@農자료창고

Growing demand for food and fuel has put pressure on the world’s agricultural lands to produce more. Now, a trend in “land grabbing” has emerged, as wealthy countries lease or buy farms and agribusiness in poorer countries to ensure their own future supplies. The result may be further economic disparities and even “food wars.”

World grain and soybean prices more than doubled between 2007 and mid-2008. As food prices climbed everywhere, some exporting countries began to restrict grain shipments in an effort to limit food price inflation at home. Importing countries panicked. Some tried to negotiate long-term grain supply agreements with exporting countries, but in a seller’s market, few were successful. Seemingly overnight, importing countries realized that one of their few options was to find land in other countries on which to produce food for themselves.

And the land rush was on.

Looking for land abroad is not entirely new. Empires expanded through territorial acquisitions, colonial powers set up plantations, and agribusiness firms try to expand their reach. Agricultural analyst Derek Byerlee tracks market-driven investments in foreign land back to the mid-nineteenth century. During the last 150 years, large-scale agricultural investments from industrial countries concentrated primarily on tropical products such as sugarcane, tea, rubber, and bananas.

What is new now is the scramble to secure land abroad for more basic food and feed crops—including wheat, rice, corn, and soybeans—and for biofuels. These land acquisitions of the last several years, or “land grabs” as they are sometimes called, represent a new stage in the emerging geopolitics of food scarcity. They are occurring on a scale and at a pace not seen before.

The “Grabbers”: Searching for Stable Food Supplies

Saudi Arabia, South Korea, China, and India are among the countries that are leading the charge to buy or lease land abroad, either through government entities or through domestically based agribusiness firms. Saudi Arabia’s population has simply outrun its land and water resources. The country is fast losing its irrigation water and will soon be totally dependent on imports from the world market or overseas farming projects for its grain.

South Korea imports more than 70% of its grain, and it has become a major land investor in several countries. In an attempt to acquire 940,000 acres of farmland abroad by 2018 for corn, wheat, and soybean production, the Korean government will reportedly help domestic companies lease farmland or buy stakes in agribusiness firms in countries such as Cambodia, Indonesia, and Ukraine.

China is also nervous about its future food supply, as it faces aquifer depletion and the heavy loss of cropland to urbanization and industrial development. Although it was essentially self-sufficient in grain from 1995 onward, within the last few years China has become a leading grain importer. It is by far the top importer of soybeans, bringing in more than all other countries combined.

India has also become a major player in land acquisitions, with its huge and growing population to feed. Irrigation wells are starting to go dry, so with the projected addition of 450 million people by mid-century and the prospect of growing climate instability, India, too, is worried about future food security.

Among the other countries jumping in to secure land abroad are Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). For example, in early 2012 Al Ghurair Foods, a company based in the UAE, announced it would lease 250,000 acres in Sudan for 99 years on which to grow wheat, other grains, and soybeans. The plan is that the resulting harvests will go to the UAE and other Gulf countries.

Tracking the Trends

Accurate information has been difficult to find for those tracking this worldwide land-grab surge. Perhaps because of the politically sensitive nature of land grabs, separating rumor from reality remains a challenge.

At the outset, the increasing frequency of news reports mentioning deals seemed to indicate that the phenomenon was growing, but no one was systematically aggregating and verifying data on this major agricultural development. Many groups have relied on GRAIN (www.grain.org), a small nongovernmental organization with a shoestring budget, and its compilations of media reports on land grabs. A much-anticipated World Bank report, first released in September 2010 and updated in January 2011, used GRAIN’s online collection to aggregate land-grab information, noting that GRAIN’s was the only tracking effort that was global in scope.

In its report, the World Bank identified 464 land acquisitions that were in various stages of development between October 2008 and August 2009. It reported that production had begun on only one-fifth of the announced projects, partly because many deals were made by land speculators. The report offered several other reasons for the slow start, including “unrealistic objectives, price changes, and inadequate infrastructure, technology, and institutions.”

The amount of land involved was known for only 203 of the 464 projects, yet it still came to some 140 million acres—more than is planted in corn and wheat combined in the United States. Particularly noteworthy is that, of the 405 projects for which commodity information was available, 21% were slated to produce biofuels and another 21% were for industrial or cash crops, such as rubber and timber. only 37% of the projects involved food crops.

Nearly half of these land deals, and some two-thirds of the land area, were in sub-Saharan Africa—partly because land is so cheap there compared with land in Asia. In a careful evidence-based analysis of land grabs in sub-Saharan Africa between 2005 and 2011, George Schoneveld from the Center for International Forestry Research reported that two-thirds of the area acquired there was in just seven countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Madagascar, Mozambique, South Sudan, and Zambia. In Ethiopia, for example, an acre of land can be leased for less than $1 a year, whereas in land-scarce Asia it can easily cost $100 or more.

The second most-targeted region for land grabs was Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Countries have also sought land in Latin America, especially in Brazil and Argentina. The state-owned Chinese firm Chongqing Grain Group, for example, has reportedly begun harvesting soybeans on some 500,000 acres in Brazil’s Bahia state for export to China. The company announced in early 2011 that, as part of a multibillion-dollar investment package in Bahia, it would develop a soybean industrial park with facilities capable of crushing 1.5 million tons of soybeans a year.

Unfortunately, the countries selling or leasing their land for the production of agricultural commodities to be shipped abroad are typically poor and, more often than not, those where hunger is chronic, such as Ethiopia and South Sudan. Both of these countries are leading recipients of food from the UN World Food Programme. Some of these land acquisitions are outright purchases of land, but the overwhelming majority are long-term leases, typically 25 to 99 years.

Food and Fuel Compete for Agricultural Land

In response to rising oil prices and a growing sense of oil insecurity, energy policies encouraging the production and use of biofuels are also driving land acquisitions. This results in either clearing new cropland or making existing cropland unavailable for food production.

The European Union’s renewable energy law requires 10% of transport energy to come from renewable sources by 2020. This law is encouraging agribusiness firms to invest in land to produce biofuels for the European market. In sub-Saharan Africa, many investors have planted jatropha (an oilseed-bearing shrub) and oil palm trees, both sources for biodiesel.

One company, U.K.-based GEM BioFuels, has leased 1.1 million acres in 18 communities in Madagascar on which to grow jatropha. At the end of 2010 it had planted 140,000 acres with this shrub. But by April 2012 it was reevaluating its Madagascar operations due to poor project performance. Numerous other firms planning to produce biodiesel from jatropha have not fared much better. The initial enthusiasm for jatropha is fading as yields are lower than projected and the economics just do not work out.

Sime Darby, a Malaysia-based company that is a big player in the world palm oil economy, has leased 540,000 acres in Liberia to develop oil palm and rubber plantations. It planted its first oil palm seedling on the acquired land in May 2011, and the company plans to have it all in production by 2030.

Thus, we are witnessing an unprecedented scramble for land that crosses national boundaries. Driven by both food and energy insecurity, land acquisitions are now also seen as a lucrative investment opportunity. Fatou Mbaye of Action Aid in Senegal observes, “Land is quickly becoming the new gold and right now the rush is on.”

Investing—or Speculating—in Land

Investment capital is coming from many sources, including investment banks, pension funds, university endowments, and wealthy individuals. Many large investment funds are incorporating farmland into their portfolios. In addition, there are now many funds dedicated exclusively to farm investments. These farmland funds generated a rate of return from 1991 to 2010 that was roughly double that from investing in gold or the S&P 500 stock index and seven times that from investing in housing. Most of the rise in farmland earnings has come since 2003.

Many investors are planning to use the land acquired, but there is also a large group of investors speculating in land who have neither the intention nor the capacity to produce crops. They sense that the recent rises in food prices will likely continue, making land even more valuable over the longer term. Indeed, land prices are on the rise almost everywhere.

Land acquisitions are also water acquisitions. Whether the land is irrigated or rainfed, a claim on the land represents a claim on the water resources in the host country. This means land acquisition agreements are a particularly sensitive issue in water-stressed countries.

In an article in Water Alternatives, Deborah Bossio and colleagues analyze the effect of land acquisition in Ethiopia on the demand for irrigation water and, in turn, its effect on the flow of the Nile River. Compiling data on 12 confirmed projects with a combined area of 343,000 acres, they calculate that if this land is all irrigated, as seems likely, the irrigated area in the region would increase sevenfold. This would reduce the average annual flow of the Blue Nile by approximately 4%.

Acquisitions in Ethiopia, where most of the Nile’s headwaters begin, or in the Sudans, which also tap water from the Nile, mean that Egypt will get less water, thus shrinking its wheat harvest and pushing its already heavy dependence on imported wheat even higher.

Land Grabs and Human Rights

Massive land acquisitions raise many questions. Since productive land is not often idle in the countries where the land is being acquired, the agreements mean that many local farmers and herders will simply be displaced. Their land may be confiscated, or it may be bought from them at a price over which they have little say, leading to the public hostility that often arises in host countries.

In addition, the agreements are almost always negotiated in secret. Typically only a few high-ranking officials are involved, and the terms are often kept confidential. Not only are key stakeholders such as local farmers not at the negotiating table, they often do not even learn about the agreements until after the papers are signed and they are being evicted. Unfortunately, it is often the case in developing countries that the state, not the farmer, has formal ownership of the land. Against this backdrop, the poor can easily be forced off the land by the government.

The displaced villagers will be left without land or livelihoods in a situation where agriculture has become highly mechanized and employs few people. The principal social effect of these massive land acquisitions may well be an increase in the ranks of the world’s hungry.

The Oakland Institute, a California-based think tank, reports that Ethiopia’s huge land leases to foreign firms have led to “human rights violations and the forced relocation of over a million Ethiopians.” Unfortunately, since the Ethiopian government is pressing ahead with its land lease program, many more villagers are likely to be forcibly displaced.

In a landmark article on African land grabs in the Observer, John Vidal quotes Nyikaw Ochalla, an Ethiopian from the Gambella region: “The foreign companies are arriving in large numbers, depriving people of land they have used for centuries. There is no consultation with the indigenous population. The deals are done secretly. The only thing the local people see is people coming with lots of tractors to invade their lands.” Referring to his own village, where an Indian corporation is taking over, Ochalla says, “Their land has been compulsorily taken and they have been given no compensation. People cannot believe what is happening.”

Hostility of local people to land grabs is the rule, not the exception. China, for example, signed an agreement with the Philippine government in 2007 to lease 2.5 million acres of land on which to produce crops that would be shipped home. once word leaked out, the public outcry—much of it from Filipino farmers—forced the government to suspend the agreement. A similar situation developed in Madagascar, where a South Korean firm, Daewoo Logistics, had pursued rights to more than 3 million acres of land, an area half the size of Belgium. This helped stoke a political furor that led to a change in government and cancellation of the agreement.

Impacts of “Long-Distance Farming”

How productive will the land be that actually ends up being farmed? Given the level of agricultural skills and technologies likely to be used, in most cases robust gains in yields could be expected. As demonstrated in Malawi, simply applying fertilizer to nutrient-depleted soils where rainfall is adequate and using improved seed can easily double grain yields.

Perhaps the more important question is, What will be the effects on the local people? The Malawi program’s approach of directly helping local farmers can dramatically expand food production, raise the income of villagers, reduce hunger, and earn foreign exchange—a win-win-win-win situation. This contrasts sharply with the lose-lose-lose situation accompanying land grabs—villagers lose their land, their food supply, and their livelihoods.

