Peddling “Acceptable” Land Grabbing
Food insecurity remains an immense problem troubling many countries despite increased global food production. This is essentially because food still does not reach those who need it most, the poor who lack the capacity to buy it. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that over a billion people in the world suffer hunger and millions have already died from the lack of food. Rising food prices underscored this crisis in 2008 and since then the solution being pushed has been increased investments for agricultural production and raising productivity in underdeveloped countries, mainly to expand crops export.
Amid this context emerged a growing trend that has sown disquiet among peoples of the Third World and concerned groups – the acquisition or lease by foreign investors and governments of large tracts of agricultural land in poor countries. This trend has been described as the “global land grab” as it involves rich nations and private investors acquiring thousands of hectares of lands from cash-strapped, underdeveloped countries for their food or agrofuel production.
To pacify the alarm raised by civil society and thwart opposition especially from landless peasants and indigenous peoples affected by the land grab, officials of developed countries and multilateral agencies like the United Nations and the World Bank are busy crafting guidelines to make these land deals acceptable and secure the property rights of investors – to become “win-win” and “sustainable” land grabbing.
Land grab across the globe
Foreign acquisition of land is not a new phenomenon in poor countries, but recent land deals are remarkable by their scope and the rapid rise of such transactions. The International Food Policy Research Institute estimates that 15 to 20 million hectares – equivalent to the total farm area of France, or 20% of the European Union’s farmland, or the whole of Uruguay – have been negotiated or secured between 2006 to 2009. At least 180 land transactions have been reported since mid-2008, while Oxfam points to some 120 hedge funds, retirement funds, agribusiness corporations, and private equity funds investing in agricultural lands in developing countries.
Target countries include Cameroon, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Madagascar, Mali, Somalia, Sudan, United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia in sub-Saharan Africa. There are also target lands in Central Europe, Asia and Latin America; among them are Brazil, Cambodia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia
...Even Wall Street banks
and investors have become
interested in possessing
farmlands oceans away, such
as Morgan Stanley purchasing
40,000 hectares of Ukrainian
agricultural land.
and Ukraine. Lands that attract buyers or investors are those near water resources, where the climate is favorable to crop production, close to markets and therefore easy to export from, and of course relatively cheap. In short, the best agricultural lands. The availability of cheap labor is also an important consideration.
For example, The Oakland Institute noted that in June 2008, the United Arab Emirates, which imports 85% of its food, bought 324,000 hectares of farmland in Pakistan; while China, aiming for a five times increase in rice production over the next half decade, procured 101,171 hectares in Zimbabwe and invested $800 million in Mozambique. Meanwhile, South Korea, which imports some 60% of its food, has planned private sector-led land acquisitions abroad for food production.
Even Wall Street banks and investors have become interested in possessing farmlands oceans away, such as Morgan Stanley purchasing 40,000 hectares of Ukrainian agricultural land. The demand for biofuels has also prompted investors to target huge acres of land for the production of crops for biofuels. In the Philippines, for instance, the government has granted the use of 60,000 hectares of land to Japan’s Pacific Bio-Fields Corporation, a coconut biodiesel developer. In fact, the Arroyo government has already approved three million hectares for use of foreign agro-corporations.
The United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the right to food Olivier De Schutter reported that such large-scale land leases or acquisitions can be explained by: 1) the rush towards agrofuels production, encouraged by fiscal incentives and subsidies in developed countries; 2) population growth combined with the exhaustion of natural resources (long-term food security objective); 3) increased concerns on availability of fresh water, which is becoming a scarce commodity in some regions; 4) increased demand for raw materials from tropical countries, like fiber and other wood products; 5) expected subsidies for carbon storage through plantation and avoided deforestation; and 6) particularly for private investors, speculation on future increases in the price of arable land.
Promoting “principles and standards”
Citing concerns on human rights including informed participation of and benefits to local communities, UN agencies such as the FAO, donor governments and the World Bank are crafting non-binding guidelines for foreign investments in farmland to transform malpractices into “win-win” scenarios for investors and host countries. FAO has embarked on country consultations, which is intended to result in the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land and other Natural Resources.
According to FAO, the guidelines “set out principles and internationally accepted standards for responsible practices.” They only serve as a framework for governments to use in creating their own strategies, policies and laws. The agency said the voluntary guidelines must be consistent with existing international instruments that address access to land and natural resources, noting that such access is linked with livelihoods especially of the poor.
The World Bank, meanwhile, minces no words in favoring large-scale land acquisitions as it believes there are “land abundant regions” where such transactions are opportunities for development. It is proposing that these deals be done under a set of “principles”, emphasizing that these are not a code of conduct. It explained that the principles apply to all “stakeholders”, meaning that the proposed guidelines are never meant to discipline investors or financiers.
