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	Africa"s controversial "land grab" by Anuradha Mittal Oakland Institute   World Bank policies "enabling" African land grab, (Bretton Woods Project)   New research accuses the World Bank Group"s policies of facilitating land grabs in Africa and favouring the interests of financial markets over food security and environmental protection.   Agriculture and the food crisis are a high-profile agenda topic at the upcoming World Bank annual meetings, and critical voices are growing on the Bank"s approach to food price volatility. Recent research by the US-based Oakland Institute raises further difficult questions on agriculture policy for Bank officials.   The report implicates the World Bank Group (WBG) in the increasing acquisition of farmland in the developing world by private investors and wealthy nations, which critics are calling a global "land grab".   The investigative research, published between March and June, analyses a series of land deals in countries across Africa and finds that the purchases of land, often by large institutional investors, are mainly unregulated, produce few of the promised benefits to local people, and instead are forcing thousands of small farming communities off ancestral land, creating serious food insecurity and driving environmental destruction.   Writing in a blog for Reuters, Joan Baxter, a research fellow at the Oakland Institute, said that "more than any other institution or agency, the World Bank Group has been promoting direct foreign investment in Africa, and enabling the farmland rush."   Their in-depth reports on Mali and Sierra Leone reveal how the WBG "has shaped the economic, fiscal, and legal environment … in a way that favours the acquisition of vast tracks of fertile lands by few private interests instead of bringing solutions to the widespread poverty and hunger."   The Oakland Institute finds that the WBG has, through an array of different policies, overseen a shift towards prioritising large-scale commercial agribusiness, achieved by attracting and promoting foreign agricultural investment. The Foreign Investment Advisory Service and the Remove Administrative Barriers to Investment program, both projects of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Bank"s private sector arm, have "been working - often behind the scenes - to ensure that African countries reform their land laws and fiscal regimes to make them attractive to foreign investors". The Bank has financed legal reform mechanisms that are promoting rapid changes in land tenure laws, "driven by a desire to facilitate large-scale agricultural investment".   The Bank has also been funding investment promotion agencies in African countries that place private sector advisors in key governmental ministries, including presidential offices.   This was a key part of the Growth Support Project for Mali, financed by a loan from the International Development Association (IDA), the Bank"s low-income country arm. The salaries of the directors of the Malian investment promotion agency are covered by the IDA loan. The agency also includes IFC consultants, and guarantees investments through the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), the Bank"s risk insurance arm.   Baxter observes that these agencies "are developing and advertising a veritable smorgasbord of incentives not just to attract foreign investment in farmland but also to ensure maximum profits to investors.   These include extremely generous tax holidays for 10 or even 30 years, zero per cent duty on imports, and easy access to very large tracts of land, sometimes over 100,000 hectares. Investors may pay just a couple of dollars per hectare per year for the land, and in Mali, sometimes no land rent at all."   RAI principles found wanting   The reports from both Sierra Leone and Mali also argue that the land deals facilitated by the Bank"s investment promotion policies fail to comply with it"s own large-scale responsible agricultural investment principles. The report on Sierra Leone says the RAI principles are "vague and minimal", and are "based on the controversial assumption that industrial-style agriculture and land use can increase food production and fuel economic growth in host countries", and "do not consider the overall questions about the enormous risks and inherent injustices of the global rush by investors and nations for farmland".   It argues that that land deals in Sierra Leone do not conform to the RAI principles, while the Mali report argues that the "Bank ignores its own principles by supporting institutions and policy reforms that disregard them."   June 2011 (BBC)   Hedge funds are behind "land grabs" in Africa to boost their profits in the food and biofuel sectors, a US think-tank says.   Foreign firms are snapping up farming land in Africa, a new report says. In a report, the Oakland Institute said hedge funds and other foreign firms had acquired large swathes of African land, often without proper contracts.   It said the acquisitions had displaced millions of small farmers. Foreign firms farm the land to consolidate their hold over global food markets, the report said. They also use land to "make room" for export commodities such as biofuels and cut flowers.   "This is creating insecurity in the global food system that could be a much bigger threat than terrorism," the report said.   The Oakland Institute said it released its findings after studying land deals in Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Mali and Mozambique.   It said hedge funds and other speculators had, in 2009 alone, bought or leased nearly 60m hectares of land in Africa - an area the size of France.   "The same financial firms that drove us into a global recession by inflating the real estate bubble through risky financial manoeuvres are now doing the same with the world"s food supply," the report said.   It added that some firms obtained land after deals with gullible traditional leaders or corrupt government officials.   "The research exposed investors who said it is easy to make a deal - that they could usually get what they wanted in exchange for giving a poor tribal chief a bottle of Johnnie Walker [whisky]," said Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute.   "When these investors promise progress and jobs to local chiefs it sounds great, but they don"t deliver."   The report said the contracts also gave investors a range of incentives, from unlimited water rights to tax waivers.   "No-one should believe that these investors are there to feed starving Africans. "These deals only lead to dollars in the pockets of corrupt leaders and foreign investors," said Obang Metho of Solidarity Movement for New Ethiopia, a non-governmental organisation in Addis Ababa. Visit the related web page
	Investing in ecosystem services can boost food security, raise incomes by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)   22 August 2011   Investing in healthy ecosystems can boost food security, improve resilience to climate change and provide economic benefits for poor communities, says a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and its partners.   “An Ecosystems Approach to Water and Food Security,” launched during World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden, advocates managing and investing in the connections between ecosystems, water and food, through diversifying crops, planting trees on farmland and improving rainwater collection and other practical steps.   “This could help avoid water scarcity and meet the growing food demands of a global population set to reach 9 billion by 2050,” states a press release on the report, produced by UNEP and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), in partnership with 19 other organizations.   One of the main challenges in boosting current levels of food production, says the report, is the availability of water, which is needed for livestock, crop irrigation and fisheries and other agricultural uses.   Groundwater levels, for example, are declining rapidly in several major breadbaskets and rice bowl regions such as the North China plains, the Indian Punjab and in the Western United States.   “Maintaining healthy, resilient ecosystems to ensure water availability for agriculture and other ecosystem services is thus essential for long-term food security,” the news release points out.   The report, written by over 50 contributors and using case studies from China, Guatemala, Jordan and other communities, recommends changes to three specific areas – environmental protection, water resources management and food production – that are needed to improve food security and reduce stresses on water supply.   It also sets out recommendations for drylands, wetlands, crop systems, fisheries and livestock systems.   Water scarcity and land degradation are the most prominent constraints for food production in drylands, which support one third of the world’s population, up to 44 per cent of its cultivated systems and about 50 per cent of its livestock.   Among its recommendations for drylands, the report suggests creating corridors to promote the movement of livestock, which can reduce overgrazing and land degradation caused when animals are confined to small areas, as well as cultivating local plants better adapted to dry conditions.   In addition to boosting food security, the report notes that an ecosystem services approach to agriculture can also help raise living standards and income. The Peruvian Amazon, for example, is home to indigenous communities that rely on forest ecosystem services for their food supply, livelihoods and cultural practices. Recently, conservation groups have been working with local people to develop agricultural and economic resources.   Through better ecosystem management, some 600 families saw their incomes increase, mainly through revenues from more productive fish farms and agroforestry. Increased food production came hand-in-hand with conservation plans, which were developed for 16 forest communities. Visit the related web page
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