The Lawspeaker
10-19-2010, 04:27 AM
Victims of the hunger for land (http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/victims-hunger-land)
In 2009 alone, an area totalling more than ten times the size of the Netherlands was sold by poor countries to rich nations or other investors. Local farmers are being hit by the rush to grab arable land for the production of food or biofuel crops. Saudi Arabia, China and South Korea lead the race to buy up land beyond their national borders.
Rich nations are not alone in buying up land. Other investors also find it an attractive proposition. Benetton owns a million hectares in Argentina which it runs as a sheep farm. Local Mapuche people were evicted from the Benetton land in Patagonia. The resulting dispute exemplifies modern ‘land grabbing’.
Land grabbing
The focus of 16 October, World Food Day, is global hunger. Top of the agenda for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation’s next meeting in Rome is the purchase of land, especially in developing countries. The call for land grabbing to be regulated is undeniable, but the perception is growing that the phenomenon also has its positive side.
The FAO is mostly concerned about the rights of local populations. “Local farmers have hardly any redress where the government makes over land to investors,” says the FAO’s Paul Munro-Faure. “Indigenous people cannot claim ownership rights, despite having lived and worked in the area from time immemorial.”
Positive
The purchase of land by foreign countries or organisations is, however, not necessarily a bad thing. If the farmers are not evicted but are kept on by the new owners, they can make gains, such as being provided sowing seed, agricultural know-how and money.
An investor planting biofuel crops can turn an economically unviable area into a profitable one. Tanzania earned over 14 million euros in this way on a contract for the cultivation of jatropha curcas or physic nut – a crop used for producing biodiesel.
Feudalism
On the other hand, foreign investors are regularly guilty of what Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has dubbed “a new form of feudalism”. Annelies Zoomers, professor of international development studies at Utrecht University, approves of the term: “There are lots of reasons for buying land or leasing it long-term, from agriculture to creating resorts for rich Americans. Even if a local farmer gets a one-off payment to give up his land, it’s usually too little to set up again from scratch somewhere else.”
The FAO is negotiating a code of conduct designed to curb the excesses of both governments and investors, but progress is proving difficult. In developing countries, the debate on the unregulated granting of land is only just getting underway.
The long-term benefits are taken into consideration more now than they were in the past. Ultimately, this will benefit all parties – not just the Mapuche Indians whose fight with Benetton for the right to return to Patagonia is still going on.
(The article contains a graph/image about the misery caused worldwide..)
In 2009 alone, an area totalling more than ten times the size of the Netherlands was sold by poor countries to rich nations or other investors. Local farmers are being hit by the rush to grab arable land for the production of food or biofuel crops. Saudi Arabia, China and South Korea lead the race to buy up land beyond their national borders.
Rich nations are not alone in buying up land. Other investors also find it an attractive proposition. Benetton owns a million hectares in Argentina which it runs as a sheep farm. Local Mapuche people were evicted from the Benetton land in Patagonia. The resulting dispute exemplifies modern ‘land grabbing’.
Land grabbing
The focus of 16 October, World Food Day, is global hunger. Top of the agenda for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation’s next meeting in Rome is the purchase of land, especially in developing countries. The call for land grabbing to be regulated is undeniable, but the perception is growing that the phenomenon also has its positive side.
The FAO is mostly concerned about the rights of local populations. “Local farmers have hardly any redress where the government makes over land to investors,” says the FAO’s Paul Munro-Faure. “Indigenous people cannot claim ownership rights, despite having lived and worked in the area from time immemorial.”
Positive
The purchase of land by foreign countries or organisations is, however, not necessarily a bad thing. If the farmers are not evicted but are kept on by the new owners, they can make gains, such as being provided sowing seed, agricultural know-how and money.
An investor planting biofuel crops can turn an economically unviable area into a profitable one. Tanzania earned over 14 million euros in this way on a contract for the cultivation of jatropha curcas or physic nut – a crop used for producing biodiesel.
Feudalism
On the other hand, foreign investors are regularly guilty of what Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has dubbed “a new form of feudalism”. Annelies Zoomers, professor of international development studies at Utrecht University, approves of the term: “There are lots of reasons for buying land or leasing it long-term, from agriculture to creating resorts for rich Americans. Even if a local farmer gets a one-off payment to give up his land, it’s usually too little to set up again from scratch somewhere else.”
The FAO is negotiating a code of conduct designed to curb the excesses of both governments and investors, but progress is proving difficult. In developing countries, the debate on the unregulated granting of land is only just getting underway.
The long-term benefits are taken into consideration more now than they were in the past. Ultimately, this will benefit all parties – not just the Mapuche Indians whose fight with Benetton for the right to return to Patagonia is still going on.
(The article contains a graph/image about the misery caused worldwide..)