Investment by big agribusinesses and foreign governments in the farmland of developing world countries is not the answer to increasing food production and reducing poverty in poor nations, a global conference on land grabbing heard yesterday.
Speaking at the event held at the University of Sussex, UK, Olivier de Schutter, the UN’s special rapporteur on the Right to Food, rejected arguments that collaboration and investment with big businesses is the only way food production can rise sufficiently to feed the world’s growing population (See Nature’s editoral on land grabs).
The private sector is driving a change towards large scale industrial agriculture in areas such as Africa. This is pushing out small scale farmers who can’t compete on price, deepening local poverty and driving deforestation and environmental degradation, he said.
Investment should focus on supporting small scale local farmers, and ecologically friendly agricultural methods, he says. Small scale farmers should be given the opportunity to show they are up to the task of feeding their nations.
“I think we can do without multi-nationals,” he told Nature.
But Gregory Myers of the United States Agency for International Development insisted that big business has an important role to play in the agricultural development of poor countries. “The private sector should be encouraged to invest,” he says.
A key problem is that most developing world governments, particularly in Africa, lack laws to regulate market competition and control abuses of power by dominant multi-nationals, says de Schutter. In addition, many companies and governments looking to buy up foreign land target countries with weak governance, which often have food security problems of their own.
The conference, which runs from 6-8 April, was told that the scramble by foreign governments and large industry to buy up land in Africa is on the rise. A report by the World Bank published in September 2009 found that deals were being struck for the allocation of 45 million hectares of land, 70% of which is in Africa. But research to be presented at the conference suggests the real figure could be nearly double this.
Stephen O’Brian a junior minister in the UK’s Department for International Development, said that land deals can benefit poor local communities as well as big business “when done right”. The interests of the poor and marginalised communities must be taken into account in decisions on whether to sell land and in deals to ensure they are getting a fair share of the food subsequently grown on the land and financial benefits.
But Ian Scoones, joint convenor of the Future Agricultures Consortium, a collaboration of African and UK scientists based at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University, is more wary. The international community should be “very concerned” about the increased rush for land in Africa. The impact of international land deals on farmers and poor communities often “remains hidden”, he said.
Over 120 research papers documenting examples of land grabs from across the globe and assessing their social, economic and ecological impacts, will be presented at the conference. The papers can be found here.
Image: Photo by oneVillage Initiative via Flickr under Creative Commons.