There will be some spectacular production gains in some countries; there will undoubtedly also be failures. Some projects have already been abandoned. Many more will be abandoned simply because the economics do not pan out. Long-distance farming, with the transportation and travel involved, can be costly, particularly when oil prices are high.

Overall, while announcements of new land acquisitions have been popping up with alarming frequency, the actual development of acquired land has been slow. Investors tend to focus on the costs of producing the crops without sufficiently considering the cost of building the modern agricultural infrastructure needed to support successful development of the tracts of acquired land. In most sub-Saharan African countries, there is little of this infrastructure, which means the cost to an investor of developing it can be overwhelming.

In some countries, it will take years to build the roads needed to both bring in agricultural inputs, such as fertilizer, and move the farm products out. Beyond this, there is a need for a local supply of either electric power or diesel fuel to operate irrigation pumps. A full-fledged farm equipment maintenance support system is needed, lest equipment is left idle while waiting for repair people and parts to come from afar. Maintaining a fleet of tractors, for example, requires not only trained mechanics but also an on-site inventory of things like tires and batteries. Grain elevators and grain dryers are essential for storing grain. Fertilizer and fuel storage facilities have to be constructed.

Another complicating factor is navigating the various governmental regulations and procedures. For example, as almost all the equipment and inputs needed in a modern farming operation have to be imported, this requires a familiarity with customs procedures. In addition, various permits may be required for such things as drilling irrigation wells, building irrigation canals, or tapping into the local electrical grid if one exists.

When Saudi Arabia decided to invest in cropland, it created King Abdullah’s Initiative for Saudi Agricultural Investment Abroad, a program to facilitate land acquisitions and farming in other countries, including Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Turkey, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Brazil. The Saudi Ministry of Commerce and Industry recently launched an inquiry to find out why things were moving at such a glacial pace. What it learned was that simply acquiring tracts of land abroad is only the first step. Modern agriculture depends on heavy investment in a supporting infrastructure, something that is costly even for the oil-rich Saudis.

There is also a huge knowledge deficit associated with launching new farming projects in countries where soils, climate, rainfall, insect pests, and crop diseases are far different from those in the investor country. There almost certainly will be unforeseen outbreaks of plant disease and insect infestations as new crops are introduced, particularly since so many of the land deals are in tropical and subtropical regions.

A lack of familiarity with the local environment brings with it a wide range of risks. The Indian firm Karuturi Global is the world’s largest producer of cut roses, which it grows in Ethiopia, Kenya, and India for high-income markets. The company has recently entered the land rush, jumping at an offer in 2008 to farm up to 740,000 acres of land in Ethiopia’s Gambella region. In 2011, the company planted its first corn crop in fertile land along the Baro River. Recognizing the possibility of flooding, Karuturi invested heavily in building dikes along the river. Unfortunately the dikes were not sufficient, and 50,000 tons of corn were lost to flash flooding. Fortunately for Karuturi, the company was large enough to survive this heavy loss.

The bottom line is that investors face steep cost curves in bringing this land into production. Even though the land itself may be relatively inexpensive, the food grown under these conditions and shipped to home countries will be some of the most costly food ever produced.

The flurry of large-scale land acquisitions that began in 2008, yielded only a few relatively small harvests as of 2012. The Saudis harvested their first rice crop in Ethiopia, albeit a very small one, in late 2008.

In 2009, South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries harvested some 4,500 tons of soybeans and 2,000 tons of corn on a 25,000-acre farm it took over from Russian owners, roughly 100 miles north of Vladivostok. Hyundai had planned to expand production rapidly to 100,000 tons of corn and soybeans by 2015. But in 2012 it anticipated producing only 9,000 tons of crops, putting it far behind schedule for reaching its 2015 goal. The advantage for Hyundai was that this was already a functioning farm. The supporting infrastructure was already in place. Yet even if Hyundai reaches its 100,000-ton goal, this will cover just 1% of South Korea’s consumption of these commodities.

Another of the acquisitions that appears to be progressing is in South Sudan, where Citadel Capital, an Egyptian private equity company, has leased 260,000 acres for agriculture. In 2011 it began production with a 1,500-acre trial of chickpeas. The plan is to scale the area in chickpeas up to 130,000 acres in five years. The overall goal is to grow crops, eventually including corn and sorghum as well, for which there is a large local market and to produce them at well under the price of imports. This particular project is apparently intended to produce for local consumption. Unfortunately, this is not the case for the great majority of foreign acquisitions.

Will Foreign Land Grabbers Spark Local Revolts?

Land acquisitions, whether to produce food, biofuels, or other crops, raise questions about who will benefit. Even if some of these projects can dramatically boost land productivity, will local people gain from this? When virtually all the inputs—the farm equipment, the fertilizer, the pesticides, the seeds—are brought in from abroad and all the output is shipped out of the country, this contributes little to the local economy and nothing to the local food supply. These land grabs are benefiting the rich at the expense of the poor.

One of the most difficult variables to evaluate is political stability in the countries where land acquisitions are occurring. If opposition political parties come into office, they may cancel the agreements, arguing that they were secretly negotiated without public participation or support. Land acquisitions in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, both among the top failing states, are particularly risky. Few things are more likely to fuel insurgencies than taking land away from people. Agricultural equipment is easily sabotaged. If ripe fields of grain are torched, they burn quickly.

In Ethiopia, local opposition to land grabs appears to be escalating from protest to violence. In late April 2012, gunmen in the Gambella region attacked workers on land acquired by Saudi billionaire Mohammed al-Amoudi for rice production. They reportedly killed five workers and wounded nine others. Al-Amoudi’s firm Saudi Star Agricultural Development was growing rice on just 860 acres of its 24,700-acre lease as of mid-2012, but it intends eventually to obtain another 716,000 acres in the region, with much of the rice harvest to be exported to Saudi Arabia.

Formulating Strategies for Global Food Security

The World Bank, working with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and other related agencies, has formulated a set of principles governing land acquisitions. These guiding principles are well conceived, but unfortunately, as critics like GRAIN point out, there is no mechanism to enforce them. The Bank does not seem willing to challenge the basic argument of those acquiring land, who continue to insist that it will benefit the people who live in the host countries.

Land acquisitions are being fundamentally challenged by a coalition of more than one hundred NGOs, some national and others international. These groups argue that the world does not need big corporations bringing large-scale, heavily mechanized, capital-intensive agriculture into developing countries. Instead, these countries need international support for local village-level farming centered on labor-intensive family farms that produce for local and regional markets and that create desperately needed jobs.

One important strategy would be to improve information collection on these international deals. A highly anticipated effort to compile information on large-scale land acquisitions, called the Land Matrix, was launched in April 2012. Its goal is to make data and descriptions of verified foreign land deals more accessible to research organizations, academics, and the general public. Unfortunately, while the project launch generated heavy media coverage, it soon became clear that the database had some of the same drawbacks as previous attempts. For example, certain large deals known for some time to have been canceled were still listed. The Land Matrix is an ongoing effort, accepting user feedback and submissions of new land acquisition examples, so it may prove a valuable tool as it is improved.

Energy policies could also have a great impact on ensuring food security. For instance, canceling biofuel mandates could quickly lower food prices by avoiding the massive conversion of food into fuel for cars.

It is becoming increasingly clear that future food security is integral to the future of global security as it is more broadly defined. As land and water become scarce, as the earth’s temperature rises, and as world food security deteriorates, a dangerous geopolitics of food scarcity is emerging. The conditions giving rise to this have been in the making for several decades, but the situation has come into sharp focus only in the last few years. The land acquisitions discussed here are an integral part of a global power struggle for control of the earth’s land and water resources.

About the Author

Lester R. Brown is president of Earth Policy Institute (www.earth-policy.org), a nonprofit, interdisciplinary research organization based in Washington, D.C.

This article is adapted with permission from his latest book, Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity (W. W. Norton & Company, 2012).

Office Du Niger의 논을 방문

최근 말리와 세네갈로 다녀온 식량주권 투어에서 명백한 한 가지: 서아프리카 농민과 소농만의 전쟁이 아니다 —그들은 싸움으로 돌아오고 있다. 세네갈 다카르에서 열린 World Social 포럼에서 광범위한 농민과 비영리단체 연합은 “Dakar Appeal Against Land Grabs”을 발표했다. 우리의 투어에서 식량주권을 확대하고 토지수탈에 저항하는 농민단체와 조직을 만났다.

지역의 벼농사 농부와 이야기

2008년 식량가격이 치솟은 여파로, 상승한 곡물가격에 싼 땅값으로 뜻밖의 이윤을 안겨줄 수 있는 아프리카의 농지에 투자자들의 관심이 높아졌다. 2008년 이후 여러 건의 토지수탈이, 부드럽게 말하여 “외국인의 토지취득”이 가속화되었다: 프랑스, 남아프리카, 중국, 한국, 리비아의 기업들은 수천, 수만 평의 주요 농지를 사들였다. 그 면적은 말리에서만 약 7억에서 18억 평으로 추산된다.  물론 아프리카에서 일어나는 토지수탈이란 현상은 새로운 일도 아니고, “진보”라는 이름으로 정당화될 일도 아니다. 게다가 새로운 토지수탈은 "개발"이라는, 역설적으로 "식량안보"라는 이름으로 이루어지고 있다.

2008년 식량가격 위기를 이은 도시의 “식량폭동”이 이러한 공격을 위한 여러 긴급정책으로 무대를 만들었다. 가장 먼저 민주적 정통성이 부족한 여러 국가 —최근의 튀니지, 이집트, 리비아에서 보듯이— 더 깊은 불만이 담겨 있는 빵값에 대한 시위를 두려워했다. 권력을 잃을 것에 대한 두려움으로 그들은 특히 도시에서 식량가격을 빨리 떨어뜨려야 했다.

말리의 쌀푸대

그러면 어떻게 하면 빠르게 식량가격을 떨어뜨리겠는가? 간단하다! 첫째, 수출을 막아 해외로 나가는 식량을 막으면 된다. 둘째, 수입에 대한 규제를 풀어 더 많은 식량이 국내로 들어오도록 조장하면 된다. 볼리비아부터 나이지리아까지 여러 나라에서 이러한 두 가지 방법을 사용하여 적어도 오랜 격변이 일어나는 걸 막을 만큼 충분히 빠르게 소비자가격을 안정화시켰다. 그러나 농촌 지역에서 식량을 생산하는 농민은 매우 위태로워졌다.

자신이 소비하는 쌀의 대부분을 생산하는 국가인 말리에서, 정부는 2008년 식량가격 상승에 매우 놀라서 아직도 그때의 긴급조치를 유지하고 있다: 말리산 쌀의 수출을 금지하고 외국산 쌀에 대한 관세를 중단한다. 외국인 기부자의 도움과 함께 하이브리드 종자와 화학투입재(주로 화학비료와 제초제)를 사용하여 쌀 생산을 증가시키고자 압력을 가한다. 사실 말리의 쌀 생산은 2009~2010년 13% 증가했다. 이 "위기관리" 정책의 결과는 무엇인가? 값싼 아시아산 쌀이 범람하고, 말리의 벼농사 농민이 생산한 잉여분은 팔 수 없게 되었다.

