Biofuels Land Grabbing And Food Security In Africa

The issue of biofuels has already been much debated, but the focus to date has largely been on Latin America and deforestation - this highly original work breaks fresh ground in looking at the African perspective. Most African governments see biofuels as having the potential to increase agricultural productivity and export incomes and thus strengthen their national economies, improving energy balances and rural employment. At the same time climate change may be addressed through reduction of green house gas emissions. There are, however, a number of uncertainties mounting that challenge this scenario. Using cutting-edge empirical case studies, this knowledge gap is addressed in a variety of chapters examining the effects of large-scale biofuel production on African agriculture. In particular, 'land grabbing' and food security issues are scrutinised, both of which have become vital topics in regard to the environmental and developmental governance of African countries. A revealing book for anyone wishing to understand the startling impact of biofuels and land grabbing on Africa.

Expansion of biofuel investment in Africa has been supported by indebted poor governments because of perceived potential benefits such as sustainable energy development, support to poor farmers, development of rural economies and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. However, the intensity of the biofuels political economy in poor countries worsens inequality for the vulnerable poor. This is evidenced by large-scale land acquisitions in Africa for biofuel and crop production primarily for foreign consumption - food, animal feeds and energy crops. The search for land in African countries has been triggered by growing concerns over food and energy security in developed countries following the global food crisis of 2008. Moreover, these recent developments in large-scale land acquisitions in Africa are not a new phenomenon, but represent the renewal of old practices in commercial agriculture, which is either conducted through purchases or long-term leases. In addition to biofuel expansion, this study notes that current large-scale land acquisitions in sub-Saharan Africa have been further driven by demands to access water resources for other commercial agricultural crops. The land purchases or leases automatically guarantee access to African water. This demand for water is a response to climate change: most industrialists believe that acquiring land near a main water reservoir will guarantee future agricultural potential. Few analyses have been done on the land-water access nexus. This article considers recent developments in large-scale land acquisitions in Africa in terms of water security for commercial agriculture to safeguard the production of agricultural crops with a large water footprint. Using political economy analysis, this article examines national policy on these acquisitions, the rights accorded to foreign investors and how land acquisitions undermine indigenous rights to the common resources that have been the main source of livelihood in sub-Saharan Africa.

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Ethnology / Cultural Anthropology, grade: 1, University of Luzern (ethnologisches Seminar), course: Land Grabbing, language: English, abstract: The global biofuel production has been rapidly increasing since 2007-08 and with it the new demand for land, which has a strong focus on Africa as it has weak land rights protection. Most foreign investors, who intend to buy land for the biofuel production take advantage of the lack of proper property rights in several African countries. Therefore, many of the rural poor, who depend on land for their living, suffer from expulsion or dispossession. In summary, it can be said that the formalization of land titles only serves the poor, when secondary rights as for example for women, herders or migrants, are respected by the state or the foreign investors when allocating, buying or leasing land. In addition, during the processes of allocating, buying or leasing land, the state as well as the foreign investor should give whole local communities (not only local elites) the possibility to negotiate over the future use of the land they tilled for years. From the four land tenure reforms outlined, where land based wealth and power transfers occurs, the two best possible solutions, which serve the poor, would be the redistribution and the distribution of land. In my opinion, the preferable one of this two solutions is distribution as this solution is less conflict-prone. In the present paper two case studies are used to show how (as in the case of Ghana) local elites or foreign investors make decisions without consulting local communities or, that simply changing laws or introduce policies is not enough to protect the land rights of the affected local communities (as in the case of Mozambique). Even if local communities are compensated for loss of their land rights, many agreements between communities and investors emphasize one-off compensations rather than long-term benefit sharing, such as job creation or leasing incomes and the agreements usually involve very small payments compared to for example the value of the forest concessions acquired by investors.

Food security is high on the political agenda. Fears about societal insecurity due to food price increases and hunger, grave scenarios regarding the effects of climate change and general uncertainty about the impacts of investments in biofuels and so-call “land grabbing” on food prices and availability have meant that food security is now recognised as being a multifaceted challenge. This book is unique in that it will bring together analyses of these different factors that impact on food security. This volume will describe a range of different perspectives on food security, with an emphasis on the various meanings that are applied to food security “crisis”. The challenges to be reviewed include market volatility, climate change and state fragility. Analyses of responses to food security crises and risk will cover rural and urban contexts, arenas of national policy formation and global food regimes, and investment in land and productive technologies. This book is unique in two respects. First, it takes a step back from the normative literature focused on specific factors of, for example, climate change, agricultural production or market volatility to look instead at the dynamic interplay between these new challenges. It helps readers to understand that food security is not one discourse, but is rather related to how these different factors generate multiple risks and opportunities. Second, through the case studies the book particularly emphasises how these factors come together at local levels as farmers, entrepreneurs, consumers, local government officials and others are making key decisions about what will be done to address food security and whose food security will be given priority. The book will explore how food production and consumption is embedded in powerful political and market forces and how these influence local actions.

