LRAN

Soybean Production in the Southern Cone of the Americas

LRAN — 2012-07-30T20:29:39Z

This report aims to contribute to a better understanding of the implications of soybean production. To that end, it compiles and analyzes specific data on land and pesticide use in the main soybean producing countries of the Southern Cone of South America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

This document is based on statistics that has been generated by national official bodies, specialized institutions, and organizations that produce first hand data on soybean cultivation. Statistics from the United Nations Program on Food and Agriculture (FAO) and complementary information reported in published literature have also been included.

The findings of this report points out the more comprehensive analysis of the implications of soybean cultivation is required to assess the real ecological and social costs of its production in the Americas.

source: http://www.genok.com/news_cms/2012/...

Defending the Commons, Territories and the Right to Food and Water

LRAN — 2012-01-05T15:49:31Z

On World Food Day, it is estimated that almost a billion people around the world are now suffering from hunger and malnutrition - a dramatic rise in number since the soaring food prices over the last three years. Of these, about half are estimated to live in smallholder farming households, while roughly two-tenths are landless, another tenth are pastoralists, fisherfolk, and forest users, and the remainder live in the cities. This crisis of world hunger is set to deepen as livelihood resources such as land and water continue to be transferred from such groups to the financially powerful in ever larger areas and longer timeframes.

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In support of social movements and grassroots activists working to defend the rights of local people to land and natural resources and to re-orient policies towards food sovereignty in a new era of fuel scarcity, climate volatility, and economic readjustment, the Land Research Action Network (LRAN) launches its second series of briefing papers in contribution to the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform (GCAR). This series takes up the theme of Defending the Commons, Territories and the Right to Food and Water.

This second collection of LRAN briefing papers address the issues of food, finance, energy and climate crises through food sovereignty and agrarian reform and presents some of the experiences of activist researchers working to defend the commons and vulnerable territories. As before, the papers have been written and edited for readers who are not native speakers of English, and it is intended that they can be relatively easily translated. They are particularly aimed at activists and community leaders within social movements working on land and agriculture.

The papers are grouped in three parts. The first part presents analyses of the concurrent crises and highlights the impact they have brought for vulnerable people who directly rely on their land. (Land and the World Food Crisis, Peter Rosset; Sugarcane Monocropping and Counter Agrarian Reform in Brazil, Maria Luisa Mendonça; and Weathering the Storms: land use and climate change, Shalmali Guttal)

The second set of papers relates to different ways in which land and territory are viewed from different perspectives. The papers present brief examinations of the issues and dynamics of common resource tenure, the international work to define and recognise rights to land, and the threat of massive dispossession of land as global land grabbing expands. (Rights to land and territory, Sofia Monsalve; In Defense of the Commons, Shalmali Guttal and Mary Ann Manahan; and Is Asia for Sale?, Mary Ann Manahan)

The final section of this edition of our briefing papers turns to focus on the experience of the local, and the campaigns conducted from grassroots to the national level to call for redressing the wrongs of dispossession, renewed action to redistribute land, and changes to government policies on agriculture and trade. (The Grand Theft of Dey Krahorm, David Pred; Bringing Filipino agrarian reform back to life, Carmina Flores-Obanil; and Formalizing Inequality, Natalie Bugalski and David Pred)

Altogether these briefing papers present some of the central issues in the continuing struggle to ensure that the poor and the peasantry regain their rights to govern and steward the commons and other natural resources on which they build their livelihoods. They emphasise the multiple crises facing the countries of the South of climatic instability, unsustainable development, and excessive resource extraction, of food price instability, the systematic undermining of food sovereignty and the long-term viability of the small-scale farming sector, and of a new wave of land grabbing. They argue for a human rights based approach and reject the notion that land is no more than a tradable commodity. They call for public policies and resources to be redirected towards supporting peasants and smallhold producers and the urban poor, so that they can live and work on the land that they identify with and rely on. Collectively, they call for greater international, regional national and local policy attention to the importance and value of the commons and strong community institutions for a functioning and sustainable society.

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Farmers mobilise to find solutions against land grabbing

LRAN — 2011-11-22T23:25:00Z

Sélingué, Mali, 17 November 2011 – Today, more than 250 participants, mainly representatives of farmers' organisations, from thirty different countries gathered in Nyéléni Village, a centre for agro-ecology training built in a rural area near Sélingué, in Mali, to participate into the first International farmers' conference to stop land grabbing.