말리 Office du Niger의 벼농사 농부의 조합 Sexagon

Niono 마을에서 만난 말리 벼농사 농민단체 Sexagon의 대표에 따르면, 현재 이전 해부터 잉여분의 쌀이 35만 톤까지 불어났다고 한다. 과거에는 모리타니아로 그들이 생산한 쌀을 수출했는데 그것이 금지되고 값싼 태국과 일본의 쌀이 들어오면서 농민들은 국내에 낮은 가격에 쌀을 팔 수밖에 없기 때문이다. 그 결과 그들은 대출을 갚지 못하여 부채를 떠안게 되었다. 그들의 신용도는 위험에 처해 있고, 그들의 가장 중요한 자산은 "땅"이다. Office du Niger —말리 시장에 낼 벼를 기르는 소농들의 지역— 의 벼농사 농민들은 관개를 하는 데 수세를 내는데, 그걸 지불할 능력이 없으면 그들은 쫓겨나게 된다.

Sexagon 농민과의 면담

그런데 이 지역에서 관개를 하지 않는 농민들은 더 큰 위험에 처해 있다. 말하자면 그들의 땅이 "미개발지"로 간주되어서 '수탈될' 상황이기 때문이다. 예를 들어, 2009년의 토지 거래로 리비아 정부에 3억 평이 넘어갔다. "Malibya 프로젝트"로 알려진 이 사업은 Ségou 지역에서 미개발지를 관개가 가능한 논으로 "개발"하겠다고 약속했다. 지금까지 쫓겨난 사람들이 얼마인지 명확하지 않다 —첫 번째 수탈로 57가족농이 쫓겨났다. 그들의 땅이 "미개발지"로 분류되었지만, 이 가족농들은 집에서 먹고 지역에서 소비하는 옥수수, 조, 카사바, 과실수, 채소 등을 재배하며 살아왔다. 그러한 작물들이 지금 대규모 단작으로 재배되는 하이브리드 벼로 대체될 예정이다. 생물다양성의 상실만 보더라도 엄청날 것이다. 

Ségou 지역의 Malibya 홍보 입간판

Malibya 프로젝트로 쫓겨난 가족 가운데 일부는 그들의 집과 나무에 대한 보상금을 받았지만, 대부분은 그것마저 받지 못했다. 그리고 땅 자체에 대해서 아무런 보상도 받지 못했고, 계속 농사지을 새로운 땅도 받지 못했다. Sexagon —관개 논에서 벼를 생산하는 소농을 대표하는— 은 관개할 수 있는 땅은 가장 먼저 말리의 국내 소비에 쓰일 식량을 생산하는 말리 농민에게 주어져야지 외국계 기업이나 정부에 분배해서는 안 된다고 주장한다. Office du Niger 농장에서 몇 천 평을 경작하는 소농은 거의 생존하기가 힘들다.

또 다른 사례로, Sanamadougou 마을의 농민들에게서 6000만 평을 수용해 국영기업인 GDCM(Large Cereals Distributor of Mali)에게 부여했다. 이 토지 거래 —기업의 CEO Modibo Keita 씨의 이름을 따 "Modibo 프로젝트"라 이름을 붙임— 는 Office du Niger이 승인했다. 2010년 10월에 공사를 시작하길 바라여, Keita 씨는 마을사람들이 땅을 비우는 대가로 모두에게 축구공과 티셔츠부터 새로운 학교까지 제공했다. 그들의 거부에도 Keita 씨는 땅을 밀어버리기 시작하고 자신의 새로운 운하를 팠다 —그러면서 나온 흙더미는 근처 농민의 조밭에 퍼부었다. 마을사람들이 시위하자, Keita 씨는 수백 명의 경찰을 데려와 강제로 그들을 해산시켰다. 91세의 노인이 손가락이 부러진 것을 포함하여 수십 명이 다쳤다. 5개월 된 임산부도 얻어맞은 결과 아이를 유산했다: 그녀는 “모두 도망갔어요. 하지만 난 아무 잘못이 없었기에 도망가지 않았어요.”라고 말한다.

2003년, Keita 씨는 대규모 밀 생산을 위해 땅을 취득함으로써 자신의 사업을 "수직적으로 통합시킬" 명백한 의도를 가지고 밀어버리는 일을 확대하고자 미국 국제개발처USAID와 세계은행에서 자금을 지원받았다. 2003년 USAID의 보고서에서는 “2000만 달러를 초과하는 총 순자산에도 GDCM라는 기업은 Modibo Keita 사업주 일가에 의해 경영된다.”고 했다

말리의 작물다양성 전시회

위협과 탄압에도 2010년 11월 전국 각지의 농민들이 말리 Kolongo에 모여 공개적으로 토지수탈을 비판했다. 그들은 공동방안도 발표했다: 토지 강탈과 인권유린 사례를 조사하고 문서화하라; 국내와 해외에 토지수탈에 대한 정보를 널리 알려라; 대법원과 국제법원에 토지와 인권을 보호하기 위한 법적 조치를 강구하라. 서아프리카 전역의 비영리단체와 농민조직과의 강력한 연대도 구축되었다. 상부단체인 COPAGEN —아프리카 유전자원의 보호를 위한 연합— 과 함께 그들은 운동의 구호를 큰 소리로 외쳤다: 내 땅을 건드리지 마라, 그것은 나의 삶이다! (Touches-pas a ma terre, c’est ma vie!).

World Social 포럼: 서아프리카의 토지수탈 세션

이러한 토지수탈은 단지 부패한 관리와 탐욕스런 지도층의 작품이 아니다. 말리 농민연합(CNOP)의 Ibrahima Coulibaly 대표는 오히려 신자유주의의 개발 모델에 정면으로 맞서야 한다고 주장한다: “농민과 소농이 자신의 인구를 먹여 살릴 수 없다는 주장이 있다.” 세계은행과 아프리카의 새로운 녹색혁명을 위한 연합과 같은 집단의 대규모 개발 노력은 이러한 주장을 강화시킨다. 이러한 이유로 2011년 2월 World Social 포럼에서 발표된 “Dakar Appeal Against Land Grabs”은 모든 곳의 개인과 시민사회단체에 호소한다:

가능한 모든 수단(인맥, 언론, 법, 재정, 대중)으로 토지수탈에 맞서 싸우는 이들을 지원하고 인권에 대한 의무를 이행하도록 각국 정부와 국제기관에 압력을 행사하자.

http://www.foodsovereigntytours.org/2011/03/west-africa-report-part-i-don%E2%80%99t-touch-my-land-peasant-resistance-to-land-grabs-in-mali/

유엔 식량권에 대한 특별조사관 Olivier De Schutter 씨는 오늘날 식량안보를 위협하는 '해양수탈ocean-grabbing'에 대해 경고하고, 세계 각국의 정부와 국제단체 들에게 어족자원을 더 이상 고갈시키지 말고 긴급조치를 통해 보호하고 유지하여 어업과 해양환경의 혜택을 공유하도록 촉구했다. 

드 슈터 씨는 "'해양수탈' –소규모 어부, 미보고된 어로, 영해의 침입, 지역의 인구에게서 자원을 전환시키는 손해로 그늘을 드리워서 토지수탈만큼 심각한 위협이 될 수 있다"고 식량권과 어업에 대한 새로운 보고서*에서 밝혔다.

"지속가능하지 않은 관행으로부터 바다를 환수하는 긴급한 조치 없이, 어업은 더 이상 수백만의 식량권을 보장하는 중요한 역할을 담당할 수 없다"고 전문가는 말하며, "증가하는 압력으로 농업 체계와 함께 우리 식단의 높아지는 단백질 수요를 충족시키고자 많은 사람들이 현재 강과 호수, 바다를 찾고 있다"고 지적했다. 

불법 어로의 규모가 1000~2800만 톤(mt)으로 추정되는 한편, 해마다 약 7.3mt –세계 어획량의 10%– 는 버려진다. "어족자원이 줄어들 것이라는 점은 분명하고, 어선들은 규칙과 보존전략을 회피하려 한다"고 특별조사관은 말한다.

세계 해양의 대부분에서는 원양어선들이 어로활동을 한다고 De Schutter 씨는 지적하고, 그들의 활동을 긴급히 조정하여 관리하기 위한  License and Access Agreements(LAAs)를 요청했다. 그는 미보고된 불법어로를 저지하는 강력한 감시구조를 포함한 LAAs를 요청했다; 지역의 식량 수요를 충족시키는 어업과 소규모 어부의 역할을 자세히 밝힌다; 어선에서의 노동권을 강화한다; 그리고 선적국의 도움과 함께 인권 평가에 기초해서만 평가한다.

유엔 전문가는 소규모 어부가 실제로 산업형 원양어업 선단보다 더 적은 연료로 물고기를 잡고, 더 적은 어획량을 버린다는 점을 강조하면서 각국 정부에게 그들에 대한 지원을 재고할 것을 요청한다. "원양어업에서 공업형 어업은 경제적 선택처럼 보이는데, 단지 이런 선단이 많은 보조금을 지원받을 수 있기 때문이며 동시에 남획과 자원고갈의 비용을 외면화한다. 미래세대는 해양자원이 고갈될 때 그 대가를 지불할 것이다”고 말했다.

De Schutter 씨가 지적한 핵심과제는 공업형 어업과 소규모 어부의 권리와 연안 지역사회 -때때로 어업활동을 하여 위기의 시대에 안전망을 구성할 수 있는- 사이의 공존을 강화하는 것이다. 따라서 그는 다섯 가지 권고사항을 제시한다:

1. 1. 소규모 어부를 위한 독점적인 전통어로구역을 만들고 공업형 선단의 침입을 단속한다;
2. 2. 소규모 어부의 협동조합을 지원하고 그들이 가치사슬(경제활동을 통해 부가가치가 발생하는 과정)을 증가시키는 걸 돕는다;
3. 3. 지역적으로 어업자원을 관리하는 장소에 공동관리체계를 구축한다;
4. 4. 소규모 어부의 생계에 악영향을 미치는 대규모 개발프로젝트, 예를 들어 모래 채취 등을 그만둔다; 
5. 5. 식량전략에 대한 국가적 권리의 중요한 부분으로 어업과 소규모 어부를 넣는다.

독립적인 전문가는 동남아시아의 가장 큰 호수(캄보디아 톤레샵)에서 소규모 어부에게 지역사회에 기초한 사용권을 허용한 결정과 몰디브에서 지역의 '외줄낚시' 어부들을 위해 공업형 참치 어업을 금지한 결정과 같은 긍정적인 사례에 주목한다.

"해양자원을 과도한 개발에서 지역사회 쪽으로 전환시키는 일은 충분히 가능하고, 필요한 일이다"라고 특별조사관은 강조한다.

(*) 보고서: 'Fisheries and the Right to Food'.

Read the executive summary.

Olivier De Schutter was due to present the report 'Fisheries and the right to food' to the UN General Assembly on October 30th but the interactive dialogue has been postponed due to Hurricane Sandy. See www.srfood.org for more information.

Olivier De Schutter was appointed the Special Rapporteur on the right to food in May 2008 by the United Nations Human Rights Council. He is independent from any government or organization. For more information on the mandate and work of the Special Rapporteur, visit: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/food/index.htm orwww.srfood.org.

For more information and media requests, please contact Olivier De Schutter (+32.488.482004 / srfood@ohchr.org / olivier.deschutter@uclouvain.be)

From the World Bank to pension funds, efforts are under way to regulate land grabs through the creation of codes and standards. The idea is to distinguish those land deals that do meet certain criteria and should be approvingly called "investments" from those that don't and can continue to be stigmatised as land "grabs". Up to now, it was mostly international agencies that were trying to do this. Now, the private sector is engaging in a serious way to set its own rules of the game. Either way, the net result is voluntary self-regulation -- which is ineffective, unreliable and no remedy for the fundamental wrongness of these deals. Rather than help financial and corporate elites to "responsibly invest" in farmland, we need them to stop and divest. only then can the quite different matter of strengthening and supporting small-scale rural producers in their own territories and communities succeed, for the two agendas clash. In this article, GRAIN gives a quick update on what is going on.

