats – where do we go? The investors take land in the Omo Valley. They clear all land, choose the best place where trees are, leaving the area open. They say it is for development, but they are clearing the forests. I wonder how to reconcile development with forest destruction.”

A government employee told the researchers “There are three dynamics that linger in my mind that explain today’s Ethiopia: villagisation, violent conflict, and investment. They are intertwined and interrelated. It is hard for outsiders to know what leads to what. When people are free, they talk. When they are afraid of repercussion, they stop.”

Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute said: “The context in which we release this report is one of torture, oppression, and silencing. A development strategy without ensuring its citizens freedom of speech and expression is not a development strategy but a scheme to benefit the ruling elites. Those basic human rights are not being upheld in Ethiopia. It is therefore urgent to make voices of those impacted heard.”

When aid pays for land-grabbing

A major UK- and World Bank-funded development programme in Ethiopia may have contributed to the violent resettlement of a minority ethnic group, a report reveals. The World Bank’s internal watchdog said that due to inadequate oversight, bad audit practices, and a failure to follow its own rules, the Bank has allowed operational links to form between its programme and the Ethiopian government’s controversial resettlement programme.

Multiple human rights groups operating in the region have criticised the Ethiopian government’s programme for violently driving tens of thousands of indigenous people, predominantly from the minority Anuak Christian ethnic group, from their homes in order to make way for commercial agriculture projects. Bank funds – which included over £300m from the UK’s Department for International Development, the project’s largest donor  – could have been diverted to implement villagisation. Crucially for the Anuak people, the bank did not apply required safeguards to protect indigenous groups.

David Pred of Inclusive Development International – the NGO which filed the original complaint on the Anuak group’s behalf – said: “The Bank has enabled the forcible transfer of tens of thousands of indigenous people from their ancestral lands. The Bank today just doesn’t want to see human rights violations, much less accept that it bears some responsibility when it finances those violations.”

Anuradha Mittal, the founder of the Oakland Institute, a California-based development NGO which is active in the region, said DfID was an active participant in the programme, and should share responsibility for its failings. “Along with the World Bank and other donors, DfID support constitutes not only financial support but a nod of approval for the Ethiopian regime to bring about ‘economic development’ for the few at the expense of basic human rights and livelihoods of its economically and politically most marginalised ethnic groups,” she said. Mittal was also critical of the World Bank panel’s draft findings, falling short of directly implicating the World Bank and its fellow donors in the resettlement programme. “It is quite stunning that the panel does not think that the World Bank is responsible for villagisation-related widespread abuses in Ethiopia resulting in destruction of livelihoods, forced displacement of Anuaks from their fertile lands and forests.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/20/ethiopia-human-rights-groups-development-programme-world-bank-villagisation

Senegal's Land-Grab

Between 2000 and 2010, over 657,000 hectares of land, around 17 percent of Senegal’s arable land, was allocated to 17 private firms. Ten of the firms are Senegalese and the rest are foreign.

 Changes in ownership have coincided with serious food shortages in the sub-region, a global financial crisis and a growing emphasis on the promotion of bio-fuel, with Senegal heavily promoting the planting of the controversial Jatropha tree, the seeds of which are used for the production of fuel for diesel engines.

Under the previous administration of Abdoulaye Wade, the government pushed high profile schemes like the Return towards Agriculture plan (REVA) and the Grand Agricultural Drive for Food and Abundance (GOANA), with an emphasis on promoting agri-business and bio-fuels.

“These initiatives have led to a glut of private operators, including religious leaders and senior state officials moving in on land in rural areas,” complains Mariam Sow, coordinator of the Natural Protection Programme of international NGO ENDA. Sow says the loss of farmland in areas like Gandon is sapping farmers’ morale and not bringing the hoped-for benefits. “In losing their land, peasant farmers lose a part of their identity,” Sow argued. “With the amount of land allocated, the local population feels squeezed while only a small proportion of the land area is actually cultivated. The promises on creating jobs and infrastructure are not kept.”

In a May 2011 report, the Agricultural and Rural Prospective Initiative (IPAR), a sub-regional NGO which aims to provide “strategic analysis” of rural and agricultural issues, highlighted the volume of land deals in northern Senegal. IPAR drew particular attention to the case of Mbane in Saint Louis Region, where it said 232,000 hectares had been distributed to politicians, religious leaders and private operators with strong political connections under the GOANA project. The IPAR report noted that, at the time of writing, much of the land acquired had yet to be exploited.

Rosnert Alissoutin of Gaston Berger University in Saint Louis says there are obvious points of conflict between traditional land arrangements and modern legislation on land allocation. “Legislation passed at national level gives the state control over all land in the country, while the peasant farmer is convinced that the land he exploits is inalienably his, inherited from his ancestors,” he told IRIN. Inevitably, situations arise where the acquisition of land by private investors, although legally authorized, is at odds with the customary legal rights demanded by local farmers, the majority of whom do not have title deeds.

The main land legislation in Senegal dates back to July 1964 and stresses free access to land and the importance of communal ownership under state control. The law argues against land being re-appropriated by private owners. Land is awarded to members of the community on the understanding that the concessions granted are properly developed. But the laws give little indication of how the development can be properly evaluated.

Among the large-scale private sector operators to encounter strong local resistance has been the manufacturing conglomerate Senhuile/Senethanol, backed by Italian investors. It acquired 20,000 hectares by presidential decree near Fanaye in 2011 with the stated intention of cultivating sweet potatoes to produce ethanol and later sunflower oil for export. The project had its supporters, particularly those hoping it would bring jobs and generate wealth. But local communities bitterly resented the loss of pasture. The company had promised thousands of jobs, but as of today there are only 30 people from the community on Senhuile’s payroll. Given such conditions, young people do not have a reason to stay and so they leave for the towns.