The Nyéléni village is a symbolic place, where the first international conference on Food Sovereignty was held in 2007. For three days, from the 17 to the 20 of November, participants are exchanging their experiences and creating alliances to stop the global land grab.

Land grabbing is happening everywhere, making the daily struggle of rural communities worldwide for survival even more difficult. Rights of family farmers, as well as pastoralists, artisanal fishers and indigenous communities, are violated constantly and their territories are being increasingly militarised. Small scale food production is replaced by large monoculture plantations for export and local farmers are left without land, without jobs, without food. This is why peasant organisations decided to mobilise together against this problem and create a space for exchanging experiences and finding common solutions.

At the opening ceremony Ibrahima Coulibaly, president of the CNOP (National Confederation of Peasant Organisations) of Mali, said: “The land belongs to local communities and it has been like that for generations. Now, governments are pushing farmers off their lands. This is not acceptable. It is a denial of historic rights, rights that exist since hundreds of years, while many states exist only since the 1960s. This shows how politicians are not connected to the people. The situation is very serious, and that is why we are here. We have the possibility in these three days to sit together, find a common understanding and find the solutions.”

Since the global food and financial crises broke out in 2008, governments and private firms have been increasingly acquiring large areas of fertile land in foreign countries all around the world. More then 60 countries have been targeted by hundreds of private corporations and dozens of governments. This international “land rush” affects as least 30 million hectares in Africa alone.

During the initial debates, participants shared their experiences and presented a multifaceted image of land-grabbing. On the one hand, they agreed that land grabbing is not a completely new phenomenon, as most countries have suffered it through colonisation and in some places colonial legal systems persist until now. On the other hand, they noted that land grabbing can have different shapes and forms as well. There is state-led land grabbing and there are land grabs by transnational corporations. There are land grabs to produce food for export, to produce agrofuels, land grabs for mining or other large infrastructural projects, periurban land grabs and so on. But even at the local level, leaders and community chiefs grab land. There are also mechanisms within families and communities that result in land grabbing, such as men denying women access to land, the widespread discrimination against young and women farmers, and land grabs by local elites.

In Africa, 80% of the population are small-scale family farmers and even though their means of production may be rudimentary, as many of them do not own even a plough, they are still able to feed the majority of the people. As land grabs push small farmers and pastoralists off their lands, they directly undermine food sovereignty.

“When we lose the land we lose our culture, communities and knowledge. The land for us is everything,” said a farmer from Senegal. Other farmers shared testimonies of local struggles and expropriation of communities across Africa and worldwide. “Farmers are being criminalised. Many of us are thrown into jail, only because we are trying to save our land and our way of life,” added a farmer from Indonesia. “More than fifty compañeros and compañeras have died in the last year while defending their land. Today, our territories are completely militarised,” said a farmer from Honduras, talking about the struggle of local communities in Bajo Aguán.

Here in Mali, around 800,000 hectares of land have been leased or are under negotiation for lease. One farmer from Kolongo, in the Ségou region, where two investors have grabbed peoples' land, Malibya and Tomota, explained his experience: “We have been living in our villages for hundreds of years, yet nobody came and told us about these projects. Then one day, this machine came and started to dig. They gave us a paper which we could not read. So we had to show it to somebody who could tell us what it said. The paper said that we had to leave our land and our farms. Then they started to build a canal. They dug up a cemetery, they robbed us of our harvest and ruined our land. We organised a forum in Kolongo one year ago and we are still struggling for our rights, but we are really suffering.”

A woman farmer from the Office du Niger, where many different foreign investors have been grabbing lands, stood up and said: “We are really glad to be here today. In our villages, we are in real difficulty. The projects took away our lands, so we cannot produce food anymore. Due to the struggle, some of us are in jail and I myself had a miscarriage after I was beaten. We even had to send our children away, as there is no food. Now, we have no happiness but we are fighting for our future and for the coming generations. We came to this conference as we hope to struggle together.”

Every day, farmer and pastoralist communities are being expelled from their land. At the same time everywhere, resistance and new solutions are being developed to stop this massive land grabbing. In Senegal, since the recent conflict in Fanaye, which led to several deaths, farmers organisations, social movements, NGOs and human rights groups have set up a monitoring and alert committe to warn all civil society actors, journalists and decision makers whenever new land grabbing cases arise on the ground.

