In Dakar two weeks ago various social movements, faith-based groups, development and human rights organizations organized a series of events revolving on this problematic issue.
Land grabbing poses threat
Peasants’ representatives say land grabbing poses threat to the societies in Africa. They admitted that the level of awareness regarding this issue should be raised.
Djibo Bagna, the chairperson of the West African Network of Peasants and Agricultural Producers (ROPPA) called for joint actions at all levels and different fields, including information, research, media work and bringing the cases to court.
Moreover, affected peasants by different forms of land grabbing from Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia told about the human rights abuses they have been facing due to the activities of national and multinational companies.
Particularly impressive was the testimony of a peasant delegation from Mali. They described how the preparatory works for putting into production large-scale land grants like the construction of an irrigation canal have already led to the destruction of the houses and the subsistence plots of approx. 60 families. Additionally, access to the Niger River by the local peasants has been limited, affecting particularly the women whose livelihoods depend from the river.
More importantly, the Malian
peasant delegation told how they have been organizing at the grassroots and national level to face this threat.
Interested groups expressed a wish to launch a strong appeal against land grabbing. The appeal should serve as vehicle to forge a broad alliance and mobilization which supports all the communities and peoples organizations defending themselves from land grabbing on the ground.
Land grabbing in Africa
The FAO estimates that in the last three years 20 million hectares have been acquired by foreign interests in Africa, many involving more than 10,000 hectares and several more than 500,000 hectares. Land leases, rather than purchases, predominate, with durations ranging from short term to 99 years. Host governments tend to play a key role in allocating land leases, not least because they formally own all or much of the land in many African countries.
Even though it is reported that the major current international investors are the Gulf States, China and South Korea, the EU is also involved in land acquisition in Africa and is fully responsible for the outcomes.
Agrofuels as accelerator
A number of different factors have increased demand for land (agrofuels, food crisis, financial crisis). European involvement in land grabbing is first due to the policies of both the EU and individual member States, which are directly and indirectly stimulating these factors, and hence this increased demand for land.
EU energy policies are fuelling amongst EU countries and elsewhere the demand for overseas agrofuels investment. Government consumption targets are creating an artificial demand unprecedented among cash crops, which is likely to persist beyond the usual length of a “commodity boom” cycle.
To guarantee the food security of their own populations, a number of food-importing nations have started to purchase or lease land in developing countries.
The foreign land investment is not necessarily a ‘win-win’ situation for both lending and acquiring sides. The Eastern African Farmers Federation has cautioned that leasing farmland to multinationals could precipitate food crisis in the region.
Since foreign land acquisition is profit-oriented and largely for exports, it will foster the introduction/deepening of an industrial agricultural mode of production in the host countries.
Increased agricultural production does not mean that local communities will have better access to food – even if more food was produced. In fact, the expansion of cash crop monocultures has a severe impact on local availability of food as it diverts food producing resources and labour to cash crop production.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to food, Mr. Olivier de Schutter, has stated that foreign land investment is only permissible under certain conditions and has formulated a
number of criteria which have to be met in this context.
Both the African States and the EU member States are duty-bound to respect the human right to food in Africa. All states parties ’individually and through international cooperation’ must respect, protect and fulfil the right to food to the maximum of their available resources. According to FAO, 43 of the 53 African countries do not produce enough food for their own population.
EU countries carry complementary extraterritorial obligations towards the hungry and malnourished in Africa and elsewhere.
Policy recommendation to the EU and its member states
In light of the available evidence on the current land grabbing trend, and in view of the precautionary principle and their due diligence obligation under international human rights law, the EU and its member countries are called upon to:
1. Prevent large scale land acquisitions. Initiate as soon as possible the needed international regulation to prevent such land acquisitions, including a legally binding agreement related the proper regulation of financial and other actors active in agricultural investment. At international level, discussions about how to develop such an initiative could be conducted in the FAO Committee on World Food Security with the participation of peasant farmers’ organizations.
2. Make sure that in the current process of adopting a new investment framework at EU level, clauses are included with a clear reference to international human rights law and its supremacy to the effect that nothing in the agreements can be understood as preventing States/the EU from addressing possible human rights abuses by investors or human rights violations by states as a matter of priority. Moreover, the regulatory space of sovereign states should be safeguarded in regard to non-discriminatory regulatory measures for public interest purposes and for affirmative action policies and measures in favor of discriminated sectors of society.
3. Scrap the energy based target for renewables (agrofuels) and freeze all policies which encourage the use of agrofuels for the transport sector until and unless the regulations in (1) and (2) are in place. The indicated policies otherwise serve as a major incentive for land grabbing. Develop policies that limit the use of energy and promote non agrofuel renewable energy in the transport sector.
4. Strengthen the implementation of human rights based land policies in ODA, particularly when supporting the implementation of the AU Land Policy Guidelines. Involve African farmers and pastoralists organizations in the design of these policies. EU support to the AU Land Policy Guidelines should under no circumstance be used to promote large scale investment in farm land. Support the upcoming process of FAO voluntary guidelines on responsible governance of land and natural resources tenure which are supposed to guide implementation of the principles contained in the final declaration of the International Declaration on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) and of the provisions of international human rights law which protect the rights to land and natural resources of all rural communities.
You can find more information about the land grabbing here.
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