From here 

Land-grabbing and Sex Inequality

Land scarcity and volatility of food prices on the world market have led richer countries that are dependent on food imports to acquire large amounts of land elsewhere to produce food for their domestic needs. Access to land is critical for small-scale food producers. Lack of it defines ‘landless farm workers’. Losing it and becoming landless is feared by many smallholders, as it will mean losing food security and opportunities for development. It is the most marginalised groups in society who are most susceptible to land grabbing – which makes preventing it a crucial issue for poverty reduction and human rights.

The new wave of land deals is not the new investment agriculture that millions had been waiting for. The poorest people are being hardest hit as competition for land intensifies. Oxfam's research has revealed that residents regularly lose out to local elites and domestic or foreign investors because they lack power to claim their rights effectively and to defend and advance their interests.

While some investors might claim to have experience in agricultural production, many may only be purchasing land for speculative purposes, anticipating price increases in the coming years (known as ‘land banking’). World Bank analysis in 2011 of 56 million hectares of large-scale deals concluded that nothing had yet been done with 80 per cent of the land involved, suggesting a significant amount of land banking.

All of the above is happening while the global share of land available for agriculture has peaked. It is, in fact, reducing, as the world loses agricultural land to urbanisation and soil degradation. Land is not just an important productive asset. Even for families who have stopped living directly off the land, it often serves as an important safety net to fall back on when other economic ventures fail or when the economy fails to provide opportunities. Land has multiple other (so-called) secondary uses as well, which are vital to family livelihood security. It can provide fodder, nuts, fruits, roots, medicinal and kitchen herbs, dyes, rope, timber, and roofing and fencing materials. Many of these resources are available on common lands, and are often especially important for women. Land also provides a space for social, cultural, spiritual, and ceremonial events, and as such is essential for sustaining the identity and well-being of a community and its members.

Many researchers have shown that secure access to or ownership of land is associated with significant reductions in hunger and poverty. For women all over the world, lack of access to and control over land is a major determinant (and outcome) of gender inequality. . In rural areas, lack of access to land forces many women to sell their labour on cash-crop producing farms, where they are paid less than men. Women farm workers may also suffer sexual violence and harassment, discrimination, and devaluation of their work. Rural women often end up with a double burden of providing for and managing the household when men migrate in search of work – another consequence of land shortages. Women also fare disproportionately in conflicts over land, where they face a number of challenges. Discriminatory legislation is compounded by the sexism of those implementing the laws, and women often have little opportunity to participate in decision-making processes regarding new legislation, projects, or contracts. Compounding this, gender-based violence is often a common feature in conflicts over land.

Evidence from research on land grabs in Africa suggests that women are getting a raw deal. To begin with, women’s land rights are less secure and more easily targeted. They also depend more on secondary uses of land, which tend to be ignored in large-scale acquisitions. Furthermore, although women comprise the majority of farmers, men effectively control the land and the income derived from it, even if it is the fruit of women’s labour. In practice, a new commercial opportunity often means that men assume control of the land at the expense of women’s access. Thus, new sources of income from the land are likely to burden women and benefit men. The new competition for land between biofuels and food crops, leading to less availability of food and higher prices, is also likely to affect women more than men, as women tend to take responsibility for feeding the family.

From here 

Land Grab and re-locationin Ethiopia

 “The government is killing our people through starvation and hunger . . . we are just waiting here for death”.

Three quarters of worldwide land acquisitions have taken place in Sub-Saharan Africa, where poverty ridden and economically vulnerable countries (many run by governments with poor human rights records) are ‘encouraged' to attract foreign investment by donor partners and their international guides. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and donor partners, powerful institutions that by “supporting the creation of investment-friendly climates and land markets in developing countries” have been a driving force behind the global rush for agricultural land. Poor countries make easy pickings for multi-nationals negotiating deals for prime land at giveaway prices and with all manner of government sweeteners. Contracts sealed without consultation with local people, which lack transparency and accountability, have virtually no benefit for the ‘host' country.

In Ethiopia , bordering South Sudan,  the fertile Gambella region (where 42% of land is available), with its lush vegetation and flowing rivers, is where the majority of land sales in the country have taken place.  Since 2008 The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) government has leased almost 4 million hectares, for commercial farm ventures. Land is cheap – they are virtually giving it away.  Deals in the region are made possible by the EPRDF's ‘villagisation programme'. This is forcibly clearing indigenous people off ancestral land and herding them into State created villages. 1.5 million people nationwide are destined to be re-settled, 225,000 (over three years) from Gambella.  By driving these people off their land and into large settlements or camps, the government is not only destroying their homes, in which they have lived for generations, it is stealing their identity.

Pastoralists and indigenous people are being forcibly moved by the regime, Human Rights Watch reports, they are “relocating them through violence and intimidation, and often without essential services,” such as education (denying children ‘the right to education'), water, and health care facilities - public services promised to the people and championed to donor countries by the government in their programme rhetoric. The new settlements that make up the villagisation programme, are built on land that is “typically dry and arid”, completely unsuitable for farming and miles from water supplies, which are reserved for the industrial farms being constructed on fertile ancestral land. The result is increased food insecurity leading in some cases to starvation. HRW documented cases of people being forced off their land during the “harvest season, preventing them from harvesting their crops”.

Graham Peebles the Director of The Create Trust,  full article can be found here at link.

The land grabs go on

 Herakles Farms (HF), is a subsidiary of the venture investment firm Herakles Capital which uses on its website such  phrases as "sustainable", "poverty reduction" and "environmentally benign". Its CEO,  Bruce Wrobel, declares: "Throughout my entire life I have considered myself to be an environmentalist and an activist for the poor."

Yet the company is constructing what it claims will be among "the largest palm-oil plantations in all of Africa" - an area roughly 12 times the size of Manhattan - in a fragile biodiverse region in Cameroon. Last year, after complaints about Herakles to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) highlighted the company's alleged environmental violations, Wrobel made no attempts to set the record straight. Instead, Herakles resigned from the Roundtable before the claims were to be investigated, spuriously stating that they "remain committed" to RSPO's standards.