The subject of food security and land issues in Africa has become one of increased importance and contention over recent years. In particular, the focus has shifted to the role new global South donors - especially India, China and Brazil - are playing in shaping African agriculture through their increased involvement and investment in the continent. Approaching the topic through the framework of South-South co-operation, this highly original volume presents a critical analysis of the ways in which Chinese, Indian and Brazilian engagements in African agriculture are structured and implemented. Do these investments have the potential to create new opportunities to improve local living standards, transfer new technology and knowhow to African producers, and reverse the persistent productivity decline in African agriculture? Or will they simply aggravate the problem of food insecurity by accelerating the process of land alienation and displacement of local people from their land? Topical and comprehensive, Agricultural Development and Food Security in Africa offers fresh insight into a set of relationships that will shape both Africa and the world over the coming decades.

Since the 2008 world food crisis a surge of land grabbing swept Africa, Asia and Latin America and even some regions of Europe and North America. Investors have uprooted rural communities for massive agricultural, biofuels, mining, industrial and urbanisation projects. ‘Water grabbing’ and ‘green grabbing’ have further exacerbated social tensions. Early analyses of land grabbing focused on foreign actors, the biofuels boom and Africa, and pointed to catastrophic consequences for the rural poor. Subsequently scholars carried out local case studies in diverse world regions. The contributors to this volume advance the discussion to a new stage, critically scrutinizing alarmist claims of the first wave of research, probing the historical antecedents of today’s land grabbing, examining large-scale land acquisitions in light of international human rights and investment law, and considering anew longstanding questions in agrarian political economy about forms of dispossession and accumulation and grassroots resistance. Readers of this collection will learn about the impacts of land and water grabbing; the relevance of key theorists, including Marx, Polanyi and Harvey; the realities of China’s involvement in Africa; how contemporary land grabbing differs from earlier plantation agriculture; and how social movements—and rural people in general—are responding to this new threat. This book was published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

The sign that ‘Africa is on Sale’ has been appearing with regular frequency in major newspaper accounts across the world, indicating that large amounts/expanses of Africa’s rich farmlands are being sold to transnational investors, usually on long-term leases, at a rate not seen in decades – indeed not since the colonial period. Transnational and national economic actors from various business sectors (oil and auto, mining and forestry, food and chemical, bioenergy, etc.) are eagerly acquiring, or declaring their intention to acquire large areas of land on which to build, maintain or extend large-scale extractive and agro-industrial enterprises to help secure their own food and energy needs into the future. This book provides a critical appraisal of the growing phenomenon of land grabbing in Africa. Far from being a technical issue associated "good governance", the problem of land grabbing by transnational corporation and states is a serious threat for the food security of millions of Africans and is undoubtedly one of the great challenges of our time for development on the continent. The case studies illustrate that African states are also complicit in the massive land grabbing by actively participating in isolated development while excluding the local communities. The case studies reveal key features that characterize how the global land grab plays out in specific localities in Africa. This book was published as a special issue of African Identities.

The contribution works toward achieving its mentality-changing goals by essentially providing Afrikentication lessons radiating principally around the theme: Making African education relevant to African liberation and progress. The linchpin of the book is that we Africans truly need to cease dangling uselessly and reclaim our authentic roots if we have to independently move forward. This is an objective we clearly cannot correctly achieve when our intellectuals and universities (among others) who are supposed to be furnishing our liberation movements with sane policy and thought-leadership do continue in the same old colonial way of sheepish ‘theorising’ that excessively indulges in obliterating genuine African perspectives. Indigenous African education is the way to go! An inevitable rethinking in education, culture, and religion in Africa is recommended, basing on innovation and critical thinking which are sure highlights of communalism, which is a defining feature of the African way of life. The book thus harps on the need to recentralise African values and philosophy in the freedom and governance of the continent, as well as stressing the dire need for unity and visionary, dedicated and patriotic leadership.