Participants agreed that this struggle to stop land grabbing is also a struggle to stop the ongoing commodification of seeds, water and knowledge and to support small-scale family farmers. Paul Nicholson, one of the leaders of La Via Campesina said: “Some people say that land grabbing is modernizing agriculture, and that it is the only solution to alleviating hunger. This is not true, what we need is food sovereignty. We must fight for our agroecological model, and we need policies that support family farmers everywhere. It is urgent to implement an agrarian reform all over the world.”

Via Campesina News

Biofuels, Mass Evictions and Violence

LRAN — 2011-04-18T04:21:59Z

- LRAN Briefing Paper Series

Defending the Commons, Territories and the Right to Food and Water

LRAN — 2010-10-26T13:49:51Z

On World Food Day, 16th October 2010, it is estimated that almost a billion people around the world are now suffering from hunger and malnutrition - a dramatic rise in number since the soaring food prices over the last three years. Of these, about half are estimated to live in smallholder farming households, while roughly two-tenths are landless, another tenth are pastoralists, fisherfolk, and forest users, and the remainder live in the cities.

This crisis of world hunger is set to deepen as livelihood resources such as land and water continue to be transferred from such groups to the financially powerful in ever larger areas and longer timeframes.

In support of social movements and grassroots activists working to defend the rights of local people to land and natural resources and to re-orient policies towards food sovereignty in a new era of fuel scarcity, climate volatility, and economic readjustment, LRAN launches its second series of briefing papers in contribution to the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform. This series takes up the theme of Defending the Commons, Territories and the Right to Food and Water.

Addressing the Food, Finance, Energy and Climate Crises through Food Sovereignty and Agrarian Reform

In April 2010, social movement representatives from all over the world gathered in Cochabamba at the World People's Conference on Climate Change. Highlighting their respect for Mother Earth, they presented evidence of the dire injuries she is suffering, and put forward their proposals for urgently redirecting development policies towards a more sustainable and just future. Two of Mother Earth's most important forms - land and water - are being exploited, abused and destroyed by human beings under the banners of economic development, growth and progress. Today, the world is faced with multiple, inter-related crises of climate, food, energy, and finance that have resulted after several decades of corporate-driven globalisation, neoliberal policy domination, unsustainable resource extraction and unchecked financial liberalisation.

This second collection of the Land Research Action Network (LRAN) briefing papers take up these themes of concern and presents some of the experiences of activist researchers working to defend the commons and vulnerable territories. As before, the papers have been written and edited for readers who are not native speakers of English, and it is intended that they can be relatively easily translated. They are particularly aimed at activists and community leaders within social movements working on land and agriculture.

This series contributes to the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform (GCAR), which serves as a platform for promoting effective agrarian reform in countries with highly unequal patterns of land ownership. Initiated by La Via Campesina, an international peasant movement, and Foodfirst International Action Network (FIAN), GCAR assists the already existing national peasant movements struggling for agrarian reform in their own countries and to strengthen them internationally. Effective agrarian reform is understood by peasant and landless organisations throughout the world as a bundle of policies that ensure that agricultural land is distributed to landless peasants and smallholders swiftly and equitably.

For more information, please visit http://viacampesina.org or http://www.fian.org/programs-and-ca....


landstruggles

The papers can be grouped in three parts. The first part presents analyses of the concurrent crises and highlights the impact they have brought for vulnerable people who directly rely on their land.

The first paper, “Land and World Food Crisis” by Peter Rosset, presents the soaring prices of staple crops in 2008 and 2009 as the clearest evidence yet of the structural problems in the world food production and supply system. The short-termism of industrial agriculture that provides high returns for rich investors and wealthy classes is contrasted with agro-ecological peasant agriculture, where the returns largely go to local communities, society at large, and to the future generations. However, family farms, which produce over two-thirds of the food in Asia, Africa and Latin America, receive insufficient genuine support (infrastructure, institutional, participatory research, and capacity building) and financial investment. The Food Sovereignty alternative proposed by small-scale farmers and social movements is put forward as the only long-term approach for resolving the current food crisis.

The second paper turns the focus on the crisis exposed by the starkly unjust agrarian structure of many countries of the global South. A case in point is presented in the second paper entitled “Sugarcane Monocropping and Counter Agrarian Reform in Brazil” by Maria Luisa Mendonça, which describes the grave problems associated with the expansion of monocultures in Brazil despite the urgent need for land redistribution within a comprehensive agrarian reform to provide a genuine long-term means of livelihood for the millions of landless and displaced people. Her analysis focuses on the vast sugar plantations that continue to be promoted to increase ethanol production for export, and describes how large-scale plantations pull migrants, typically displaced from farmlands and forests elsewhere, to work on these plantations, which have a long history of treacherous conditions and labour law violations.