The current wave of land grabs affecting many parts of the world is widely recognised as an incontestable reality and a significant threat. Hundreds of deals have been documented in the last few years in many sectors, from timber and mining to palm oil and pork production. Published estimates of how much land is involved range from 80 million hectares to a breathtaking 227 million. And the accounts of dispossession, violence, death and ethnic assault associated with these deals have been steadily growing. Yet, among those in power, the main political discussion under way right now is not about how to stop land grabbing. It is about how to make it work.

The international agencies, like the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Bank or the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), are genuinely worried about the negative consequences of what they prefer to call large-scale land acquisitions. But the role they carve out for themselves is to harness this money in the name of old school development dogma -- the belief that foreign direct investment leads to economic growth which trickles down to benefit the majority. Their efforts thus centre around the creation of voluntary rules that governments or companies can use to discipline and guide the land deals.

Not that President Sirleaf of Liberia, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Cristina Fernández of Argentina or Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine are shouting out to the international community to (help them) stop land grabbing. on the contrary, most governments want the deals, they are signing them, and they are often suppressing communities that rise up and resist expulsion or make noise about the poor wages or the loss of grazing lands for their livestock that quickly ensues. only in a few countries are legislators, courts, administrative officials and political parties trying to set some basic limits on farmland acquisitions in the face of escalating interest from foreign investors.1

Meanwhile, investors from the private sector, like pension funds and private equity groups, are marching ahead and organising their own standards for farmland acquisitions. They want to shield themselves from criticism and provide some kind of road map for "responsible" farmland investment practices. Such responsible investment tools, whether codes or principles or guidelines, also have a very plain dollars-and-cents role in protecting investments. They are designed to provide some security that some amount of financial return will be achieved, not unlike an insurance policy. For institutional investors, such as pension funds, which have a fiduciary duty to perform, this can be quite important.

The momentum -- in circles of power -- is thus clearly on the side of accommodating land grabbing and turning it into something more acceptable through rules, regulations, policy frameworks or guidelines, despite the demands for an end to the land grabs emanating from local communities, farmers' movements and indigenous peoples in the affected areas.

What's up at the World Bank?

When the current wave of massive land grabs became a clear trend in 2008-2009, the World Bank jumped into motion and proposed a very ambitious programme to facilitate their acceptance as a legitimate business practice. The initiative proposed a set of seven "principles", meant to demarcate what would be understood and accepted as "responsible" farmland investments, and a new institutional architecture, independent of the Bank, that would benchmark and certify such investments with a "label".2 The seven principles for responsible agricultural investment (RAI) were eventually co-sponsored by FAO, UNCTAD and the International Fund for Agricultutral Development (IFAD). But they were forcefully rejected by civil society -- from small farmers organisations in Japan to women's groups in Senegal -- as legitimising land grabs.3 They were even criticised within official circles as top-down or imposed.4 Soon after, the rest of the Bank's programme was slightly scaled back.

GRAPH 1: finalising PRAI

GRAPH 2: operationalising PRAI

According to Graham Dixie, who recently replaced John Lamb as the Bank's agribusiness team leader, the Bank was initially going to "pilot test" the RAI principles through six case studies.5 This would mean implementing the principles on a test basis and learning how they work or don't work, how compliance is achieved, what adjustments are needed, etc. Dixie says they scrapped this approach because it would take too long and there was no certainty that selected projects would push through. Instead, the Bank is now "retrofitting" the RAI principles to existing large scale land investment deals. Retrofitting means examining whether and how existing projects, meet the RAI principles and drawing lessons from there. An initial 40 projects, from large-scale estate-type plantations to outgrower schemes, will be selected, one-third of them from Asia and two-thirds in Africa. Investors and communities involved in the projects will be interviewed in order to retain only 15 cases for deeper examination. (See Graph 1.6) The government of Japan is funding this work and UNCTAD will be helping with some parts of it. The review of the 40 cases will take place from August-September 2012 and the final conclusions from the indepth study of the 15 cases is to be completed by May 2013. How the RAI principles are ultimately meant to play out at an operational level is shown in Graph 2.7

The Bank's RAI initiative may be less ambitious than what was originally planned, but it is still a serious attempt to validate land deals that the Bank would like to see supported. This makes the principles for RAI, or PRAI as they are sometimes called, quite dangerous given the Bank's participation in land grabs. The World Bank Group as a whole -- the Bank itself, the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) -- is directly engaged in numerous agribusiness projects that involve transfers of control over farmland, whether through loans, equity positions, political risk insurance or other.8 The same is true, in other ways, for the Bank's partners in promoting the RAI, i.e. UNCTAD, IFAD and FAO.

FAO: levelling off the playing field

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has been challenged by the current land grab trend every since it became clear in 2008. Jacques Diouf, the Director General at the time, warned of "neo-colonialism" while staff tried to contain the damage. FAO had to walk a tightrope from the start not just because of the blunt language used to describe what was going on (land grab), but because of the sensitivity of the issue in which key FAO funders, like the government of Saudi Arabia, were implicated. FAO's response so far has been to adopt a "laissez-faire" approach. It joined the World Bank, IFAD and UNCTAD in endorsing RAI and it held a number of consultations and conferences where the matter was analysed and discussed, most often presented as a "development opportunity". Recently, the FAO-hosted Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has taken the issue up, with direct civil society participation.

The CFS, celebrated as a platform where various players -- government, civil society and the private sector -- have a seat at the table to discuss key issues affecting world food security, first took up the land grab problem within the context of the Voluntary Guidelines (VGs) on governance of land tenure.9 The guidelines were adopted in May 2012, after a three-year process of bottom-up consultation. They aim to provide guidance, mostly to governments, on how to improve the development and implementation of land rights and tenure governance systems. They are acclaimed for having the merit of being internationally agreed to (by governments) and of putting emphasis on the rights and needs of "marginalised" people (diplomatic-speak for women, indigenous peoples and the poor).

But they are, after all, only voluntary and some see them as far away from realities on the ground. There are those who point out that it is unrealistic to expect corrupt governments or dysfunctional states to actually implement such a code. Even in a country like Liberia, led by an acclaimed Nobel Peace Prize winner, the President is on record for threatening local communities who do not accept her government's decision to allocate 300,000 ha to Malaysia's Sime Darby for a plam oil plantation.10 However, civil society groups involved in developing the guidelines feel that it is really up to different parties to push for implementation.

The VGs carry one chapter on "investment" and it is almost entirely dedicated to "responsible investments in land". This chapter does not try to stop land grabbing. Instead, it articulates how such deals "should" be pursued to cause the least damage. In only one instance are states invited to "consider promoting a range of production and investment models that do not result in the large-scale transfer of tenure rights to investors" (Article 12.6). This is as anti-landgrabbing as the VGs get and this is a problem, because the guidelines are being used now as a precedent or starting point for further policy work on land.

The CFS is now embarking on another consultation process on "responsible agricultural investment".11 Civil society groups participating in it have demanded that the discussion focus on "rai" with small letters as opposed to RAI in capital letters associated with the World Bank's seven principles. The consultation is expected to be launched by CFS in November 2012 for conclusion at the following meeting of CFS in October 2013. Civil society groups are entering the process by forcefully framing the discussion around investment by small scale farmers and food producers -- not finance capital and corporations, which is what a lot of people think of when they think of investment. While no one can predict the outcome, this approach clearly puts on the table what is really needed by way of investment: to promote food sovereignty rather than further trying to make land grabbing, and the industrial production model that goes with it, "responsible".

Farmland investors gathered at the ritzy Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City, April 2012

The corporates calling their own shots

The vast majority of the capital flows going into today's largescale farmland transactions are moving through private channels. In the absence of strong public policy interventions to stop or contain it, the private sector is moving ahead to serve its own regulatory needs, without the public oversight.

Voluntary self-regulation is the name of the game for industry, with many instruments, advisory services, support groups and mechanisms being created and put into play. Socially responsible investing is a huge business in and of itself.13 Some estimate that it may account for US$ 3 trillion in terms of assets under management today.14 Whatever the scope, businesses are putting a lot of effort into trying to convince themselves, each other, regulators, traders and the public that their operations do no evil.

At the international level, the business community has come together around two general processes -- the UN Global Compact and the UN Principles for Responsible Investing -- to set standards of good corporate behaviour. Both the Compact and UN PRI are membership bodies and require adherence to certain norms. But they are voluntary and have no means of enforcement. In fact, the Compact had to throw out 2,000 of its members last year when it ran a review of who was applying the good business behaviour standards it advocates and who was not (see box). The members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the wealthiest nations of the planet, also have their own OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, which are also voluntary and toothless, and strongly promote corporate self-regulation.15

In the area of farmland deals, an array of private sector tools have been created. For example:

• The International Finance Corporation has its own "performance standards" with regard to land acquisitions which shape its financial participation in, and support to, land deals. These standards were revised in January 2012.
• In September 2011, almost a dozen large institutional investors, mainly pension funds, got together under the auspices of the UN PRI to construct and promote a set of Principles for Responsible Investment in Farmland. This initiative sent an important message. It showed on the one hand that the private sector will not wait for governments to consult and organise consensual frameworks for largescale land deals. More importantly it showed that the private sector does not need governments to come up with lofty frameworks because the companies are clearly capable of organising and, in this case, regulating themselves. one may not agree with this approach, but the companies are indeed setting their own standards for what constitutes responsible investment in this area. In fact, TIAA-CREF, one of the leaders of global farmland investing within the pension fund industry, will be issuing a first "sustainability report" for its own farmland assets later in 2012. This means a self-evaluation or internal report card, for public relations purposes, on how it has been meeting its own SRI performance standards.
• A range of advisory groups and consultancy firms are eyeing corporate needs and drawing up instruments to shape global investment in farmland. The Institute for Human Rights and Business is one such outfit which is deeply involved in surveys and studies to promote responsible investment in farmland. It determined that land (and water) grabbing would be one of the top ten business and human rights issues in 2012 and embarked on a long process to consult stakeholders and draw up a set of of practices -- beyond principles -- for farmland investing by the private sector. This process is expected to reach completion later in the year. Clearly, the Institute has no means of enforcing any standards, but it does define and promote them.16

Box 2 (above) provides direct links to these and similar initiatives.

A representative of Amundi Asset Management, Europe's third largest asset manager, explained to GRAIN that there is no definition of sustainable or responsible investing, at least not in the European Union.17 As such, there is no external regulation, which means no real public accountability and a high degree of unreliability.18

The voluntary nature of private guidelines on land investment also means that companies may treat such standards as competitive business information. In some cases, companies involved in managing land deals will not disclose their SRI standards or codes of conduct for largescale land acquisitions to the public, only to their own investors. This is the case of Phatisa, a private equity firm registered in Mauritius but operating out of South Africa that manages the African Agriculture Fund on behalf of the Agence Française de Développement, the African Development Bank, Spain's Agency for International Development Cooperation and others.19Ironically, most "sustainable farmland investment" principles are expected to put transparency at the top of their list, especially transparency towards communities affected by the deals. How can an investor practice transparency if its standards are not transparent?