 In communications with investors, Herakles assures that it has "secured a 99-year lease... and also received all required permits and approvals to commence field operations". But in an internal communication, a senior Herakles official states unequivocally: "We do not have the required government approvals for field planting." Cameroon's Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife has on numerous occasions - the most recent, just last month - formally warned the company to stop felling trees until it receives the necessary approvals. Among these missing approvals is a signed presidential decree required to validate the leases of all land concessions of more than 50 hectares on public lands in Cameroon. Yet despite its many reproaches, Herakles proceeds with impunity.

The company  dangled the promise of hospitals, jobs, food security and "tremendous long-term benefits", and managed to gain pockets of consent in the area, to which it now clings as proof of its right to operate. Their dreams of local people stronger infrastructure began to evaporate at the moment when, instead of hospitals and jobs, the only new features to materialise in the area were  perimeters and warning signs, flaunting the fact that their land rights had been forfeited.

 Herakles Farms have exploited images of poverty and hunger, and couched their efforts in the language of sustainability, allowing them to handily reap profits from Africa's resources while undermining national laws, local communities and the environment.

From here

Selling and Buying Sierra Leone

In southern Sierra Leone the Paramount Chief is the supreme traditional authority in the Kpaka Chiefdom. The Paramount Chief leased their land to a foreign company without consulting the people nor without the consent of the family heads who are the customary landowners. They have never even laid eyes on the lease agreement, which was signed in January 2011 by the Paramount Chief. It gives an Indian company, Biopalm Energy, control of nearly 20,000 hectares (close to 50,000 acres) of land in Kpaka Chiefdom for 50 years, with a possible extension of 21 years. The lease in Kpaka Chiefdom is just one - and indeed the smallest - of eight registered agreements in seven of the 12 chiefdoms in Pujehun District. Three of them are held by Biopalm Energy, which is acquiring vast land holdings in Africa and Asia to "become the largest global player in the production of sustainable palm oil." According to Green Scenery, the Siva Group is now the largest landowner in Pujehun District, with close to 100,000 hectares, nearly one quarter of the total area of the entire district. The company is part of the complex corporate web of the Siva Group, an Indian conglomerate registered in Singapore and owned by the elusive Indian billionaire, Chinnakannan Sivasankaran.


The Sierra Leonean NGO Green Scenery calculates that in the past three years in Pujehun District, large investors, primarily representing foreign interests, have taken out long-term leases on at least 248,219 hectares [613,362 acres] - more than 60 percent of the total area of and 81 percent of all the arable land - in Pujehun District. Most of the investors that have leased farmland in Pujehun District plan to use it not for food production, but for industrial plantations of oil palm. Annual rents vary from about 23 US cents to US $12.35 per hectare [9 cents to $5 per acre). Green Scenery warns that the poor compensation rates and the concentration of land in the hands of a few corporate investors will leave local farming communities with very little to live off after their land is converted to giant plantations and they've lost their farm fields, forest fallows and valuable economic trees.

In the Malen Chiefdom Socfin Agricultural Company (SL) Limited, a subsidiary of the giant Luxemburg-registered Socfin Group, has leased 6,575 hectares [16,247 acres] for oil palm plantations, and is looking to double its land holdings. The situation was so tense that in late 2012, aggrieved landowners in Malen Chiefdom called on the Sierra Leone Human Rights Commission to come to their assistance.
Five other large land leases in Pujehun have been taken out by four different companies, which involve a very small group of associates from Sierra Leone and the UK. Since 2009, using seven different companies, these individuals have been involved in eight leases totalling close to 265,000 hectares of land in Sierra Leone. Two of those companies - and thus the land leases - have already been sold off to Biopalm Energy, one for US $5 million and another for $1.5 million.



In 2011, another company, Redbunch Ventures Limited, secured a lease for nearly 45,000 hectares in Barri Chiefdom in Pujehun District. Redbunch was subsequently taken over byAgriterra, a cattle and grain-trading business, when it acquired the parent company, Shawford Investments Inc. Such deals smack of speculation and quick profits.

According to a former agent for Quifel Agribusiness (SL) Limited, a subsidiary of Quifel Natural Resources of Portugal, it has three leases in Port Loko District in northern Sierra Leone, although staff in the Registrar's office could find just one. In 2010, a Quifel country representative reported that the company held a total of 120,000 hectares [296,526 acres]. Another large chunk of Port Loko District (41,582 hectares, 102,751 acres) is owned by one of the companies that Biopalm Energy purchased, Sierra Leone Agriculture. And yet another has been leased by West Africa Agriculture (32,441 hectares, 80,163 acres), a company that is linked with the same British and Sierra Leonean individuals that have scooped up so much land in Pujehun.

Addax Bioenergy Limited, a subsidiary of the Malta-based Swiss company, Addax & Oryx Group, originally acquired 57,000 hectares [140,850 acres] straddling two districts in the north of the country. The land is for sugar cane plantations to provide the raw stock for ethanol for export to Europe. According to Derek Higgo, Health, Security, Social Affairs and Environment Manager of Addax Bioenergy, by March 2013 the company had surrendered more than half of the land, but still held about 24,500 hectares [60,541 acres].

The Sierra Leone government is providing the Chinese company Hainan Natural Rubber Group ,000 hectares [333,592 acres] of land in the country for rubber and rice in exchange for a 10 percent share. An Italian company, FNP Agriculture Limited, holds a lease on 15,000 hectares [37,066 acres] in the north of the country. Other investors claiming large land holdings in the country include the British firm Lion Mountains Agrico. Ltd (14,000 hectares or 34,594 acres), and another British firm, Whitestone Agriculture (SL) Ltd. (542,279 hectares or 1.3 million acres) in the north of the country.