The third paper presents a brief exposition of the climate crisis. Most climate change models predict that damages will disproportionally affect the regions populated by small scale fisherfolk, smallhold producers and particularly rainfed agriculturalists in the South. However, the major causes of climate change lie far from their control. Equally, many of the climate ‘solutions' are also designed exclusively in the global North but implemented in the South. Controversial initiatives currently put forward at the international policy level, such as the REDD proposals (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), agrofuel development are strongly criticised by many in the social movements for their counterproductive results, the hidden theft of resources, and the countless problems of accountability. Many such schemes intensify the difficulties facing forest and other rural communities, who are rarely involved in key decisions regarding the use of natural resources in project areas. Meanwhile, the traditional technologies and knowledge of smallhold producers, pastoralists, fishers, and indigenous communities are subject to steady erosion through a variety of external pressures, undermining a storehouse of lessons in adaptive capacity and resilience to weather and climate change.

Setting the context for all the papers in this section, the fourth paper entitled “In Defence of the Commons” by Shalmali Guttal and Mary Ann Manahan examines the critical importance of preserving the natural commons, particularly land and water, as a vital, community-managed resource available for successive generations. The value of collective resources has been greatly, and sometimes entirely, overlooked in national development strategies in the South, and this paper examines the various ways in which they have been placed under threat. A critical factor is the weakening of common property management systems, undermined as the paradigms of privatisation and market commodification have dominated policy development. As the paper points out, networks and movements of the poor around the world are reacting to the destruction of their natural resources, and standing up in defence of the commons and the common property systems which sustain them.

The fifth paper in our series entitled “Rights to Land and Territory” by Sofia Monsalve examines the subject of ensuring access to land as a basic human right. While international legal instruments do not yet recognise a human right to land, there are international instruments that recognise the importance of access to land in ensuring the right to food and as a foundation of the rights of indigenous peoples. However, she points out, in country after country, States choose to build alliances with wealthy private companies and transnational corporations (TNCs) in privatising land and extracting natural resources rather than preserving them as the commons and upholding peoples' rights to food. Alternative models for development, such as the food sovereignty model formulated and proposed by Via Campesina, take a rights-based approach, recognising the right of self-determination of local communities including their rights to govern, manage, and care for their eco-systems and natural wealth. The food sovereignty model also focuses on redistributive tenure reforms without which, it is argued, it would not be possible to overcome discrimination based on gender, age, ethnicity, race, caste.

A contrasting perspective sees land not as a right, but as a commodity. This considers that land is not only a productive, but also a financially valuable asset that should be tradable in order to extract the highest value from it. In this perspective, other values that community groups often attach to land such as the possibility of self-reliance in working the land, the availability of a social and kinship safety net where there is land for the poor, the spiritual elements endowed in land, trees and water, the educational value of learning from the land, and more fundamental values of heritage and identity tend not to be counted. The increasing international interest in the agricultural land resources of other countries has led to discussions on placing limits to trading land. A recent meeting of social movement representatives in Kuala Lumpur drew attention to the increasing instance of aggressive land purchases throughout the Global South. Based on their discussions, Mary Ann Manahan asks the question “Is Asia for Sale?” (our sixth paper). She critically examines the foreign acquisition of agricultural lands in Asia that have included the expropriation of lands and territories for industrial agriculture. A variety of other mechanisms by which land is being grabbed throughout the region are also highlighted in this paper. The loss of these lands is often disastrous for the local people. It means dispossession of the means of subsistence and of living spaces, resulting rapidly in reduced standards of living and often, the complete destitution of families and communities involved.

The two annexes to this set of briefing papers are particularly relevant to the issues put forward in this paper. The first presents the text of an urgent open letter to international finance institutions, including the World Bank, entitled “Stop land grabbing now!” that was supported by over 100 civil society groups from around the world. The second annex reproduces the main sections of the report summarising the Asian Civil Society consultation meeting on the FAO Guidelines on Good Governance of Land and Natural Resources. This report identifies some of the key problems relating to land and natural resource tenure in the region and sets out some of the principles, actions and proposals for improved governance of land.