The whole trend of self-regulation among firms involved in land grabbing is not simply a marketing tool. It is a lucrative business in and of itself. SRI is supposed to add value to investments because it establishes a promise of good behaviour meant to generate broader results than just a bottom line. A lot of resources go into creating and deploying such standards. European cities even compete to provide an attractive domicile for SRI funds because, as a US$30 trillion and growing global business, it can clearly provide local revenue.20 But who really benefits from it?

Food for thought

What to do about land grabbing has driven public officials and business leaders into a convenient cul de sac. on the one hand, you have some governments and international agencies trying to draw up globally agreed upon standards for land investments that will be voluntary. on the other hand, you have the corporate sector drawing up its own standards for land investments that are also voluntary, but seem to serve the internal needs of the corporations. What good might come of this bifurcated approach to disciplining land grabs? Most likely nothing, just the status quo. Which is presumably the objective of those involved.

A lot of the current urge to regulate these deals boils down to words, specifically with the intent to differentiate "land grabs" from "investment" so as to establish not just the legality of these largescale land deals but a legitimacy as well. "A lot of our signatories don't understand the talk about land grabbing," one representative of UN PRI told us.21 For investors, there can be no land grab if laws are respected and contracts are signed. What they may not see is that the term refers to a political problem of people's interests, rights, positions or views being side stepped, no matter how legal or consultative the negotiating process or final agreement may seem. For instance, a company may make a point of consulting a village chief or community leader, but that chief or leader may not represent the interests of the women or children in the community.

There is an inherent temporal injustice as well. Many of these land deals are concluded for a very long period of time (30 to 99 years), changing the fate of up to three generations of community members yet to come. Any transaction committing large areas of rural land to someone else's agenda for 30, 50 or 99 years is taking that land away from a lot of other possible uses and people. They are, for all intents and purposes, land grabs.

Moreover, while the private sector tries to distinguish above-board deals (which they would like to see understood as bona fide "investments") from less respectable ones (which can continue to carry the stigma of "land grab"), many of these land deals are not investments and don't deserve the label of "investment" no matter how above board or responsible or bona fide. Quite often the deals are speculative; the lands are not developed or put into production but simply flipped after a number of years.22 Other deals are for rent-seeking or rent-capturing purposes.23 The objective in these cases is to extract financial rent, not to develop the productive capacities of the land and build wealth in the community, which often imply a lot of additional costs. If the business model is to maximise profits, then it follows that costs -- including wages, land or water fees, etc. -- will be pushed down as far as possible. This is clearly not investment, not in any socially positive sense.

The more fundamental problem with efforts to come up with rules for responsible investment in farmland is that the rules are always about making the project work for the investor. Local communities, soils, watersheds, local labour markets and even the domestic food security situation in the host country are treated as risk factors that need to be mitigated. The objective is to manage costs, including those connected to reputational risks, to ensure an acceptable return. The rules for responsible farmland investment are thus for the investor, for whom taking care of the fallout for local people becomes another cost of doing business -- and one that companies can make profits from to boot.

The credibility of "socially responsible investing" in global farmland is extremely shaky at best. Those who play by it seem to live in their own self-referential world, and can point to no real impact. This is no surprise. Other sectors where this has been tried out -- sustainable cotton, sustainable soy, responsible palm oil, timber, banking and whatnot -- have a profoundly blotted track record.25

Slavery does not get regulated. It gets outlawed. In the same manner, any serious approach to fighting hunger and poverty requires securing people's own control over their lands and territories, not guidelines and rules on how corporations and foreign investors can somehow do a good job of it themselves. What we need is not responsible farmland investment, but divestment. By this we mean that rather than trying to make this new trend of financialising farmland work, these deals need to be stopped and undone, with the lands restituted to the communities that lived from them. And instead of promoting the growth of industrial agriculture, we need to strengthen family- and community-based food sovereignty approaches, across the world. Initiatives are being taken in these directions, aiming to choke capital flows into firms with a history of land grabbing or into funds specifically set up to peddle rights to farmland, bolstered by advocacy and political pressure to support small-scale family-based farming systems and local markets. While it is a huge and uphill battle, it's clear that we need to stop the financing of land grabs, not make it responsible.

Acronyms

APEC - Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
CFS -  Committee on World Food Security
CSM - Civil Society Mechanism (CFS)
CSR - corporate social responsibility
ESG - environmental, social and governance issues
EU - European Union
FAO - UN Food and Agriculture Organisation
FMO - Entrepreneurial Development Bank (Netherlands)
G20 - Group of 20
G8 - Group of 8
GM(O) - genetically modified organism
IFAD - International Fund for Agricultural Development (UN)
IFC - International Finance Corporation (World Bank)
LIBOR - London Inter Bank Offered Rate
MIGA - Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (World Bank)
OECD - Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
PRI - Principles for Responsible Investing (UN)
rai - responsible agricultural investment (as discussed by CFS)
RAI - Responsible Agricultural Investment (in upper case, refers to 7 principles sponsored by World Bank, FAO, IFAD and UNCTAD)
ROPPA - West African Network of Peasant Organisations
SRI - socially responsible investing
TIAA-CREF - Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association - College Retirement Equities Fund (US)
UNCTAD - UN Conference on Trade and Development
VG(s) - voluntary guidelines on land tenure (CFS)

아프리카토지수탈.pdf

기업들이 유럽의 생물연료에 대한 굶주림을 충족시켜주려 하면서 토착 소농들이 폭력적으로 쫓겨났다

쫓겨난 토착민 Maya가 2011년 3월 과테말라의 Polochic 계곡에서 보안부대와 마주하고 있다. (얼굴과 옷은 신분보호를 위해 왜곡시킴) Photograph: Campesino Unity Committee/Oxfam

How Do You Grab Land?

The recent phenomenon of aggressive land takeovers, also known as land grabs, has resulted in the taking of enormous portions of land throughout Africa. In 2009 alone, nearly 60 million hectares of land was purchased or leased throughout the continent for the production and export of food, cut flowers, and agrofuel crops.

By Agazit Abate

August/September 2011 Conducive

Land grab was in part spurred by the food and financial crisis of 2008 when international bodies, corporations, investment funds, wealthy individuals, and governments re-focused their attention on agriculture and food as a profitable commodity. As outlined by the Oakland Institute reports, land grabs increase food insecurity, environmental degradation, community repression and displacement, and increased reliance on aid.

Meet the investors

While media coverage has focused on the role of countries like India and China in land deals, the Oakland Institute’s investigation reveals that western firms, wealthy US and European individuals, and investment funds with ties to major banks such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are also implicated in the grabs. Investors include alternative investment firms like the London-based Emergent that works to attract speculators, and various universities like Harvard, Spelman, and Vanderbilt.

Several Texas-based interests are associated with a major 600,000 hectares South Sudan deal, which involves Kinyeti Development, LLC, an Austin, Texas-based “global business development partnership and holding company,” managed by Howard Eugene Douglas, a former United States Ambassador at Large and Coordinator for Refugee Affairs. A key player in the largest land deal in Tanzania is Iowa agribusiness entrepreneur and Republican Party stalwart, Bruce Rastetter.

US companies often orchestrate these deals below the radar, using subsidiaries registered in other countries, like Petrotech-ffn Agro Mali, which is a subsidiary of Petrotech-ffn USA. Many European countries are also involved, often with support provided by their governments and work with embassies in African countries. Swedish and German firms have interests in the production of biofuels in Tanzanian. Addax Bioenergy from Switzerland and Quifel International Holdings (QIH) from Portugal are major investors in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone Agriculture (SLA) is actually a subsidiary of the UK based Crad-1 (CAPARO Renewable Agriculture Developments Ltd.), associated with the Tony Blair African Governance Initiative.

As the media has reported, Indian firms are involved in land grab, particularly in Ethiopia. Food insecure nations like those of the gulf region are also participating in these land deals to secure food to feed their home countries.

Economic development?

A major argument by land grabbers is that these schemes will lead to economic development for the host countries. The Oakland Institute reports reveal however that the land transactions are either for free (in the case of Mali) or very cheap (in the case of Ethiopia and Sierra Leone). These transactions are largely unregulated with no stipulation or guarantees that they will help the local populations or create infrastructure. While land grabbers focus their rhetoric on foreign direct investment as justification, there is no evidence to show that no substantial foreign direct investment will come in to the countries.

Most of these deals come with huge tax breaks and other investment incentives, a great deal for the investors, but this means less money coming into the country that could possibly go to infrastructure or social services. For instance, Sierra Leone allows 100 percent foreign ownership; there are no restrictions on foreign exchange, full repatriation of profits, dividends and royalties and no limits on expatriate employees.

Another justification for the land deals includes the idea that they will increase employment. Again, research reveals that this is overstated at best and completely untrue at worse. The Emvest Matuba investment project summary and staff at Emergent and Em Vest promise job creation with majority employment from the local community. Emergent’s recent head count reveals that currently only 17 permanent positions are in security (36 staff). In Mali, the area targeted by recent large land deals could easily sustain 112,537 farm families (over half a million people, 686,478). It is instead in the hands of 22 investors and will create at best a few thousand jobs.

To make matters worse, the limited employment created by these land deals are low wage, seasonal and primarily benefit the investors who want cheap labor to compliment cheap land.

Community displacement

While those involved firmly contend that communities are not being forcibly removed from their lands and if they are asked to moved are being compensated, the opposite proves true. Ethiopian government officials, for instance, have stated that the lands being leased are unused or abandoned. Meanwhile, 700,000 indigenous people who lived in a land that was targeted for land investment were relocated.

In 2010 in Samana Dugu, Mali, bulldozers came in to clear the land and when the community protested, they were met by police forces who beat and arrested them. In Tanzania, AgriSol Energy is setting its sites on Katumba and Mishamo refugee settlements. The MOU between AgriSol Energy and the local government stipulates that these settlements, which house 162,000 refugees that fled Burundi in 1972 and have been farming the land for 40 years, have to be closed. In June 2009, Amnesty International reported refugees being pressured to leave camps. Some of them lost their homes to a fire set by individuals acting under the instructions of the Tanzanian authorities to get them to vacate the camp. Refugee leaders who have attempted to organize have been arrested and detained.

Investment sites in various African countries visited by the Oakland Institute revealed a loss of local farmland where the lands held a variety of different uses and social/ecological value. Some of the lands that are claimed to be unused are those where the communities use the land for pastures, and considered communally used areas.

Forests and national reserves, that are home to vital animal, fish and plant species and where communities have found alternative sustenance in times of food scarcity, have been burned and cleared out. These lands are being destroyed without an understanding of their local significance.

Many of the communities interviewed stated that there was no prior notification of the land investments. They only realized what was happening when the bulldozers arrived in their communities.

Food insecurity

While most of the countries and regions targeted suffer from food insecurity, these land deals focus on producing export commodities, including food, biofuels, and cut flowers for foreign consumption. In Mali, half of the investors with large land holdings in the Office du Niger intend to grow plants used to produce agrofuels, such as sugarcane, jatropha, or other oleaginous crops. In Mozambique, most of the investments are geared to growing timber  and agrofuels rather than food crops. Food crops represented only 32,000 hectares of the 433,000 hectares that were approved for agricultural investments between 2007 and 2009.

In Ethiopia, much of large scale land deals are for the purpose of growing food for a foreign market. Because land grab throughout Ethiopia has cleared communal lands and plots used for cultivation as well as forests, the communities primary sources of sustenance are threatened. Additionally, commercial farming on these lands will affect fish habitats, wildlife, and grazing lands leading to even more food insecurity.