José Graziano da Silva, director general of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, compared "land grabs" in Africa to the "Wild West" and said that a "sheriff" was needed to restore the rule of law. Sierra Leone has become part of the "Wild West."

Cameroon's Land Grab

As part of the land-grab trend that is accelerating across Africa, thousands of Cameroonians have been displaced from their homelands to make way for large-scale agribusiness projects.


Inhabitants of Adjap, deep in the heart of the tropical rainforests of southern Cameroon are living life on the margins. Over the years, its people have watched their ancestral forest lands continually annexed by the government and ceded to foreign agribusinesses and logging companies.

“Our ancestors settled here in 1903. We considered the land ours until 1947 when the colonial government suddenly seized it as private state property, arresting anyone cutting down trees for firewood or to build”, explains Adjap tribal chief, Marcellin Biang.

The Adjap natives have eventually been squeezed into a 14,000-hectare strip of land – less than a third of the near 50,000-hectare expanse they controlled under pre-colonial customary jurisprudence.

In Akom I, chieftain Luther Abessolo says his subjects are increasingly lazy as a result of the prevailing tenure insecurity. “We live in utter uncertainty because the government can decide to seize our land at short notice anytime. Our people lack motivation to cultivate the land”

14,000 villagers in Cameroon’s southwest whose existence – as well as that of numerous endangered floral and faunal species – is under threat. US-owned agribusiness, Herakles Farms, is razing some 73,000 hectares of dense natural forests for a $600 million oil palm plantation despite local objections. Some locals have been arrested for protesting. Herakles officials say that the company has legitimately leased the land for 99 years, but Greenpeace insisted in February that the meagre 50 cents per acre per year rent to the government, the absence of a presidential decree authenticating the concession, pending lawsuits, and flawed environmental impact assessments, among other things, call the investment into question.

Research released in March by Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) indicate that over 10 million of Cameroon’s estimated 22 million hectares of forest lands have already been committed to various concessions, and that some $18 billion has been pipelined for investment in the agribusiness, forestry, mining and infrastructure sectors in Cameroon. The organisation has been pressing for government forest land policy reforms that recognise and restore land ownership rights of local communities. RRI warns the tenure crisis is worst in Africa, where only 0.4% of forest land is formally owned by local people, as opposed to around 24% in Asia and Latin America.

Across West and Central Africa, an escalating number of poverty-stricken men, women and children in rural areas are being chased off ancestral lands they have relied on for generations for farming, grazing and hunting. They are increasingly squatters and low-paid labourers for the incoming foreign investors and local elites.
“When the government takes this land and gives it out in a lease for 40, 50 or up to 99 years, the people often lose access to these commons resources”, Michael Richards, Natural Resources Economist with the UK-based Forest Trends, notes. “In some cases, they do allow access for the extraction of certain products. But in other cases, they put great fences which stop communities having access.” Land grabbers also usually obtain unlimited rights to water use, Richards adds, implying curtailed availability for downstream users.

From here

Understanding nature

Misperceptions of the drylands as barren and empty are leading to their mismanagement. When most government planners look at Kenya’s Isiolo County, they see barren, dusty land. But pastoralists who live there see something else entirely.


Local government holds land in trust for the communities. But because the government rarely sees the land’s true economic value, "if an investor comes in there is a risk it will be given away," said Ced Hesse, a principal researcher in Institute for Environment and Development’s climate change group.

In neighbouring Tanzania, the Ministry of Tourism said it would set aside 1,500 square kilometres bordering the Serengeti national park as a corridor for wildlife, blocking local Maasai communities from accessing their pasture land but granting access to a Dubai-based luxury hunting and safari company.

Land grabbing - Ethiopian style

Despite the defence of land-grab by the Ethiopian embassy in a recent issue of the Indian newspaper, The Hindu, the  prime focus of the policy of the government of Ethiopia is NOT ensuring food security of its citizens but faciliating the export of food to accrue profit. Nor is the land being leased unused and mostly inaccessible. Nor is the re-location of people peaceful.

Over 80% of the 85 million population of Ethiopia live in rural areas, in settlements and villages, and work in agriculture. Many are small-scale farmers who, according to government figures, farm “eight percent (about 10,000,000 hectares) of the national land area”, and traditional pastoralists who have, for generations, lived simple lives. Huge tracts of agricultural land with water supplies are being leased to foreign companies for food export. The Oakland Institute, a US- based policy think-tank and leader in the field, have produced in-depth reports on worldwide land sales stating that, between 2008 and 2011, “3,619,509 hectares were transferred to domestic investors, state-owned enterprises and foreign companies”. Amounting to a third, if government figures are correct, of the land farmed by Ethiopians themselves, an area the size of a small country, e.g. Holland. The government proclaims land sales are part of a strategic, long-term approach to agriculture reforms and economic development, that foreign investment will fund infrastructure projects, create employment opportunities, help to eradicate hunger and poverty and benefit the community, local and national. What growth there will be will benefit onl the rich, privileged minority, mainly members of the ruling party.

With the coming of industrial-size farms in Ethiopia, local people, villagers and pastoralists deemed superfluous to the government’s, economically-driven development plans are being threatened, and intimidated by the military; forcibly displaced  their homes destroyed and herded into camps. Along with vast agricultural complexes, dams are planned and constructed, water supplies re-directed to irrigate crops, forests burnt, natural habitats destroyed. Dissenting voices are brutally silenced.

In Ethiopia, land sales are occurring in six key areas. Oromia and Gambella in the south, Amhara, Beneshangul, Gumuz, the Sidaama zone, or SNNP and the Lower Omo Valley – an area of outstanding natural beauty with acclaimed UNESCO World heritage status. Genocide Watch considers the Ethiopian government’s conduct in Omo and Oromia “to have already reached stage 7 [of 8], genocidal massacres” It is a regime whose loyalties rest firmly with investors, corporations, multi-nationals and the like, and who cares little for the people living upon the land, or indeed in the cities.

