EU

Der Spiegel video on Dominion Farms in Kenya and a Chinese farm project in Tanzania. Auf Deutsch.

22. Stresses that farmland acquisition by foreign investors, particularly in Africa, must not have an adverse impact on local food security or lead to unsustainable land use; points out that it may also have positive effects by bringing land into productive use; urges the FAO and the Member States to work towards common rules and legislative proposals which recognise the right of local people in every country to control farmland and other natural resources vital to their food security;

An audio recording of the panel on global land acquisition, held on 22 October 2009 at the European Development Days 2009 in Stockholm, is available online.

À mesure que l'acquisition de terres tient de moins en moins compte des frontières, de nouveaux mécanismes et codes de conduite sont nécessaires pour régir les relations entres les investisseurs, les gouvernements et les communautés locales.

As land acquisition becomes increasingly borderless, new mechanisms and codes of conduct are required to govern the relationship between investors, governments and local communities.

South Korea will develop 100,000 ha of farmland in Tanzania to make inroads into African and European markets, a state-run rural development corporation said Thursday.

The terms of farmland deals are hardly made public. Although a theoretical possibility exists in a few cases for some transfer of technology for agricultural development, risk also exists to peasant farmers who cannot compete with well-resourced commercial farms. Take, for instance, the case of barley and oilseeds producers in Ethiopia.

The left-leaning fisherfolk alliance Pamalakaya and staunch ally KMP on Thursday exposed what they called a secret agricultural pact between the Philippines and Bahrain.

"We have our experiences about foreign ownership of land in Mindanao, where Dole and Del Monte controlled hundreds of thousands of hectares of lands, through leaseback agreements, cultivating their raw materials, thus, peasants have been transformed to mere lowly agricultural workers whose rights of their lands have been stripped off," said Antonio Flores, KMP Spokesperson.

African countries may need to put in place a code of conduct to govern farmland purchases on the continent by foreigners, an agribusiness conference heard on Monday.

The European Union is concerned by the trend of foreign investors and countries acquiring large tracts of farmland in developing countries to guarantee their own food security, a senior EU official said on Wednesday.

The European Union is coercing some West African governments into allowing European-based fishing companies to deplete West Africa’s fishing stocks in a new "food colonialism" that is now taking place between rich and poor countries around the world, according to British author George Monbiot.