Water is of a particular concern as runoff from commercial farms will contaminate and reduce of water supplies. Dam construction, such as the proposed Alwero River dam, spark additional concern about access to water for local and downstream communities. No clause has been found in the lease agreements that discuss water use and there is no evidence that water use from commercial agriculture is managed, monitored, or regulated.

In Ethiopia, not only is there no clause in any of the lease agreements that require investors to improve local food security conditions or make food available for the local populations, the federal government has actually provided incentives for those investors that grow cash crops for a foreign market. Abera Deressa, federal minister for the ministry of Agriculture stated, “If we get money we can buy food anywhere. Then we can solve the food problem.” A major concern of the communities the Oakland Institute interviewed is that they believe the government is intentionally creating a situation where communities must rely solely on the government for their food, in an attempt to marginalize and disempower them.

The environmental factors

Environmental degradation is a major concern in these land deals because they have limited transparency and environmental impact regulations.

Forests have many uses for the local communities including as food, medicine, fuelwood, and building materials. Forests also hold cultural and historical significance. Expected outcomes of clearing the forests include, loss and degradation of wetlands, decrease in wildlife populations and habitat, proliferation of invasive species, and loss of biodiversity.

These environmental concerns are exemplified in Ethiopia’s Gambela National Park where the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority (EWCA) estimates that 438,000 hectares of land have been leased in the vicinity of the park. While the park boundaries are not set, lands that the local population considers a part of the park have been cleared by large-scale investors, including Karuturi and Saudi Star. Wetlands have been altered and forests have been cleared. According to recent surveys, the Gambela National Park is home to 69 mammal species, valuable wetland habitat, hundreds of bird species, and 92 fish species.

To compound matters, industrial agriculture will increase toxicity, disruption of its system of pest control, create new weeds and virus strains, decrease biodiversity, and spread of genetically-engineered genes to indigenous plants. Additionally it will put these countries at a disadvantage to adapt to climate change.

For many of these land deals, Environmental Impact Assessments are not widely used or enforced, making this situation all the more alarming.

The verdict and a way forward

Investment in agriculture is crucial to combating hunger, fighting climate change, and ensuring the livelihoods of farmers. However, as pointed out by Olivier De Schutter, United Nations Rapporteur on the Right to Food, the issue is not one of merely increasing budget allocations to agriculture, but rather, “that of choosing from different models of agricultural development which may have different impacts and benefit various groups differently.”

In December 2010, the United Nations came out with a report  stating that the benefits of agroecological methods over traditional industrial farming. It added that we can double the world’s food supply if we support small farmers. The research of the Oakland Institute echoes the same conclusion. For instance, in Mali, where the System of Rice Intensification has been adopted along the Niger River near Timbuktu, farmers have been able to attain yields of 7 to 15 tons per hectare per year, for an average of 9 tons per hectare. This is more than twice the conventional irrigated rice yield in the area, and more than the previsions of the Moulin Moderne du Mali, one of the major investors. This irrigation system involves plots of 35 hectares of land, shared by as many as 100 farmers, meaning each household has access to only one-third of a hectare. Still, from that piece of land, they are able to earn $1,879 – more than double the average annual per capital income of $676.

While research proves one thing, government officials and investors do the opposite. Instead of supporting small farmers, these land deals support industrial agriculture while displacing and disempowering the very people that have the ability to shift their communities from insecure to sustainable . Land grab puts these countries on a path that will surely lead to increased food insecurity, environmental degradation, increased reliance on aid, and the marginalization of farming and pastoralist communities. The issue at stake is not only one of increased food insecurity, but an attack on food sovereignty or peoples right to produce their own food.

Land grab is irrational at best and violent at worst. It’s a violent act to take away peoples right to food, access to their ancestral land, their social and historical ties, and their overall right for human dignity. It’s a violent act to strip them of their future and the land of its fertility.

While land deals are going on behind closed doors, communities are resisting. The 2008 food uprisings, the revolt in Madagascar against land grab, and the recent protests in Guinea, all show communities who are standing up for their right for food sovereignty. In fact, in all of the countries visited, the land deals were met by community organizing. Knowing what we know, resisting these land deals on all fronts and working towards investments in sustainable agriculture and empowering local populations points to the only rational and humane way forward.

Agazit Abate, is a 2010-2011 Intern Scholar at the Oakland Institute and based on the research and publications of the Oakland Institute. She received her BA in International Development Studies and MA in African Studies from the University of California Los Angeles. Her areas of interest include food sovereignty, farmers’ rights, climate change, sustainable development, social justice, cultural production, and narratives of resistance. To learn more about land investment deals in Africa, visit the Oakland Institute website, www.oaklandinstitute.org.

Watch this video about abuses against the indigenous peoples of Ethiopia's Lower Omo Valley

(Nairobi) – The Ethiopian government is forcibly displacing indigenous pastoral communities inEthiopia’s Lower Omo valley without adequate consultation or compensation to make way for state-run sugar plantations, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The report contains previously unpublished government maps that show the extensive developments planned for the Omo valley, including irrigation canals, sugar processing factories, and 100,000 hectares of other commercial agriculture.

The 73-page report, “‘What Will Happen if Hunger Comes?’: Abuses against the Indigenous Peoples of Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley,”documents how government security forces are forcing communities to relocate from their traditional lands through violence and intimidation, threatening their entire way of life with no compensation or choice of alternative livelihoods. Government officials have carried out arbitrary arrests and detentions, beatings, and other violence against residents of the Lower Omo valley who questioned or resisted the development plans.

“Ethiopia’s ambitious plans for the Omo valley appear to ignore the rights of the people who live there,” said Ben Rawlence, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “There is no shortcut to development; the people who havelong relied on that land for their livelihood need to have their property rights respected, including on consultation and compensation.”



The Lower Omo valley, one of the most remote and culturally diverse areas on the planet, is home to around 200,000 people from eight unique agro-pastoral communities who have lived there for as long as anyone can remember. Their way of life and their identity is linked to the land and access to the Omo River. The Omo valley is in Ethiopia’s Southern Peoples, Nations, and Nationalities Region (SNNPR), near the border with Kenya, and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1980.

The significant changes planned for the Omo valley are linked to the construction of Africa’s highest dam, the controversial Gibe III hydropower project, along the Omo River. Downstream, the sugar plantations will depend on irrigation canals. Although there have been some independent assessments of the Gibe dam project, to date, the Ethiopian government has not published any environmental or social impact assessments for the sugar plantations and other commercial agricultural developments in the Omo valley.

Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 35 residents in June 2011, along with 10 donor officials and at least 30 other witnesses since that time. At the time of Human Rights Watch’s visit, military units regularly visited villages to intimidate residents and suppress dissent related to the sugar plantation development. Soldiers regularly stole or killed cattle.

“What am I going to eat?” a man of the Mursi ethnic group told Human Rights Watch. “They said to take all my cattle and to sell them and to only tie one up at my house.  What can I do with only one? I am a Mursi. If hunger comes I shoot a cow’s neck and drink blood. If we sell them all for money how will we eat?”

The evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch since its visit demonstrates that in the past year regional officials and security forces have forcibly seized land from indigenous communities living and farming within the areas slated for sugar production. Reports of forced displacement and the clearing of agricultural land have gathered pace.

Access to the Omo River is critical for the food security and way of life of the pastoralists who live in the valley. Several community representatives said that state officials had told them, without any other discussion, that the communities would need to reduce the number of their cattle and resettle in one place, and that they would lose access to the Omo River.

As of June 2012, irrigation canals have been dug, land has been cleared, and sugar production has begun along the east bank of the river. Government maps photographed by Human Rights Watch indicate that the area where sugar cultivation is under way is a fraction of what is labeled as “Sugar Block one.” Two additional “blocks” of land that will be taken for sugar cultivation are to follow. Ethiopia’s existing assessments of the impact of the Gibe dam do not include the impact of sugar cultivation and irrigation on the flow of the Omo River, or the downstream impact on Lake Turkana. The massive network of irrigation canals indicated on the maps suggests that the previous assessments are insufficient.

The full implementation of the plan could affect at least 200,000 people in the Omo valley and another 300,000 Kenyans living across the border around Lake Turkana, which derives up to 90 percent of its water from the Omo River. Human Rights Watch said Kenya should press for new environmental and social impact assessments that examine the cumulative impact of the Gibe III dam and the irrigated commercial agriculture scheme.

These developments – which threaten the economic, social, and cultural rights of the Omo valley’s indigenous inhabitants – are being carried out in contravention of domestic and international human rights standards, which call for the recognition of property rights, with meaningful consultation, consent, and compensation for loss of land, livelihoods, and food security, and which state that displacement, especially of indigenous peoples from their historic homelands, must be treated as an absolute last resort.

The rights of indigenous peoples are addressed by Ethiopia’s own laws and constitution, as well as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and regional human rights treaties and mechanisms such as the African human rights charter as interpreted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Under these laws and agreements, indigenous peoples have property rights over the land they have historically occupied that must be recognized by the state, and they can only be displaced with their free, prior, and informed consent. Even when such consent is given, they must also be fully compensated for any loss of land, property, or livelihood.

In fact, Ethiopia has not recognized any rights over the land of the indigenous communities of the area, including tenure security, Human Rights Watch found. Neither has it taken steps to adequately consult with, let alone seek the consent of, the indigenous peoples of the Omo valley, in particular taking into account the scant formal education of most of the population.

The Ethiopian government has responded to concerns raised by Human Rights Watch by noting that the plantations will bring benefits to the indigenous populations in the form of employment. Employment may be a welcome benefit for affected communities. But the prospect of some jobs does not remove the urgent need for the government to suspend plantation development until rigorous assessments have been carried out, the rights of the indigenous communities over their land has been recognized and consent sought, and any displacement or acquisition of land is shown to be strictly necessary, proportionate, and compensation provided, Human Rights Watch said.

Many international nongovernmental organizations have raised concerns about potential social and environmental impacts of the Gibe III hydropower project and have criticized the Ethiopian government for a lack of transparency and independent assessment. The Ethiopian government withdrew its request of the World Bank and African Development Bank for financing of the Gibe dam project but has not publicized its reasons for doing so. UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has recommended suspending the project pending further independent evaluation of the effect on Lake Turkana.

The Ethiopian government relies on international aid for a significant percentage of its budget. Security forces and officials from the regional and district administrations are implementing the plans for the sugar plantations and telling local residents they must move, without any consultation or recognition of their rights. A multi-donor funded program called Protection of Basic Services (PBS) provides hundreds of millions of dollars to support health, education, and other sectors and funds the salaries of district government officials across Ethiopia, including SNNPR region. The main donors to PBS are the World Bank, the United Kingdom, the European Union, the Netherlands, and Germany.

Human Rights Watch called on the Ethiopian government to suspend the construction of Gibe III and the associated sugar plantations until these developments can be carried out in a manner consistent with national laws and international human rights standards. The Ethiopian government should recognize the rights of the Omo valley’s indigenous communities over their historic homelands and engage in meaningful discussion with them over the future use of their land and compensation on that basis, prior to further industrial development in South Omo. Donors should ensure their funding is not supporting forced displacement or unlawful expropriation of indigenous lands, Human Rights Watch said.