Conditional within land lease agreements is the requirement that the government will clear the area of ‘encumbrances’, meaning indigenous people. The national Villagisation program aims to move people from their ancestral homes, over four states, into large settlements is well under way, as these 2010 figures from Cultural Survival show, “by February 1987, 5.7 million people (15 percent of the rural population) had been moved into 11,000 new villages. By the end of this year, 10 million rural inhabitants (25 percent of the population) are expected to be villagized in 12 of Ethiopia's 13 provinces.” This mass movement is being carried out without consultation or compensation, contrary to federal and international law, which requires the free, informed and prior consent of the people, no matter the official claims to the contrary.

“Fear and intimidation” is endemic, not just in areas associated with land sales, but throughout the country; suppression is common and freedom of expression greatly restricted. The media – TV, radio, press as well as print companies, are state-owned, so too the sole telecommunication company, restricting access to the internet, which is monitored. The judiciary is simply an extension of government, lacking credible independence, the political opposition marginalised and completely ineffective. International media are frowned upon and, in some areas (e.g. Ogaden) completely banned.

What about the bumper benefits promised, particularly the numerous employment opportunities? The Oakland Institutes states, “the basic facts and evidence showing growing impoverishment experienced on the ground”. It turns out industrialised farming is highly mechanised and offers few jobs; overseas companies are not concerned with providing employment for local people and care little for their well-being, making good bedmates for the ruling party. They bring the workers they need, and are allowed to do so by the Ethiopian government, which places no constraints on their operations.


Full story here

The Liberian Land grab

Liberian farmers who survived a 15-year civil war are now fighting lucrative property deals with Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil companies that threaten the land they live on, if not their sacred burial sites. Thirty hours by car from the capital Monrovia, the green and yellow flag of Golden Veroleum Liberia, an Indonesian palm oil giant, floats over deforested hills in Sinoe County, southern Liberia. In 2010, GVL acquired a 63-year lease on 220,000 hectares of land to produce palm oil. It pays annual rent of US$1.50 per hectare for virgin forest land and US$5 per hectare for cleared terrain in the lease, renewable for 30 more years. Palm oil is used for cooking in parts of Africa, Brazil and Southeast Asia, and is an ingredient in soaps and washing powders.

“The Indonesians came here for the first time in September 2010,'' resident Benedict Manewah explained. “They said: ‘We have a concession agreement, your president has sold it to us.’ Three months later they came back... and they started to destroy the properties, farmlands, crops, livestock and houses.’’ Manewah listed the crops he had planted. “I had rubber trees, cassavas, breadfruits, orange trees, cocoas, coconuts and palm trees,’’ for his family. GVL workers uprooted his crops to produce palm oil exclusively, and “they ship everything to their people, at home,’’ in Indonesia, he said.

Saydee Monboe pointed out that farmers now had no choice but to work under contract for GVL, charging: “This is not development, it's modern slavery.’’

Alfred Brownell, a lawyer who founded the organization Green Advocates, added:“The way they operate is almost as mob gangsters; threats, intimidation, illegal arrests,''

Land grab once again

Major farmland investors such as banks and pension funds must stop facilitating and engaging in large-scale land grabs with extremely damaging consequences for local populations.

Kirtana Chandrasekaran, Friends of the Earth International Food Sovereignty programme co-ordinator, said: "Unfortunately private investment in farmland may be seen by many as low risk and positive for developing countries. Yet they are often a disaster for local communities and the environment."

In Liberia, farmland investments have facilitated land grabbing. A quarter of the country - including vast swathes of fertile land- has been handed to palm oil, rubber and logging companies, preventing its use for food production. These large plantations are promoted as a means to create jobs, bring development, and increase the government's budget. In reality they are jeopardizing the land rights of local populations, threatening local livelihoods and putting the future of one of the world's most significant biodiversity hotspots into doubt. Between 2009 and 2010 the government of Liberia allocated more than a million acres of land to transnational palm oil producers Sime Darby and Golden Veroleum Liberia without consulting or securing the consent of those living on and using the land.

 Ethiopia has allocated huge areas of fertile arable farmland to foreign investors with little consultations with the affected communities. Since 2008 more than 3.6 million hectares of land has been allocated to foreign investors. For instance, in Gambela region, an Indian company -Karuturi Global- has been allocated staggering 300,000 hectares of land depriving indigenous people of access to water, fishing and grazing grounds, traditional construction materials, and food. Like in many other cases there has been a lack of prior consent and consultation with the local people and affected communities were not consulted and did not give their prior consent these farmland investments. "In Ethiopia and elsewhere farmland investments for instance in plantations are jeopardizing the land rights of local people, and threatening local livelihoods ," said Nyikaw Ochalla from Anywaa Survival Organisation-ASO.

In Madagascar, landgrabbing is caused by foreign and domestic investors implementing agribusiness projects and setting up biodiversity conservation areas, but also developing tourism and extractive industry infrastructure. "We are currently supporting pastoralists communities' claims against the Italian company Tozzi Green which aims to lease 100 000 hectars in the Ihorombe region to mainly cultivate jatropha for agrofuel production"  says Mamy Rakotondrainibe, from the Collectif pour la défense des terres malgaches -TANY

A report released earlier this year by Friends of the Earth Uganda revealed widespread violations of people's rights and environmental destruction from a land grab in Uganda.

Source

The other oil grab

The scramble for land is part of a global rush to increase food supply. Palm oil is the cheapest and most widely used vegetable oil, found in about half of all packaged supermarket products, from biscuits to soap and lipstick. Demand has doubled since 2000 and prices have tripled to more than $930 a metric tonne for Malaysian palm oil. Hungry for foreign direct investment, many governments have offered cheap land. Liberia has taken the lead, awarding more than 600,000 hectares of land for palm oil.  Sime Darby is the biggest investor, along with Golden Veroleum, controlled by Singapore-listed Golden Agri-Resources through its majority investment in the US-based Verdant Fund, which also has a 220,000-hectare concession. Equatorial Palm Oil, listed on the Aim index in London, has 89,000 hectares, and is in talks for a further 80,000 hectares.