In the paper entitled “The Grand Theft of Dey Krahorm”, David Pred tells the story of a vibrant urban community in Cambodia, whose land was sold beneath their feet to a property developer, in collusion with local chiefs. The paper presents the struggle as it unfolded, from the perspective of someone working closely with the community throughout the resistance campaign. The destruction of their homes, ruthlessly torn down by bulldozers and hammers in the early hours of one morning, had devastating consequences for the community. While the campaign to keep their homes was lost, the author reflects on the moderate successes in drawing national and international attention to this case, and the startling number of other cases of forced evictions and speculative land grabs within Cambodia. The determination of the Dey Krahorm community is clearly evident from this story, which has inspired other threatened communities in the country to resist eviction and make use of the lessons learnt.

Our eighth paper, “Bringing Filipino agrarian reform back to life?”, by Carmina Flores Obanil, presents an account of the trials and tribulations of the campaign that eventually saw the passage of the renewed comprehensive agrarian reform law in the Philippines. She describes some of the actions that helped to draw the attention of the media, the nation and the Parliamentarians, to the uncompleted project for land reform in the country. With strong grassroots support, pressure was brought on Parliament to allocate further resources and budget to the Department of Agrarian Reform, dismissing the earlier political pressure for the Department to abandon its land redistribution role. She notes that not only will further vigilance be required to ensure implementation of the Bill, but that further campaigning work will be needed to promote the development of a more comprehensive view of agrarian reform that goes beyond questions of land distribution and ensures protection for the commons and the farmlands of smallholder communities and indigenous peoples.

The final paper entitled “Formalizing Inequality”, by Natalie Bugalski and David Pred, refers to the programme of land titling in Cambodia. The paper takes up the case of a community threatened with eviction from its city centre location at the heart of Pnohm Penh. In this case, the Boeng Kak community was placed under threat at exactly the time when the international donor-supported land titling programme should have allocated the residents secure long term rights to their land. As the area was exempted from the programme, local people's rights to the land were downgraded and dismissed. The focus of this piece is the responsibilities of the Land Management and Administration Project of the World Bank. The paper describes the local campaign to bring the Bank to account for the damages caused by the denial of their rights, the diminishing of their claims, loss of their land and the dismantling of their community. The case has been brought to the World Bank's Inspection Panel and the outcome is awaited.

The Land Research Action Network brings together activist researchers working on land and resource access issues with grassroots movements struggling for land and other productive resources. LRAN is coordinated by Centro de Estudios para el Cambio en el Campo Mexicano, FIAN International, Focus on the Global South, and Rede Social de justiça e direitos humanos. For more action alerts, updates, articles and other information please visit www.landaction.org.

Land and the World Food Crisis, Peter Rosset


LRAN-1_Land_and_World_Food_Crisis

Sugarcane Monocropping and Counter Agrarian Reform in Brazil, Maria Luisa Mendonça


LRAN-3_Monocropping_of_Sugarcane

Rights to land and territory, Sofia Monsalve


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In Defence of the Commons, Shalmali Guttal and Mary Ann Manahan

Is Asia for Sale?, Mary Ann Manahan


LRAN-5_Is_Asia_for_Sale-1

The Grand Theft of Dey Krahorm, David Pred


LRAN-7_Grand_Theft_of_Dey_Krahorm

Bringing Filipino agrarian reform back to life, Carmina Flores-Obanil


LRAN-8_Filipino_Agrarian_Reform

Formalizing Inequality, Natalie Bugalski and David Pred


LRAN-9_Formalizing_Inequality

Annex 1 Open letter from civil society groups to IFIs: Stop land grabbing now!


LRAN-Annex1

Annex 2 Report on Asian Civil Society consultation on the FAO Guidelines on Good Governance of Land and Natural Resources


LRAN-Annex2

Cover


LRAN Cover A4.1

Book Review by Robin Palmer Mokoro, Oxford, England

LRAN — 2007-11-07T01:19:00Z

Development in Practice, Volume 17, Number 6, November 2007

Peter Rosset, Raj Patel, and Michael Courville (eds.)

Promised Land: Competing Visions of Agrarian Reform Oakland, CA:

Food First Books, 2006, ISBN: 978-1567513585, xvi + 380 pp.

“While it was inconceivable that land could be redistributed through a willing buyer-willing seller approach at the beginning of the Cold War”, write the editors of Promised Land, “by the Cold War's end it was inconceivable that it could be done in any other way” (p.18).

They thus nicely encapsulate the ironies inherent in the fact that the economic power of the old landlords was broken in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan after 1945, but that the same did not happen in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, or in Zimbabwe in 1980, or South Africa in 1994.

