Download Actual experience - People`s Coalition on Food Sovereignty

LANDGRABS VS.
FOOD SOVEREIGNTY
Peoples’ Coalition for Food Sovereignty
Outline
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Trends
Drivers
Benefits?
Risks
Proposed Guidelines
Actual experience
Recoms
Foreign Land Acquisitions (FLAs):
Neo-colonial landgrab?
Trends
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According to IFPRI, 15-20m hectares of farmland in poor countries
have been subject to transactions or talks involving foreigners from
2006-2009. these deals are worth $20 billion-30 billion.
According to WB tallies from 463 projects reported in
farmlandgrab.org between Oct. 2008-June 2009, at least 46.6M
has. are involved, mostly in sub-saharan africa. 21% of these are
already in operation, 70% have been approved
The major current investors are the Gulf States but also China and
South Korea.
Investors are primarily private sector (investment or holding
companies rather than agro-food specialists). Governments and
sovereign wealth funds are also involved directly or by providing
finance and other support to private investors.
Trends
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main targets are countries in Africa (e.g. Sudan,
Ghana, Madagascar) but there are also investments
in Southeast Asia (e.g. Indonesia, Philippines) and
South America (e.g. Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay)
Target countries are perceived to have plenty of
cheap and underutilized land available, favourable
climate, cheap local labour
In host countries it is governments who are
engaged in negotiating investment deals.
Trends
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Land most in demand are those close to water
resources, close to markets and from which
produce can be easily exported.
Focused on staples or biofuels such as wheat,
maize, rice, jatropha for repatriation rather than
traditional cash crops (e.g. tropical fruits) for export
they involve acquisition of land and actual
production rather than looser forms of joint venture
(e.g. outgrowing arrangements)
Drivers
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Greater food insecurity;
Energy insecurity (rush towards the production of
agrofuels);
Water insecurity;
Speculation on future increases in the price of
farmland;
Increased demand for certain raw commodities from
tropical countries;
Expected subsidies for carbon storage through
plantation and avoided deforestation
Benefits?
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More investment in rural areas poverty reduction
Employment creation
transfer of technologies
improve the access of local producers to markets
increase in public revenues
Improved food security for investor countries
Risks
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False economic benefits
Displacement, dispossession and impoverishment of
small peasants and other marginalized communities
Greater food insecurity for affected communities
and host countries
Environmental degradation
Social and political conflict
Undue foreign political interference and influence
Principles for responsible agroinvestment (WB, FAO, IFAD, UNCTAD)
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1: Respecting land and resource rights. Existing rights to land and
associated natural resources are recognized and respected.
2: Ensuring food security. Investments do not jeopardize food
security but strengthen it.
3: Ensuring transparency, good governance, and a proper
enabling environment. Processes for acquiring land and other
resources and then making associated investments are transparent and
monitored, ensuring the accountability of all stakeholders within a
proper legal, regulatory, and business environment.
4: Consultation and participation. All those materially affected are
consulted, and the agreements from consultations are recorded and
enforced.
Principles for responsible agroinvestment (WB, FAO, IFAD, UNCTAD)
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5: Responsible agro-investing. Investors ensure that
projects respect the rule of law, reflect industry best
practice, are economically viable, and result in durable
shared value.
6: Social sustainability. Investments generate desirable
social and distributional impacts and do not increase
vulnerability
7: Environmental sustainability. Environmental impacts
of a project are quantified and measures are taken to
encourage sustainable resource use while minimizing and
mitigating the risk and magnitude of negative impacts.
Actual experience (World Bank
observations)
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Public institutions in target countries not only lack the capacity to
handle the upsurge in investor interest but are also not geared
toward attracting viable investments.
Approval processes are often ill-defined, centralized, and
discretionary, with different parts of the same government often at
odds with each other.
In some cases investors can benefit more from trying to navigate the
system than from trying to design investments that generate jobs and
increase productivity.
Consultation with local right holders is in many cases superficial, with
a lack of prior information and no written agreements that would
clearly specify different parties’ responsibilities and thus could be
used to provide a basis for redress in case agreements are not
adhered to.
Actual experience (World Bank
observations)
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Land boundaries (and rights) are often ill-defined, and environmental and
social safeguards can be neglected.
Weak protection of land rights may lead to uncompensated land loss by
existing land users or land being given away well below its true social
value.
Government capacity to monitor compliance is severely limited. But instead
of relying on publicity of relevant documents and independent third party
verification, agreements are surrounded by an air of secrecy that makes
public reporting and monitoring near impossible.
“Many investments ... failed to live up to expectations and, instead of
generating sustainable benefits, contributed to asset loss and left local
people worse off than they would have been without the investment. In
fact, even though an effort was made to cover a wide spectrum of
situations, case studies confirm that in many cases benefits were lower
than anticipated or did not materialize at all.”
Recommendations
Reorient agri investment to support smallholder based
sustainable agriculture
 Agrarian reform; strengthen land tenure of smallholders
 Governments should enact measures to prioritize food security
at the domestic level as the top priority
 Restrict investments that impinge on right to food and violate
free, prior, informed consent and full disclosure
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