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The right to food: Corporate, foreign gov’t land grab causing hunger in poor countries
Democracy Now! | 28 October 2010
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, joins us to discuss his recent warning that some 500 million small farmers in poor countries are suffering from hunger, partly because foreign countries and corporations have bought up large tracts of land. We’re also joined by Smita Narula, author of a new study suggesting that many of the land deals in Africa and South Asia lack transparency and could threaten local communities with eviction, undermine their livelihoods, and endanger their access to food.
Guests:
Olivier De Schutter, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
Smita Narula, faculty director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University Law School.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Some 500 million small farmers in poor countries are suffering from hunger partly because of large-scale land purchases by foreign investors and the growing use of biofuels. That’s the message that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food had for the General Assembly last week. Olivier De Schutter added that the practice of so-called land grabs is taking place in a context where the world is already losing 75 million acres of farmland a year to environmental degradation, industrial expansion and urbanization.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, a new report being released here in New York today suggest that many of the land deals recently concluded in Africa and South Asia lack transparency. Based on a year-long study of four particular deals in Sudan, Pakistan, Mali and Tanzania, the report notes that the so-called land grabs could threaten local communities with eviction, undermine their livelihoods, and endanger their access to food.
For more, we’re joined here in New York by the report’s lead author Smita Narula, who’s the faculty director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU Law School. We’re also joined by Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Oliver De Schutter, let’s start with you. Give us the scope of this issue. I don’t think people are at all aware of what’s happening in the rest of the world when it comes to, well, what you’re calling land grabs.
OLIVIER DE SCHUTTER: Well, the pace at which this is developing is really impressive. Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen about 40 million hectares of land exchanged subject to such deals, which represents about twice the farmland of France, for example. So it is going very fast, and it’s driven by a lack of confidence that now investors have in international markets. And they seek to secure supply of food by outsourcing food production at the expense of the small farmers in developing countries who already have too little land to cultivate. Every generation, the plots they cultivate grow smaller. And they are now facing this competition from foreign investors and are basically priced off the market.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Are there particular crises that have sort of sparked this land grab in recent years? I’m thinking, for instance, of the financial crisis in Asia several years back. Or anything in particular that is driving this?
OLIVIER DE SCHUTTER: Well, I think there are four factors, essentially, which explain this. First, the prices on international markets are increasingly volatile and unpredictable. And so, countries understand that to ensure their food in the future, they need to buy land in order to secure stable supplies of food by outsourcing food production. They don’t trust the international markets anymore. And the global food price crisis of 2008 was, in that sense, a wake-up call for them.
Secondly, there is a push towards the production of biofuels, which is one of the main drivers behind this race for farmland.
Thirdly, we are losing every year some 30 million hectares of land to industrial projects, urbanization, and the land is shrinking. The land that is available to produce food is shrinking.
And fourthly, many countries are now lacking water. This is the case for China, for example, which has to feed 22 percent of the world’s population with eight percent of farmland, but which has not enough resources of fresh water. And they try to buy land abroad, because they know that in the future they will need this to feed the population.
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