I approached this weighty volume with a certain fear -that it might turn out to be little more than a prolonged polemical rant against the usual suspects. I was very pleasantly surprised. It is in fact a compelling collection which seriously interrogates 'competing visions of agrarian reform', as promised by its subtitle.

The overarching theme is to scrutinise the only model for land and agrarian reform that is still seriously on the table: the World Bank's market-led policies. This is done most effectively in a brilliant general analysis by Jun Borras, and in a series of case studies which analyse alleged Bank successes in Thailand, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia.

These follow historical chapters on Guatemala, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and India, and are in turn followed by chapters on 'alternatives and resistance', featuring Cuba, Venezuela, and Brazil. There is also an excellent piece on indigenous peoples, but a very disappointing one (little more than FIAN propaganda) on gender and land. One of the editors, Peter Rosset, concludes with a chapter on agrarian reform as part of food sovereignty, reflecting the book's origins in the Land Research Action Network (LRAN) and its heavy Latin American focus (but where are Nicaragua and Bolivia?).

Promised Land's three editors credit the (post-Cold War) World Bank with 'making legitimate again the call for land reform' (p. xiv) but also with ensuring that debates are focused on economic growth and increased GDP, rather than on 'justice, food sovereignty, equality or rural transformation' (p. 7). They regularly test whether the Bank's practice matches its rhetoric of wanting 'an efficiency- and equity-enhancing redistribution of assets' (p. 107).

Aside from particular pertinent observations, such as whether the famous Thailand land-titling programme was really necessary, since Thais already had secure tenure, the dominant overall critique is that the market approach simply ignores history and existing power relations, assuming some mythical 'level playing field' in which the powerful and the powerless can negotiate on equal terms in a 'free market'. As a result, all too often land-reform 'beneficiaries' have found themselves marginalised, in every sense, and frequently heavily indebted. “Before I had nothing and owed nothing. Now I have nothing and owe money. I have land, but a debt too”, reported a farmer from Matto Grosso, Brazil (p. 190).

There is much to savour and learn from here: chapters on agrarian reform in Cuba after the fall of communism (where private land had earlier been expropriated, the state sector was dramatically downsized, and people suddenly remembered the virtues of previously forbidden intercropping of sweet 834 potatoes and maize); on the MST's practical implementation of some of Paolo Freire's ideas in Brazil, and the often authoritarian practices of the Cedula da Terra programme Â´ there; a snapshot of Hugo Chavez's attempted land reforms in Venezuela; and the neat dissection of Thailand's 'success story', which has benefitted sharp urban speculators but ripped apart common lands and left 'the poorest farming groups in the country...in a precarious legal position' (p. 144). It is good to be reminded that 'agrarian reform cannot be labelled as conservative or revolutionary per se; it is a tool, and what makes the difference is who controls it' (p. 267). The general conclusion is that 'there is mounting evidence that these policies are unlikely to significantly improve access by the poor to land or give them more secure tenure. In fact there is good reason to believe these policies will actually worsen the situation in many cases' (p. 303).

There is an acknowledgement, right at the end of the book, that the rural world is in crisis. This is blamed on current global trade patterns which focus on access to export markets, rather than protecting local markets, and which encourage large-scale, chemical-intensive production, which is degrading some of the world's best soils and in some cases leading to their being abandoned completely.

A few quibbles. The very first source cited (Wood 2000) does not appear in the references, which was troubling but, I think, a minor blip in what is generally a welledited collection. It was disappointing that the Zimbabwe story here ends at 2000, since a fair bit has happened since then. This is a book which can be strongly recommended to anyone engaging in landreform programmes led by the World Bank. I can also commend it to some of my former colleagues at Oxfam GB who decreed that land rights should no longer be a priority for the organisation.

Land Struggles

LRAN — 2007-10-23T21:50:04Z

Edited by Rebeca Leonard, Shalmali Guttal, and Peter Rosset

Copy edit Mary Ann Manahan

Lay-out Gaynor Tanyang

Cover Design Omna Cadavida-Jalmaani

Photos João Ripper, Jimmy Domingo, and MST

Publication Support Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst (EED)

To request for copies, please contact: Focus on the Global South, Philippines Programme 19 Maginhawa St. UP Village, Diliman Quezon City 1101 Philippines Tel: 63-2-433-3387 Fax: 63-2-433-0899 www.focusweb.org

Book Review by Robin Palmer Mokoro, Oxford, England


Download Print Version: 1 MB

“Three-quarters of the world's 852 million men and women suffering from hunger are found in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their survival. Most of them are landless farmers or have such tiny or unproductive plots of land that they cannot feed their families”.