Sime Darby is one of the world’s largest palm oil producers. In 2009, the Malaysian company secured 220,000 hectares of land in Liberia on a 63-year lease, marking its first expansion outside south-east Asia. It was not alone. Deals involving big Asian palm oil companies such as Golden Agri-Resource, Wilmar and Olam as well as US funds and European companies, have been signed across west Africa in recent years.

Since 2008, governments from Sierra Leone to the Democratic Republic of Congo have awarded concessions for some 1.5m hectares of land for commercial palm oil plantations, mostly to foreign companies. A further 1.3m hectares of land is reportedly being sought.

87 per cent of the $20bn-a-year production comes from Indonesia and Malaysia. But tighter environmental standards and a shortage of suitable land for expansion has caused planters to look elsewhere. Tropical west Africa is attractive. Oil palms originate there, although most production is small-scale. With domestic economies growing fast and palm oil used extensively for cooking, there is a ready local market. Big customers in Europe and the US are close, compared with Asian plantations.

“There are significant opportunities for the development of commercial oil palm operations in west Africa,” said Doug Hawkins, head of agribusiness at Hardman and Co. “But there are also very real concerns in some countries over security of title, and in respect of the environmental and social impact that some of the very large-scale concessions may produce.”

Land ownership is complex and controversial in Liberia, with fuzzy lines between government land and communally owned land that has been used for subsistence farming for generations. John Nelson, African regional co-ordinator at the UK-based Forest Peoples Programme explained “If they give up their land for palm oil, the leases are for so long that they are basically giving it up forever.”

When Sime Darby started clearing land to plant, local communities protested that their crops and sacred sites had been destroyed. “The government created the impression that this concession land is unencumbered, and companies chose to believe them,” said Silas Siakor, director of the Sustainable Development Institute, in Monrovia. “Nobody thought to first talk to people on the ground.”
Late last year, the company agreed to stop operations at the disputed site, and enter talks with villagers about remediation. It agreed to hire an extra 600 permanent workers from the community, bringing the workforce to more than 3,000. The lowest-paid staff get $5.51 an hour. “The job is hard,” said Doa Massaley, 45, one of the new hires, as he cleared undergrowth from a field. “But there is no other work here.”

Controversy has also dogged Cameroon’s palm oil sector. Herakles Capital, a New York investment fund, plans to plant oil palms on 60,000 hectares of its 99-year concession, which is surrounded by national parks and protected zones.  The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil is a certification body set up to improve the industry’s environment and social standards,  RSPO insists that its members obtain “free, prior and informed consent” from locals. Herakles’s withdrew from the RSPO, saying the body lacked the technical expertise and resources to evaluate its project and said the venture was going ahead

Taken from here

The Water Grab

Few countries in Africa have received more foreign interest in their farmland than those served by the Nile River. The Nile, Africa's longest river, is a lifeline especially for Egypt, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda. This economically, ecologically and politically fragile Nile basin is now the target of a new wave of large-scale agriculture projects. Three of the main countries in the basin, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Sudan have, together, already leased out millions of hectares in the basin and are offering more. To bring this land into production, all of it will need to be irrigated. Ethiopia is the source of some 80% of the Nile water.

Those who have been buying up vast stretches of farmland in recent years, whether based in Dubai or City of London, understand that it's the access to water that they get from the land deals, which they often get for free and without restriction, that may well be worth the most over the long-term. "The value is not in the land," says Neil Crowder, whose UK-based company, Chayton Capital, has been acquiring farmland in Zambia. "The real value is in water.” And water is abundant in Africa, according to those behind the hundreds of large farmland deals that have been signed across Africa. They say the continent's water resources are vastly under-utilised, and they want to harness them for their agriculture projects. A closer look at where these deals are taking place and how much water they plan to consume shows that the projects will rob millions of people of their access to water and risk to deplete the continent's most precious fresh water sources.

The Nile
In its Gambela region on the border with South Sudan, corporations such as Karuturi from India and Saudi Star from Saudi Arabia are already building big irrigation channels that will massively increase Ethiopia's withdrawal of water from the Nile. And these are just two of the actors involved. One calculation suggests that if all the land that the country has leased out is brought under production and irrigation it will increase the country's use of freshwater resources for agriculture by a factor of nine. Further downstream, in South Sudan and Sudan, some 4.9 million hectares of land has been leased out to foreign corporations since 2006. That is more than the size of the whole of the Netherlands. And further up north, Egypt is also leasing out land and implementing its own new irrigation projects. Of course, it remains to be seen how much of all this will actually be brought into production and under irrigation, but it is difficult to imagine that the Nile can handle this onslaught. Reliable figures on how much irrigation is actually possible and sustainable are difficult to find. The FAO, in various publications and in its Aquastat database, gives figures on 'irrigation potential' and actual irrigation by country and river basin. FAO establishes 8 million hectares as the total 'maximum value' available for total irrigation in all 10 countries of the Nile basin. But the 4 countries mentioned above already have irrigation infrastructure established for 5.4 million hectares and have now leased out a further 8.6 million hectares of land where irrigation will be developed.