“Ethiopia’s desire to accelerate economic development is laudable, but recent events in the Omo valley are taking an unacceptable toll on the rights and livelihoods of indigenous communities,” Rawlence said. “The government should suspend the process until it meets basic standards, and donors should make sure their aid is not facilitating abuses.”

http://www.grain.org/article/entries/4516-squeezing-africa-dry-behind-every-land-grab-is-a-water-grab

Food cannot be grown without water. In Africa, one in three people endure water scarcity and climate change will make things worse. Building on Africa’s highly sophisticated indigenous water management systems could help resolve this growing crisis, but these very systems are being destroyed by large-scale land grabs amidst claims that Africa's water is abundant, under-utilised and ready to be harnessed for export-oriented agriculture. GRAIN looks behind the current scramble for land in Africa to reveal a global struggle for what is increasingly seen as a commodity more precious than gold or oil - water.

The Alwero river in Ethiopia’s Gambela region provides both sustenance and identity for theindigenous Anuak people who have fished its waters and farmed its banks and surrounding lands for centuries. Some Anuak are pastoralists, but most are farmers who move to drier areas in the rainy season before returning to the river banks. This seasonal agricultural cycle helps nurture and maintain soil fertility. It also helps structure the culture around the collective repetition of traditional cultivation practices related to rainfall and rising rivers as each community looks after its own territory and the waters and farmlands within it.

One new plantation in Gambela, owned by Saudi-based billionaire Mohammed al-Amoudi, is irrigated with water diverted from the Alwero River. Thousands of people depend on Alwero's water for their survival and Al-Moudi's industrial irrigation plans could undermine their access to it. In April 2012, tensions over the project spilled over, when an armed group ambushed Al-Amoudi's Saudi Star Development Company operations, leaving five people dead.

The tensions in south western Ethiopia illustrate the central importance of access to water in the global land rush. Hidden behind the current scramble for land is a world-wide struggle for control over water. Those who have been buying up vast stretches of farmland in recent years, whether they are based in Addis Ababa, Dubai or London, understand that the access to water they gain, often included for free and without restriction, may well be worth more over the long-term, than the land deals themselves.

In recent years, Saudi Arabian companies have been acquiring millions of hectares of landsoverseas to produce food to ship back home. Saudi Arabia does not lack land for food production. What’s missing in the Kingdom is water, and its companies are seeking it in countries like Ethiopia.

Indian companies like Bangalore-based Karuturi Global are doing the same. Aquifers across the sub-continent have been depleted by decades of unsustainable irrigation. The only way to feed India's growing population, the claim is made, is by sourcing food production overseas, where water is more available.

"The value is not in the land," says Neil Crowder of UK-based Chayton Capital which has been acquiring farmland in Zambia. "The real value is in water.” [1]

And companies like Chayton Capital think that Africa is the best place to find that water. The message repeated at farmland investor conferences around the globe is that water is abundant in Africa. It is said that Africa’s water resources are vastly under utilised, and ready to be harnessed for export oriented agriculture projects.

The reality is that a third of Africans already live in water-scarce environments and climate change is likely to increase these numbers significantly. Massive land deals could rob millions of people of their access to water and risk the depletion of the continent's most precious fresh water sources. 

All of the land deals in Africa involve large-scale, industrial agriculture operations that will consume massive amounts of water. Nearly all of them are located in major river basins with access to irrigation. They occupy fertile and fragile wetlands, or are located in more arid areas that can draw water from major rivers. In some cases the farms directly access ground water by pumping it up. These water resources are lifelines for local farmers, pastoralists and other rural communities. Many already lack sufficient access to water for their livelihoods. If there is anything to be learnt from the past, it is that such mega-irrigation schemes can not only put the livelihoods of millions of rural communities at risk, they can threaten the freshwater sources of entire regions. (See Water mining, the wrong type of farming and Death of the Aral Sea)

Next:  When the Nile runs dry....

Water mining, the wrong type of farming Irrigation pumps powered by subsidised electricity are outstripping the natural recharge of groundwaters in Northern Gujurat, putting local aquifers at risk of irreversible salinisation and jeopardising agriculture in the region. If history has anything to teach us, it is that the industrial agriculture that the land grabbers are now promoting across Africa and the rest of the world is simply not sustainable. In Pakistan, the British Empire built the largest single irrigated area in the world to produce the raw material for the cotton mills back home. After independence, the new government, backed by generous funding from the World Bank, further expanded the dams and canal systems in the mighty Indus river to the extent that the river now waters 90 percent of all the crops in the country. Apart from turning the country into one of the world's major cotton exporters, the huge irrigation schemes also allowed the country to tremendously expand rice and wheat cultivation using plant varieties and technologiy from the Green Revolution of the 1960s. But there was a price to pay. The Indus carries 22 million tonnes of salt each year, but discharges only 11 million tonnes at its exit into the Arabian Sea. The rest, almost a tonne per year for every irrigated hectare, stays on the farmers’ fields, forming a white crust that kills the crops. So far, a tenth of the fields in Pakistan are no longer usable for agriculture, a fifth are badly waterlogged and a quarter produce only meagre crops. Moreover, the water withdrawal is so intense that in many years the Indus no longer flows all the way into the sea. Across the border, in India, the situation is possibly even more dramatic. Pumped water from boreholes dug deep into the ground watered India’s Green Revolution. The thirsty new varieties and crops that replaced the indigenous farming systems brought the country's groundwater consumption to dangerous and totally unsustainable heights. Recent estimates put India's annual abstraction for irrigation at 250 cubic kilometres per year, about 100 cubic kilometres more than what is replaced by rains. As a result, India's underground water reserves are plunging, forcing farmers to drill deeper every year. All together, a quarter of India's crops are grown using underground water that is not replenished. Wheat fields in the Saudi desert. In January 2008, Saudi Arabia decided to reduce its production of wheat by 12.5% a year, abandoning a 30-year-old program to grow its own, having achieved self-sufficiency at the cost of depleting the desert kingdom's scarce water supplies. Saudi Arabia consumes around 2.7 million tonnes of wheat a year. (Photo: Planète à vendre) The situation isn't all that much better in the US. The maize and soybean plantations that dominate the country's mid-west have already caused the water table to fall substantially. California, with its endless fruit plantations, pumps 15% more water than the rains replenish.  But perhaps the situation is nowhere more dramatic than in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has no rain or rivers to speak of, but posesses vast 'fossil water' aquifers beneath the desert. During the 1980s the Saudi government invested $40 billion of its oil revenues to pump this precious water to irrigate a million hectares of wheat. Later, in the 1990s, in order feed the growing industrial dairy farms that popped up across the desert, many farmers switched to alfalfa, a crop that needs even more water. It was clear that the miracle couldn't last; the aquifers soon collapsed and the government decided to outsource its food production to Africa and other parts of the world instead. Some 60% of the country's fossil water under the desert was squandered in the process. Gone and lost forever. Much of this section on water mining, and the data in it, is derived from Fred Pearce's excellent book on the global water crisis. “When the rivers run dry”, Eden Project Books, 2007.  Death of the Aral Sea Once the fourth largest lake in the world the Aral Sea, straddling the border of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia, has shrunk to a fraction of its former size due to the mismanagement of water resources including the large-scale diversion of rivers to irrigate export crops. Consequences include serious ecological, economic and health problems. Since the 1960s, the Aral Sea in Central Asia, located in what today is Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, has been deprived of more water than is necessary to maintain its water levels. It used to be amongst the four largest lakes of the world. The fresh water that once replenished the sea is used by neighbouring countries to produce export crops, mainly cotton.  Large amounts of water from the two main rivers that feed the Aral Sea have been diverted to the desert so as to irrigate about 2.5 million hectares of land. In the 1960s, the Aral Sea received around 50 cubic kilometres of fresh water per year. By the early 1980s it received none. By the 1990s, the surface area of the Aral Sea had shrunk by half and its volume had dropped by 75 percent. Its salinity had increased fourfold, preventing the survival of most of the sea's fish and wildlife. The desiccation of the Aral Sea has led to the loss of fisheries, contamination of water and soil, and the presence of dangerous levels of polluted airborne sediments (salt- and pesticide-laced particles). In addition, the regional groundwater table has fallen and many oases near the shore of the Aral Sea have been destroyed. By 1990, more than 95% of the marshes and wetlands in the region had given way to sand deserts. The inhabitants of the adjacent communities face severe health problems. The infant mortality rate is one of the world’s highest.  From: http://www.globalagriculture.org/report-topics/water/water.html

FAO puts the irrigation potential of the entire Nile basin at 8 million hectares maximum

When the Nile runs dry....

Few countries in Africa have received more foreign interest in their farmland than those served by the Nile River. Africa's longest river, the Nile is a lifeline especially for Egypt, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda and is already a source of significant geopolitical tensions aggravated by the numerous large-scale irrigation projects in the region. In 1959, Great Britain brokered a colonial deal that divided the water rights between Sudan and Egypt. Egypt gained more than Sudan while other countries were excluded completely. Egypt was allocated three quarters of the average annual flow while Sudan was allocated a quarter. Massive irrigation schemes were built in both countries to grow cotton for export to the UK. In the 1960s, Egypt built the mighty Aswan dam to regulate the flow of the Nile in Egypt, and increase opportunities for irrigation. The dam achieved those goals, but also stopped the flow of nutrients and minerals that fertilised the soil of Egypt's farmers downstream. 

A canal diverts water for irrigation outside of Abu Simbel, near Egypt's border with Sudan. (Photo: New York Times)

In Sudan, the Gulf States financed a further increase of irrigation infrastructure along the Nile in the 1960-70s in an effort to turn Sudan into the 'breadbasket of the Arab world'.  This was unsuccessful and half of Sudan's irrigation infrastructure currently lies abandoned or underused. Both Sudan and Egypt produce most of their food from irrigated agriculture, but both also face serious problems with soil degradation, salinisaton, water logging and pollution induced by the irrigation schemes. As a result of all these interventions, the Nile barely delivers water to the Mediterranean any longer – instead now, salty seawater backs into the Nile delta, undermining agricultural production. 

The 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 putting more on offer. To bring this land into production, all of it will need to be irrigated. The first question that should be asked is whether there is enough water to do this. But none of those involved in the land deals, be it the land grabbers or those offering lands to grab, seem to have given the question much thought. The assumption is that there is plenty of water and the newcomers can withdraw as much as they need. 

Ethiopia is the source of some 80% of the Nile water. In its Gambela region on the border with South Sudan, corporations such as Karaturi Global and Saudi Star are already building big irrigation channels that will increase Ethiopia's withdrawal of water from the Nile enormously. These are only 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.[2]

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. The table  below presents the figures for the major countries in the Nile basin, and compares them with the amount of land already leased out.

The figures have to be considered with some caution. A limitation to the FAO irrigation figures is that they rely on data provided by individual countries. Criteria on how they were established vary widely – some focus on the available land and others on the available water, yet others on the economic costs. Moreover, the 'potential' doesn't take into account that countries upstream might overdraw on their water resources, which would affect the amount of water countries downstream would receive. And it remains to be seen whether all the land leased out will actually be brought under production and irrigation as companies pull out, projects collapse or if the land is just being acquired for speculation purposes. 

Nevertheless, the FAO figures do make it clear that the recent land deals vastly outstrip water availability in the Nile basin. FAO establishes 8 million hectares as the total 'maximum value' available for total irrigation in all ten countries of the Nile basin. But the four countries listed in the table alone already have irrigation infrastructure established for 5.4 million hectares and have now leased out a further 8.6 million hectares of land. This would require much more water than what is available in the entire Nile basin and would amount to nothing less than hydrological suicide. 