This was the assessment of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) released at the second International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in March 2006. Immense numbers give an indication of the scale of the problem, but the urgency of the matter comes from an understanding that millions of people throughout the Global South who depend on agriculture for their livelihood are today in the process of losing their land. Many millions more who have been deprived of their land are engaged in a daily struggle to regain their rights, their dignity, and way of life. The Land Research and Action Network's briefing paper series is intended to highlight a selection of local perspectives on the root causes of land loss to and highlight some of the ongoing land struggles from around the world. Eight issue papers have been selected and trimmed down to publish in magazine form in simplified English (Spanish and Portuguese to follow).

These papers, their extended versions, and many more articles are also available on the www.landaction.org website. Papers will be added to this series to be published occasionally in an online edition. The central theme running through the papers gathered here is the political nature of land loss and the related need for political empowerment of the landless. Land grabs that are clearly illegal have been carried out with impunity by the politically connected, from colonial times to the present day. However, land is also being lost by the rural poor, with no less devastating consequences, through the combined effect of neoliberal macro-economic and development policies. These have been pushed and stretched over the decades by institutions like the WTO, the World Bank, and IMF, that are unaccountable to local people, but which can be taken advantage of by national political elites.

Policies promoting export production, the expansion of agribusiness, and the removal of import protections and public sector supports for national and local markets have undercut the economic viability of peasant, small and family farmers, and cooperative/collective agriculture. Over decades, farming peoples have been displaced from fertile lands toward steep and marginal soils, and the progressive incorporation of these displaced peoples into poorly paid seasonal labor forces for export agriculture. In the first chapter of this series, Shalmali Guttal's paper entitled “Land Alienation in Cambodia” puts into local context the reasons for accelerated loss of lands and access to natural resources in Cambodia today, calling attention to the grave livelihood crisis among Cambodia's poor and vulnerable communities. Business interests, both agricultural and non-agricultural, and large infrastructure projects are encroaching on communal and public lands, and territories of indigenous peoples with little opposition and often facilitated by the state. Control over large expanses of land in turn reinforces the political power of large landowners.

In the Philippines where the families of politicians and others well-connected to those with political power, have managed to arrange that massive landholdings remain untouched by land reforms. A strong mobilization of people's organizations succeeded in passing a relatively progressive reform program in 1988 only for it to be delayed and distorted in the following decades. One example of how far the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program strayed from its original aims is examined in Mary Ann Manahan and Carmina Flores-Obanil's paper “Leaseback Arrangements: Reversing Agrarian Reform Gains in the Philippines” included here as chapter 2. Co-opting the powerful concept of agrarian reform, governments, and multilateral institutions since the 1980s have essentially taken up only one policy initiative on a more or less global scale, which they have presented as a positive step to redress the problems of access to land.

This is the World Bank-designed and supported `market-assisted' or negotiated' land reform. These feature the acceleration of policies to title lands, facilitate land markets, and increasingly, promote `land bank' credit for land purchases by the poor. In our third chapter, Maria Luisa Mendonça's paper entitled “To their credit? Assessing the World Bank's Programmes in Brazil” presents some of the mounting evidence that these policies are unlikely to significantly improve access by the poor to land, or give them more secure tenure. We are continually bombarded with news of human rights abuses towards the landless and the land poor in countries around the world. Land reform is still resisted by local elites with force, often through private militia, sometimes by the police or army and intimidation of those involved in land struggles is rife.

Sofia Monsalve's paper entitled “Human rights violations against peasants, indigenous peoples, and other rural communities” is produced here as chapter 4. This paper outlines some of the internationally recognized civil, economic, social, and cultural rights related to land and livelihood, and highlights the main patterns of human rights violations of rural peoples, with examples from around the world. The present day slave conditions of agricultural workers in the huge sugar estates in Brazil are revealed in Maria Luisa Mendonça's paper entitled “Excess Sugar: the Devastating Impacts of the Sugarcane Industry in Brazil” included here as chapter 5. The paper also discusses the concentration of the industry in the hands of very few families and the increase of involvement of transnational corporations and the environmental problems that are being overlooked. This is all the more worrying given the present trend to promote sugarcane for the production of agrofuel energy that is supposedly beneficial for the environment. In the paper by Edivan Pinto, Marluce Melo, and Maria Luisa Mendonça entitled “The Myth of Biofuels”, the promises behind the current rush of optimism for biofuels are examined (chapter 6).