The Niger

Another part of Africa targeted by agribusiness is the lands along the Niger River, West Africa's biggest river. Mali, Niger and Nigeria are the countries most dependent on the river, but seven other countries in the Niger basin share its water. It is also extremely fragile as it has suffered from man-made interventions such as dams, irrigation and pollution. Water experts estimate that the volume of the Niger has shrunk by one-third during the last three decades alone. In Mali, the river spreads out into a vast inland delta which constitutes Mali's main agricultural zone and one of the region's most important wetlands. It is here where many of the land grabbing projects are concentrated. The Office du Niger presides over the irrigation of over 70,000 ha, mainly for the production of rice. It is the largest irrigation scheme in West Africa, and it uses a substantial part of all the river's water, especially during the dry season. Back in the 1990s, the FAO put Mali's potential to irrigate from the Niger at a bit over half a million ha. But now, due to increased water scarcity, independent experts conclude that the whole of Mali has the water capacity to irrigate only 250,000 ha. Yet the Malian government has already signed away 470,000 ha to foreign companies from Libya, China, the UK, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the past few years, and is offering much more.

The Nile and the Niger basins are just two of the areas where land and water rights are massively being given away. The Ethiopian government is constructing a dam in the Omo River to generate electricity and irrigate a huge sugar-cane plantation – a project that threatens hundreds of thousands of indigenous people that depend on the river further downstream. It also threatens to empty the world’s biggest desert lake, fed by the Omo River, Lake Turkana. In Kenya, a tremendous controversy has arisen from the government's plans to hand out huge areas of land in the delta of the Tana River with disastrous implications for the local communities depending on the delta's water.The already degraded Senegal River basin and its delta have been subject to hundreds of thousands of hectares in land deals, putting foreign agribusiness in direct competition for the water with local farmers. The list goes on and is growing by the day.

The areas where land grabbing is concentrated in Africa coincide almost completely with the continent's largest river and lake systems, and in most of these areas irrigation is a prerequisite of commercial production. If this land and water grab is not put to an end, millions of Africans are going to lose access to water sources which they need for their livelihoods, as they are moved out of the areas where land/water deals have been agreed to, or simply see the access to their traditional water sources blocked by newly built fences, canals and dikes that are owned by someone else. There is simply not enough water in Africa's rivers and water tables to provide irrigation for all of the large-scale agriculture projects that foreign companies are pursuing. If and when they are put under production, these 21st century industrial plantations will rapidly destroy, deplete and pollute water sources across the continent. Such models of agricultural production have generated enormous problems of soil degradation, salinisation and water logging wherever they have been applied. Africa is in no shape for such an imposition. Over one in three Africans live with water scarcity, and the continent's food production is set to suffer more than any other from climate change.

If the goal is to increase food production, then there is ample evidence that this can be most effectively done by building on the traditional water management and soil conservation systems of local communities, and by strengthening collective and customary rights over land and water sources

power to the farmer

In 1894, fourteen European and other countries including the U.S. (the “G-14” of the era) held a land grab conference in Berlin to "save" the Dark Continent. the real agenda was to carve up Africa between the European powers peacefully and without the need for internecine imperialistic wars. The Scramble for Africa gave Britain a nice slice of Africa stretching from Cape-to-Cairo. France took much of western Africa. King Leopold II of Belgium took personal possession of the Congo. Portugal grabbed Mozambique and Angola. Italy got Somalia and laid claim to parts of Ethiopia. The G-8’s “New Alliance for Food Security ” smacks of the old Scramble for Africa. The G-8 wants to liberate Africa from hunger, famine and starvation by facilitating the handover of millions of hectares of Africa's best land to the worlds' multinationals. They want to use multinational food conglomerates to “save” Africa from starvation by 1) subsidizing these giant agribusinesses to dump their agricultural surpluses in famine-stricken African countries, and 2) by greasing the hands of Africa’s corrupt dictators so that these multinationals could “lease” hundreds of millions of acres of Africa’s most arable land to cultivate export crops that command high prices on the global commodities markets, without contributing much to the domestic African market to alleviate endemic hunger.

With a steady growth in global population, the prospect of transforming Africa into vast commercialized farms is mouthwatering for global agribusinesses. In 2011, Africa imported $50 billion worth of food from the U.S. and Europe. Food prices in Africa are 200-300 percent higher than global prices, which means higher profit margins for multinationals that produce and distribute food. The “New Alliance” will accelerate the “transfer” of hundreds of millions of hectares of arable African land to Cargill, Dupont, Monsanto, Kraft, Unilever and the dozens of other signatory multinationals. Working jointly with Africa’s corrupt dictators, these multinationals will “liberate” the land from Africans just like the 19th Century scramble for Africa; but will they liberate Africa from the scourge of hunger, famine, starvation and poverty?

The standard response by the ruling regime and its international donors is to deny and evade the whole thing in clever euphemisms , calling it “severe malnutrition, “food insecurity”, etc, or they blame droughts and natural forces or use the  endlessly supply food handouts of foreign aid as an excuse. Bad governance, dictatorships and corruption are rarely blamed for the predictable and recurrent famines and starvation in Ethiopia. Africans suffer from hunger and thirst because they are victims of ruthless dictatorships! Eight out of every ten Ethiopians live in rural areas with average land holdings of 0.93 hectare. The Zenawi’s regime has transferred at least 3,619,509 ha of land to investors, although the actual number may be higher.”These “lease” transfers (for 99 years) are handed out to companies from India, China, Saudi Arabia and others for cents per hectare. Further reported it has led to displacement from farmland with  the vast majority of locals receiving little or no compensation. The UN World Food Programme in Ethiopia recently announced that 3.2 million people are food insecure in Ethiopia and that it needs an additional US$183 million to provide emergency assistance. At the same time, Mitiku Kassa, Zenawi’s official responsible for agriculture, blamed the “food insecurity” on drought and the irregular rains. The international beggary proficiently practiced by Zenawi’s regime has been transformed into a high art form. It is to stretch out cupped palms for handouts of crumbs left over from exports by Karuturi Global, Saudi Star, Cargill, Monsanto. The “New Alliance” is a brilliant strategy that will sustain the decades long vicious cycle of dependence and food aid addiction in Africa while displacing and severely undercutting the productive capacity of the African smallholder farmers to deal with famine on their own.

