{"id":15802,"date":"2013-08-02T14:44:25","date_gmt":"2013-08-02T20:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=15802"},"modified":"2013-08-02T14:44:25","modified_gmt":"2013-08-02T20:44:25","slug":"land-grabs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/land-grabs\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvesting Justice 22: Land to the Tillers – Response to Land Grabs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"a<\/a>
A family in Uganda remembers their home<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Tory Field and Beverly Bell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Part 22 of the Harvesting Justice series<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Deepa Panchang also co-authored this article.<\/em><\/p>\n

The\u00a0outcome of last Sunday\u2019s elections in Cambodia, in which Prime Minister Hun Sen hoped to extend his 28-year rule, is in dispute. Even if he continues in office, Hun Sen\u2019s tight grip on civil society is threatened, in part, by public anger against land grabs. In the past decade, his government has handed\u00a073% of Cambodia\u2019s arable land<\/a>, most of it belonging to small farmers, over to businesses.<\/p>\n

On July 24, the Colombian Ambassador to the US, Carlos Urrutia, was forced to resign after the\u00a0expos\u00e9 of a shady deal<\/a>\u00a0in which he helped sell land to the agribusiness giant Cargill and others. The holdings in questions were covered by a 1994 law protecting land reform and small farmers.<\/p>\n

One week prior, on July 19, the nation of Georgia\u00a0banned the sale<\/a>\u00a0of land to foreigners.<\/p>\n

Behind\u00a0these stories, and many more that don\u2019t get brought to our attention, are land reform movements, organizations of indigenous peoples, small farmers<\/a>, and other citizens. They are responding to the increased sacking of land and other natural resources throughout the global South, and resultant spikes in landlessness and poverty.<\/p>\n

National and transnational corporations, sometimes with collusion from the government of the country in question, are snapping up agricultural land<\/a> to grow industrial-scale commodity crops.\u00a0Investment firms (private equity, hedge, and pension funds) are in a\u00a0buying frenzy<\/a>, too, speculating that they will be able to turn a profit for their investors. An estimated 120 to 200 million acres of land have been sold in\u00a0international investment deals<\/a>\u00a0in recent years, approximately two-thirds of them in Africa. Land is also being taken for biofuel plantations, mining, oil drilling, and other energy projects.<\/p>\n

The deals may\u00a0flat-out illegal, or farmers may be forced to sell due to their dire economic circumstances. Peasant farmers and indigenous peoples are especially vulnerable, as they often lack paper deeds to land they have inhabited for centuries.<\/p>\n

Small- and medium-sized farmers are at risk in the global North, too, sometimes forced to sell out because of financial instability. City-dwellers around the world face a parallel situation through foreclosures and corporate development of urban land and public housing.<\/p>\n

Some farmers around the world have been driven to despair over their loss of land, overwhelming debt, and inability to continue farming. It is estimated that in India alone, as many as\u00a0270,000 farmers<\/a>\u00a0have committed suicide since 1995. This averages about 40 farmers committing suicide daily, and the pace has only been accelerating.<\/p>\n

There are other responses to the crisis in both the global South and North. Movements are fighting back to claim land, power, and rights. As just a few indicators:<\/p>\n

This month, Posco, one of the worlds\u2019s biggest steel companies,<\/strong> was forced to\u00a0give up on its plans<\/a>\u00a0to build a steel mill in the state of Karnataka, India. Posco abandoned the $5.3 billion project after years of protest by villagers against its land acquisitions.<\/p>\n

In 2011, major demonstrations in the Indian state of Orissa stalled Posco\u2019s seizure of community land for construction of another steel plant. The project is still in limbo.<\/p>\n

\u201cLand to the Tillers!\u201d was the cry of\u00a0Via Campesina<\/a>,<\/strong> the global movement of small farmers and landless peoples, on this year\u2019s International Day of Peasant Struggle, April 17. From Canada to Nepal, from Brazil to Switzerland,\u00a0farmers used the day<\/a>\u00a0to march and protest against land grabs.<\/p>\n

In March, in southern Guangdong province, China,<\/strong> protesters clashed with police and security forces once again while opposing some 86 acres of rice paddies being grabbed for use by a cable manufacturing firm. China is enacting\u00a0a plan to move 250 million rural<\/a>\u00a0residents into urban centers over the next 12 years, paving over massive amounts of farmland in the process.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0November 2011, more than 250 representatives of farmers\u2019 organizations and allies<\/strong> gathered in Mali for the first\u00a0international farmers\u2019 conference<\/a>\u00a0on land grabs. Participants\u00a0shared experiences, built alliances, and discussed solutions.<\/p>\n

More than 500 organizations worldwide<\/strong> have signed onto the\u00a0Dakar Appeal Against Land Grabbing<\/a>, which calls upon governments to immediately cease land grabs and return stolen land to communities.<\/p>\n

In the US, organizations such as\u00a0GRAIN<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0National Family Farm Coalition<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0are painstakingly tracing the flows of funding globally and\u00a0documenting land grabs<\/a>\u00a0backed by investment companies. They are spreading the word that people may be investing their retirement savings in firms that finance land grabs, like TIAA-CREF,\u00a0<\/sup>and encouraging the public to invest their savings elsewhere.<\/p>\n

As in other parts of the global North, an urban land reform movement in the US<\/strong> is fighting corporate intrusion on urban land and housing. The\u00a0Right to the City Alliance<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Take Back the Land<\/a>, for example, bring together\u00a0grassroots and policy groups across the US\u00a0<\/a>to prevent foreclosures and evictions, gentrification, and homelessness. In Oakland and elsewhere, Occupy activists ally with threatened homeowners and have halted a number of foreclosures. These and other urban groups are lobbying for policies that promote affordable housing, and calling on banks to turn over vacant foreclosed homes to community land trusts in order to prioritize local communities\u2019 housing needs.<\/p>\n

To\u00a0get involved in protecting farmland and homes:<\/p>\n