The paper makes an assessment of the green credentials of biodiesel and bioethanol production in Brazil, which is set to build an agreement with the U.S. with the effect of controlling over two thirds of the world bio-ethanol production. Its expansion is expected to bring with it serious consequences for the country, increasing both land concentration and its corollary landlessness. This also represents a trend by which the products harvested from fertile lands flow overwhelmingly toward consumers in wealthy countries. Another example of capture of resources by wealthier strata around the globe is in the exclusive acquisition of large areas of land for tourism. Land acquired over the heads of the local people and sometimes illegally, for luxury tourism has been commonplace in many of the world's developing country resort locations. Where there is loss of land, combined with massive use of water resources, and cultural invasion, little space is left for traditional communities to thrive.

The irony remains that local cultures are invariably used as marketing charms. A case that brought all these issues into sharp focus was the sudden displacement of hundreds of thousands of families following the Asian Tsunami. In chapter 7, entitled “When water was used to clear the land: Post-tsunami Reconstructions”, Rebeca Leonard identifies the loss of land to tourism projects that was experienced by fishing communities in some of the countries worst affected. The paper highlights those communities who have been locked in a struggle to regain their land rights even when this led to the forfeit of development assistance. This is testament to the strong grassroots poor people's movements. Land occupations prove once again to be one of the most effective methods of pressuring governments to act, and reigning in the power of private landowners. It becomes clear that the present trends toward greater land concentration and the accompanying industrialization of agriculture will make it impossible to achieve social or ecological sustainability. In the final chapter, Peter Rosset's paper entitled “Food Sovereignty and Agrarian Reform: Alternative Model for the Rural World” summarizes research which shows, by contrast, the potential that could be achieved by the redistribution of land. Small farmers are found to be more productive, more efficient, and contribute more to broad-based regional development than the larger corporate farmers who hold the best land.

Small farmers with secure tenure have demonstrated they can also be much better stewards of natural resources, protecting the long term productivity of their soils and conserving functional biodiversity on and around their farms. Support for the struggles of peasants and the landless peoples is imperative, as Peter Rosset states in a series of guidelines for the future (printed on the back cover): “severe inequality in landholdings is inefficient, environmentally and socially destructive, immoral, and impedes broad-based development”. The human rights of the poorest groups in society are being subject to persistent abuse. Access to land and productive resources by peasants and smallholder family farmers are a necessary precondition to realize the right to feed oneself. Where land has been lost, the only way this can be achieved sustainably is through truly redistributive agrarian reform that can challenge the established holders of power. This must be underpinned by strong support for essential services like credit that is affordable and carefully monitored, infrastructure, support for ecologically sound technologies, and access to markets and fair prices. “Perhaps most critical” says Rosset “is a step back from damaging free trade policies and dumping— which drive down farm prices and undercut the economic viability of farming— to be replaced by a food sovereignty perspective which places the highest priority on national production for national markets”.

Criteria for Affiliation with LRAN

admin — 2007-01-21T22:11:33Z

There are two levels of participation in LRAN, Affiliation and Membership. Individuals and organizations must met the criteria spelled out below and may apply for Affiliation by filling out the form on this web site.

ndividuals and organizations may affiliate with LRAN if they are either movements struggling for land and other productive resources, or researchers or research organizations committed to placing their research skills at the service of grassroots movements for land and resources.

In order to affiliate with LRAN, researchers must:

Be committed to the principles and goals of the LRAN (as put forth in the LRAN Mission statement);
Have cooperative attitudes on sharing and disseminating information and knowledge about issues pertaining land, agrarian reform and resource access;
Be engaged in research on access to land, agrarian reform, resources access, and/or related issues;
Be dedicated to using their skills in defense of the rights of landless peasants, indigenous peoples, fisherfolk, rural laborers, small farmers and other land- and resource-dependent peoples.
Be committed to work with, and respond to the demands of, grass-roots organizations, social movements, and community groups;

Requests for affiliation with LRAN will be evaluated on an individual basis.

Criteria for Membership in LRAN

Membership in LRAN is by invitation only.

Mailing list subscription

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Ways to affiliate with LRAN

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Sign Up for the LRAN Mailing List

Criteria for Affiliation with LRAN There are two levels of participation in LRAN, Affiliation and Membership. Individuals and organizations must met the criteria spelled out below and may apply for Affiliation by filling out the form on this web site.