In 2008 our company Bionic Palm Ltd. acquired a land lease of approximately 1700 hectars in the Accra Plains of Ghana. Previously the land had been leased by 5 different lease holders of which only one had been actively farming. However, that owner deceased several years earlier and the farm had been abandoned.
Together with the local chief, the holder of the stool, we were able to assemble all 5 lease holders and buy them out so that a new lease agreement could be made out in our name. For the local communities this was definitely the better approach as jobs were created and formerly unused land was going to be used mainly for food production for the local markets.
Not long after that we were accused to be land grabbers in a pamphlet produced by FIAN Germany. Of course this paper, like everyone else making land grabbing accusations carefully avoided to define the term.
Anyway, at the time in late 2008, when we took over the land there were barely 100 small farmers actively farming on our land. That was never a problem, as we only wanted to use 60% of the total area leaving plenty of land for those small farmers too.
However, in the following years we experienced a huge inflow of new small farmers. The total number today definitely exceeding 600! The numbers were growing every year. And none of them was a member of the land owning clan.
So we started our own investigations. We learned, that the new arrivals came from villages far away (some more than 15 kilometers), leaving the fields they had always farmed. Some others had never been farmers before. Some told us, that they were even paying certain individuals for renting our land to them. We also noticed a growing aggressivness and violence among them. The less right people had to be on our land, be it traditional or common law, the more aggressive they became.
And finally, step by step, the truth came out: the word had spread in the area that those white commercial farmers will have to compensate every small farmer as soon as they would start farming on a field somebody had occupied for himself. So the goldrush began. And a neigboring clan used the occassion o dispute the boundary with our landlords. While we are in the possession of old documents that definitely prove them wrong.
So here I ask the objective reader: what exactly is the definition of land grabbing? Would it be possible in let's say Austria, where a family like Esterhazy owns tens of thousands of hectars, for any poor person to just go and start farming on their pasture land? And if the land owners call the police to kick out the intruders they would be placated land grabbers around the world? No? So what exactly are those "research reports" about land grabbing talking about?
Who wants to know, what we are really doing here in Ghana, please have a look at www.bionic-palm.com
Together with the local chief, the holder of the stool, we were able to assemble all 5 lease holders and buy them out so that a new lease agreement could be made out in our name. For the local communities this was definitely the better approach as jobs were created and formerly unused land was going to be used mainly for food production for the local markets.
Not long after that we were accused to be land grabbers in a pamphlet produced by FIAN Germany. Of course this paper, like everyone else making land grabbing accusations carefully avoided to define the term.
Anyway, at the time in late 2008, when we took over the land there were barely 100 small farmers actively farming on our land. That was never a problem, as we only wanted to use 60% of the total area leaving plenty of land for those small farmers too.
However, in the following years we experienced a huge inflow of new small farmers. The total number today definitely exceeding 600! The numbers were growing every year. And none of them was a member of the land owning clan.
So we started our own investigations. We learned, that the new arrivals came from villages far away (some more than 15 kilometers), leaving the fields they had always farmed. Some others had never been farmers before. Some told us, that they were even paying certain individuals for renting our land to them. We also noticed a growing aggressivness and violence among them. The less right people had to be on our land, be it traditional or common law, the more aggressive they became.
And finally, step by step, the truth came out: the word had spread in the area that those white commercial farmers will have to compensate every small farmer as soon as they would start farming on a field somebody had occupied for himself. So the goldrush began. And a neigboring clan used the occassion o dispute the boundary with our landlords. While we are in the possession of old documents that definitely prove them wrong.
So here I ask the objective reader: what exactly is the definition of land grabbing? Would it be possible in let's say Austria, where a family like Esterhazy owns tens of thousands of hectars, for any poor person to just go and start farming on their pasture land? And if the land owners call the police to kick out the intruders they would be placated land grabbers around the world? No? So what exactly are those "research reports" about land grabbing talking about?
Who wants to know, what we are really doing here in Ghana, please have a look at www.bionic-palm.com