A FAO discussion paper that outlined examples of what might be included in the voluntary guidelines “to stimulate discussion of what should be in a draft proposal” put forward provisions on establishing criteria to identify land and other natural resources that can be privatized and procedures for transfer of ownership. It also suggested identifying public land and resources that can be leased or opened for other arrangements and creating procedures for access to such lands. Even with much reference to human rights and equitable development, it still promoted the acceptability of foreign and private acquisition of productive communal lands as it echoed the World Bank’s concept of responsible and sustainable investment in land and other natural resources.
Such guidelines or principles clearly tend to legitimize and perpetuate global land grabbing, which undermines the people’s sovereignty over their country’s natural resources. Since the guidelines are voluntary and non-binding, they do not have much use for preventing abuses. On the other hand, they will serve the interest of foreign investors who want to soften or appease opposition. The guidelines will encourage foreign ownership of vast fertile lands, which is deplorable amid landlessness of farmers and insecurity of the ancestral domains of indigenous peoples.
The current land grab trend further expands corporate control over the global food system, a development whose dire consequences are already suffered by the world’s poor and hungry population. Corporations and investors are turning to agriculture not to ensure food stability, or address hunger and rural underdevelopment; they are simply out for profit. Thus, a “win-win” situation is hopeless as foreign investors produce for the profitable global market, while host countries themselves are food insecure and thus need to produce for domestic consumption.
Impacts of land grabbing
Despite claims that the global land grab is facilitating agricultural investment into impoverished nations, such land deals benefit only transnational corporations and large landowners and agro-corporations in developing countries. On the other hand, farmers, indigenous peoples, fisherfolk and other rural inhabitants effectively lose their farmlands and their access to the commons as these are transformed into industrial plantations producing for export. The implications are broad – from loss of access to water and other resources to wholesale displacement of communities and livelihoods. Disenfranchised
...Corporations and investors are turning to agriculture not to ensure food stability, or address hunger and rural underdevelopment; they are simply out for profit.
farmers easily become exploited, cheap labor for large plantations. As the rural poor become mired deeper in poverty, they fall into the hunger trap of malnutrition, disease, and curtailed productivity and damaged potential for human development.
Such foreign acquisition of lands also goes against the farmers’ long-running historic struggle for land. Many agrarian reform programs have already been diluted or perverted by the so-called market-oriented land reform, another World Bank-promoted concept. The increasing market pressures on land resources are further threatening small producers and minorities who have insecure or informal land rights.
The environmental impacts of large investments are also significant; in order to be lucrative, foreign investments mostly focus on industrial agro-production with intensive use of chemical fertilizer, pesticides, and large-scale irrigation schemes which lead to overuse of resources and land degradation.
Food self-sufficiency, a goal fervently expressed by many Southern governments at the peak of the food crisis triggered by high food prices, is jeopardized by such land deals as food production for export directly competes with local needs. It is the height of hypocrisy for developed countries and international agencies to speak of “win-win” and “sustainable” land deals when target countries are in fact net food importers or recipients of food aid.
The poor farmers and other marginalized sectors in rural areas have had long, bitter experience with transgressions of foreign corporations usurping their lands and resources, usually with the permission of corrupt governments. It is thus ridiculous to believe that these land grabbers would suddenly subsume their profit interests for the benefit of the poor. Any victory on holding corporations to account was won not by toothless codes but by arduous and unrelenting struggle of the people.
Bargaining Mindanao
The Philippines, where seven out of 10 farmers do not have their own land to till, has ironically become a hotspot in the rush for land lease deals. Mindanao’s fertile lands are prime targets for foreign investors looking for thousands of hectares to acquire for crops and biofuels production.
For example, investors from Saudi Arabia are reportedly staking $300 million to produce cash crops such as bananas and pineapples in 20,000 hectares of land in Mindanao. Also, a Bahraini company entered into a P300-million agribusiness project with a local firm to produce crops for local and export markets. In Davao alone, some 4,000 hectares of land have been eyed by Middle East-based companies to grow their products. The Arroyo government is even mulling the possibility of a special economic zone for Arab investors, who are interested in grains, livestock and poultry, cattle-raising, fishery and mariculture production. Also, the government is looking at increasing land lease terms to 75 years, from the current 25 years.
US investors are equally scrambling for their share of productive soils in Mindanao, with the US Department of Agriculture itself leading the investment scam. US companies have been offered large tracts of land for biofuel and aquaculture production, assuring them of lands “cleared of issues” by concerned government agencies (agriculture, agrarian reform and environment and natural resources).
The government claims Mindanao has over 171,000 hectares open to foreign agro-investors. And yet peasant landlessness is an age-old problem in the island. The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) is appalled by the government’s land deals. Peasant leader Rep. Rafael Mariano said, “The increasing trend of global corporate land grabbing in this country is a direct affront to our national patrimony and undermines the Filipino farmers struggle for genuine land reform.” He scored the folly of selling our lands for other nations’ food security while the country is itself dependent on food imports and 24% of Filipino families is stalked by hunger (December 2009 SWS survey).
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Jennifer del Rosario-Malonzo is a Policy Officer with IBON International.
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