Water availability is a highly seasonal affair for most people in Africa. But Africa’s dry and wet seasons are hidden by the 'averages' and 'potentials' of the quoted figures. Most of the 80% of the Nile water that originates in the Ethiopian highlands falls from the sky and flows into the river between June and August. Local communities have adapted their farming and pastoral systems to make optimum use of the seasonal fluctuations. But the new landowners from abroad want water all year round, with several harvests per year if possible. They will build more canals and dams to make that possible. They also tend to grow crops that need massive amounts of water, such as sugarcane and rice. In all, this means that they'll consume much more than the potentials and averages suggest, putting the FAO figures quoted above in an even more alarming light.

Next:  The Niger, another lifeline at risk

The Niger, another lifeline at risk

Another part of Africa targeted by agribusiness are the lands along the Niger River. The Niger is West Africa's largest river, and the third longest in all of Africa, surpassed only by the Nile and the Congo. Millions rely on it for agriculture, fishing, trade and as a primary water source. Mali, Niger and Nigeria are the countries most dependent on the river, but seven other countries in the Niger basin share its water.  The river is extremely fragile and has suffered under the strain of human-made dams, irrigation and pollution. Water experts estimate that the volume of the Niger has shrunk by one third during the last three decades alone. Others indicate that the river might lose another third of its flow as a consequence of climate change.[4]

Farmer leaders from Sexagon, an organisation of farmers from the Office du Niger, standing at the end point of the 40-km long Malibya canal.

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 that the 'Office du Niger' is located and where many of the land grabbing projects are concentrated. The Office du Niger presides over the irrigation of over 70,000 hectares, 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.

In the 1990s, the FAO estimated Mali's potential to irrigate from the Niger at a bit over half a million hectares.[5] But now, due to increased water scarcity, independent experts conclude that the whole of Mali has the water capacity to irrigate only 250,000 hectares.[6] Yet the Malian government has already signed away 470,000 hectares to foreign companies from Libya, China, the UK, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the past few years, virtually all of it in the Niger basin. In 2009, it announced that it would further increase the allowable area of irrigated lands in the country by a mind boggling one to two million hectares. 

A study by Wetlands International calculates that, with the effects of climate change and the planned water infrastructure projects, more than 70% of the floodplains of the inner Niger delta will be lost, with a dramatic impact on Mali's ability to feed its people.[7] Those who will suffer the most are the more than one million local farmers and pastoralists in the Inner Niger Delta that now depend on the river and it's inner delta for their crops and herds.

Next: Hydro-colonialism?

Virtual water Agriculture is the most important use of freshwater in the world. In many countries the production of food and other agricultural commodities accounts for over 80% of fresh water use. Experts have labelled this as “virtual water”: the amount of water that is embedded in food or other products needed for its production. The amounts are huge. For example, to produce one kilogram of wheat we need about 1,000 litres of water, so the virtual water of this kilogram of wheat is 1,000 litres. For meat, we need about five to ten times more. To produce enough coffee beans for one cup of coffee requires 140 litres of water. The quantity of water required to grow enough coton to produce a single pair of jeans is a whopping 5,400 litres. [i] Trade in agricultural commodities thus amounts to trade in virtual water. Neo-liberal economists argue that the international trade in agricultural commodities is the most efficient way to save water, as crops can be grown where water requirements are less, ie in countries where you don't need irrigation because it rains a lot.  But the reality of the virtual water trade is starkly different. Europe, not a notoriously dry continent, is one of the main importers of virtual water in the world, often from places that regularly experience droughts and shortages. For the United Kingdom it is estimated that two-thirds of all the water that its population needs comes embedded in imported food, clothes and industrial goods. The result is that when people buy flowers from Kenya, beef from Botswana, or fruit and vegetables from parts of Asia and Latin America, they may be exacerbating droughts and undermining countries' efforts to grow food for themselves.[ii] [i] See: www.virtual-water.org [ii] John Vidal, the Guardian, 17 April 2010.  “UK relies on 'virtual' water from drought-prone countries, says report”

Indigenous farmers in the Lower Omo Valley plant seeds along the fertile riverbanks each year as the floodwaters of the Oro River recede. A proposed dam could eliminate the farmers' food crops when it eliminates the annual flood. It will also reduce grazing lands that local herders rely on to help feed their livestock during the dry season. Reduced inflow into Lake Turkana will harm the local fishing industry and threatens the unique ecosystem for which the lake was recognised as a World Heritage Site. (Photo: International Rivers) More information: ww.stopgibe3.org

Hydro-colonialism?

The Nile and the Niger basins are only two of the examples of the massive give away of land and water rights. The areas where land grabbing is concentrated in Africa coincide closely with the continent's largest river and lake systems, and in most of these areas irrigation is a prerequisite of commercial production.

The Ethiopian government is constructing a dam in the Omo river, to generate electricity and irrigate a huge sugarcane 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 biggest desert lake, Lake Turkana, fed by the Omo river. In Mozambique the government had signed off on a 30,000 hectares plantation along the Limpopo river which would have directly affected farmers and pastoralists now depending on the water. The project was revoked because the investor didn't deliver, but the government is looking for others to take over. 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. This table shows a selection of the most important cases. 

Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, the Chairman of Nestle, says that these deals are more about water than land: "With the land comes the right to withdraw the water linked to it, in most countries essentially a freebie that increasingly could be the most valuable part of the deal."[8] Nestle is a leading marketer of bottled water under brand names including Pure Life, Perrier, S.Pellegrino and a dozen others. It has been charged with illegal and destructive groundwater extraction, and of making billions of dollars in profits on cheap water while dumping environmental and social costs onto communities. [9]

Asked at an agricultural investment conference whether it is possible to make money from water, Judson Hill of one of the private equity funds involved, was unequivocal: "Buckets, buckets of money," he told a meeting of bankers and investors in Geneva. "There are many ways to make a very attractive return in the water sector if you know where to go."

In the not-so-distant future, water will become "the single most important physical-commodity based asset class, dwarfing oil, copper, agricultural commodities and precious metals,” says Citigroup’s chief economist, Willem Buiter.[10] No surprise, then, that so many corporations are rushing to sign land deals that give them wide-ranging control over African water. Especially when African governments are essentially giving it away. Corporations understand what's at stake. There are “buckets of money” to be made on water, if only it can be controlled and turned it into a commodity. (See Virtual water  and Grabbing carbon credits?)

The secrecy that shrouds land deals makes it hard to know exactly what's being handed over to foreign companies. But from those contracts that have been leaked or made public, it is apparent that the contracts tend not to contain any specific mention of water rights at all, leaving the companies free to build dams and irrigation canals at their discretion, sometimes with a vague reference to 'respecting water laws and regulations'.[11]  This is the case in the agreements signed between the Ethiopian government and both Karuturi and Saudi Star in Gambela, for example. In some contracts,  a minor user fee is agreed upon for the water, but without any limitation on the amount of water that can be withdrawn. only in rare cases are even minimal restrictions imposed during the dry season, when access to water is so critical for local communities. But even in instances where governments may have the political will and capacity to negotiate conditions to protect local communities and the environment, this is made increasingly difficult due to existing international trade and investment treaties that give foreign investors strong rights in this respect.[12]

Next : Stop the water grab

Grabbing carbon credits Herakles Farms plans to clear and replace 800 square kilometers of rainforest and agricultural land with mono-culture trees to establish an oil palm plantation on the homelands of the Oroko, Bakossi, and Upper Bayang peoples in the Ndian, Koupé-Manengouba, and Manyu divisions of Cameroon with major impacts on approximately 52,000 Indigenous peoples in 88 villages. Source: Cultural Survival (Photo: Save Wildlife) The agro-industrial group Herakles American Farms leased more than 73,000 hectares of farmland in South West Cameroon to produce oil palm. According to a local NGO, the Center for Environment and Development (CED), the company gets the right to use, free, unlimited quantities of water in its land grant. But Herakles also gets something else with the deal: the right to benefit from any carbon credits that the company can get on its oil palm plantation, with government undertaking to promptly provide "all certificates, consents, authorisation and other support".  Cameroon doesn't even have a law yet that regulates its carbon trade, but its government already signs away the rights to benefit from the growing international carbon trade. CED rightly asks: “Why give the right to exploit land and the rights for carbon to a business at such a low rent, whereas the State could gain more, without any special investment and transform the area into a REDD project?”[i] The burgeoning carbon trade market, and it's related REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degredation) mechanism, could very well make land more attractive as an asset for foreign investors. The UN considers tree plantations as forests, and therefore oil palm and other plantations can benefit from carbon credits. REDD and the carbon trade market have already come under severe criticism for doing the opposite of what they are meant to do: exacerbating instead of diminishing the climate crisis. They also provide yet another incentive for agribusiness and investment funds to get hold of land and water resources across the world. [i] Samuel Nguiffo, Brandon Schwartz, CED 'Herakle 13th Labour? A Study of SGSOC’s Land Concession in South-west Cameroun. www.cedcameroun.org/index.php www.culturalsurvival.org/take-action/cameroon-stop-oil-palm-plantations-destroying-africas-ancient-rainforests/take-action

Stop the water grab

If this land and water grab is not put to an end, millions of Africans will lose access to the water sources they rely on for their livelihoods and their lives. They may be moved out of areas where land and water deals are made or their access to traditional water sources may simply be blocked by newly built fences, canals and dikes. This is already happening in Ethiopia's Gambela, where the government is forcibly moving thousands of indigenous people out of their traditional territories to make way for export agriculture. By 2013, the government wants to remove 1.5 million people from their territories across Ethiopia.[13] As the bulldozers move into the newly acquired lands, this will become an increasingly common feature in Africa's rural areas, generating more tensions and conflicts over scarce water resources. 

But the impacts will run far beyond the immediately affected communities. The recent wave of land grabbing is nothing short of an environmental disaster in the making. There is simply not enough water in Africa's rivers and water tables to irrigate all the newly acquired land. 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 waterlogging wherever they have been applied. India and China, two shining examples that Africa is being pushed to emulate, are now in a water crisis as a result of their Green Revolution practices. Over 200 million people in India and 100 million in China depend on foods produced by the over-pumping of water.[14] Fearing depleted water supplies or perhaps depleted profits, companies from both countries are looking now to Africa for future food production. 

Africa is in no shape for such an imposition. More than one in three Africans live with water scarcity, and the continent's food supplies are set to suffer more than any other's from climate change. Building Africa’s highly sophisticated and sustainable indigenous water management systems could help resolve this growing crisis, but these are the very systems being destroyed by land grabs. 

Advocates of the land deals and mega irrigation schemes argue that these big investments should be welcomed as an opportunity to combat hunger and poverty in the continent. But bringing in the bulldozers to plant water-intensive export crops is not and cannot be a solution to hunger and poverty. 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. [15] Their collective and customary rights over land and water sources should be strengthened not trampled. 

But this is not about combating hunger and poverty. This is theft on a grand scale of the very resources – land and water – which the people and communities of Africa must themselves be able to manage and control in order to face the immense challenges they face this century.

Going Further

References:

[15] For more details and examples, see: Oakland Institute, December 2011 'Landgrabs leave Africa thirsty' op. cit.

Table 2 References:

[5] For sources on the countries in the Nile basin: see the main text Squeezing Africa dry: behind every land grab is a water grab 

[6] Sources: tanariverdelta.org:  http://www.tanariverdelta.org/tana/g1/projects.html; Leah Tember,  UAB, 2009: 'Let them eat sugar: life and livelihood in Kenya’s Tana Delta.'  http://tinyurl.com/cdlcspn; Abdirizak Arale Nunow, 2011, 'The dynamics of land deals in the tana delta, kenya' http://tinyurl.com/d42rfqf