Rajiv Khan, the USAID Administrator and Zenawi can talk about “public investment” and the “smallholder farmer” until the cows come home, but the fact of the matter is that neither Ethiopia nor the rest of Africa can achieve food sufficiency by tethering predatory multinational corporations with corrupt African dictators in a new “alliance for food security” and and strapping them around the necks of Africa’s smallholder farmers. A joint venture between jackals and hyenas will never benefit the gazelles. Does the smallholder Ethiopian farmer scratching out a living on 0.93 hectare stand a snowball’s chance in hell competing against Cargill and Dupont? Is the future of the smallholder African farmer going to be as a consumer of food produced by global agricultural multinationals instead of being a local producer and harvester of his/her own food? Does it make sense to hand out the country’s most arable land to “foreign investors” to produce food for export and ensure food security in other countries when Ethiopians are dying from starvation? There can be no smallholder farmer when there is no land to have and to hold. When the smallholder farmer is arbitrarily evicted from his land he becomes a landless, hopeless, helpless, restless, hapless, rootless, voiceless and powerless beggar of international food aid.

Hunger is not an inescapable destiny and it can be eliminated. This requires first and foremost the democratic participation by the people.

Adapted from here

prostituting their land

It was a colonial phenomenon — take land for the needs of the colonists and to hell with those who were living there. Might, military or economic, was right. People too poor and too weak in a world built and run on power were displaced. 

 Africa has long been the object of western domination and usury under the British, French, and Portuguese of old. Now the New rulers of the World — large corporations from America, China, Japan, Middle Eastern States, India, and Europe — are engaged in extensive land acquisitions in developing countries. The vast majority of available land is in Sub-Saharan Africa. Indigenous people, subsistence farmers and pastoralists are forced off the land, the natural environment is leveled, purging the land of wildlife and destroying small rural communities that have lived, worked and cared for the land for centuries.

This contemporary “land grab” has come about as a result of food shortages, the financial meltdown in 2008, and a world population forecast of 9.2 billion people by 2050. Food insecure nations – particularly Middle Eastern and Asian countries, seek to stabilise their food supply. Corporations want to meet the growing worldwide demand for agro-fuels. Finance house and hedge funds seek profits in the rise of investment in land and soft commodities, such as coffee, cocoa, sugar, corn, wheat, soya and fruit.

Investors are often simply speculators seeking to make a fast or indeed slow buck, by ‘land banking,’ sitting on the asset waiting and watching for the price to inflate, then selling. everything has its price. Governments desperate in a world propelled by growth to maximize the value of every so called asset, even if it means prostituting the land, sacrificing the native people and destroying the natural environment.

profit system - it is insane

  GRAIN researcher, Devlin Kuyek, co-author of "The Great Food Robbery"

"...with climate change, we also have to change the way food is distributed. More drought, dry weather, and water crises are going to mean a substantial loss of food production. You have to question the global system of food distribution; it's set up around profit right now. Who gets to eat and who doesn't is decided in a few rooms by boards of directors composed mainly of rich men. Who gets to eat and who doesn't is decided in a few rooms by boards of directors composed mainly of rich men. A handful of people in Northern countries deciding whether Africa is going to eat or not is insane."

"Africa is increasingly being targeted as a centre of production for global markets. The talk now is that Africa is one of the last frontiers because much of Africa is not under the model of export production. Land and water are still in the hands of local communities. So there's a big push to industrialize agriculture for export. Unfortunately, African governments are colluding with corporations who want to pursue agribusiness in their countries, with the help of the World Bank and bilateral and multilateral donors."


"...programmes like AGRA [Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa], are openly talking about small scale farmers as obstacles to development that need to be replaced by a new generation of commercial, modern farmers. This is code language for big farms, often owned by foreign capital, that use the machines, seeds, pesticides and others inputs sold by multinational corporations like AGCO and Monsanto, and that supply the global trade networks of corporations like Cargill and Olam."

 "In Ethiopia, you have a government that has stated its policy is to go from 80 percent rural population to 20 percent rural population. Who can imagine what all those people are going to do? What's the plan there? What jobs are they going to have? You can't say that this is about people in Africa choosing to move to cities. People are being forced out of their lands through mining projects, land acquisitions, and overall bad policies."

Full interview at  http://allafrica.com/stories/201205250403.html

More land-grab in Malawi

The construction of an inland port at Nsanje meant linking land-locked Malawi with the Indian Ocean port of Chinde, 238 kilometres away in neighbouring Mozambique, through the Shire-Zambezi Waterway project. The aim was to reduce the high costs of importing and exporting goods by road via Malawi’s commercial capital, Blantyre and the Mozambican port city of Beria - a round trip of about 1,200 kilometres.

“There’s no evidence that Nsanje will ever be a big port city,” said Nsanje resident Rose Samuel  . “We’ve heard that down the river it’s so narrow that a ship can’t pass, so we don’t think [the port] will be in use anytime soon.” Samuel has more reason to be bitter than most. Her family was among about 300 that used to farm land now occupied by the port. “Those families affected had to uproot maize that was already planted,” said Samuel. “Some were old people who left crying - that was their only source of income.” Samuel’s family received a mere 5,000 kwacha (US$20) for one hectare of ancestral land, for which they had no title deeds. Her family now survive by doing piece-work and renting a small plot of land to grow food. Many others have yet to receive anything. “People are worried that if they can grab land without paying, what will stop them removing more people from the area.”

Townspeople have been told by the Traditional Authority not to build any new houses because the land has been earmarked for development, and Nsanje’s District Commissioner, Rodney Simwaka, told IRIN that his office has received 4,000 applications for land from developers who are banking on the port eventually becoming operational. Village headman Black Richman Khembo told IRIN, “Lots of land has been bought by rich people hoping to make money. So far they are letting people remain on the land, but someday they will probably kick them off.”

http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95438/MALAWI-Dream-fades-for-inland-port-project