TRENDS AND IMPACTS OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRY AGRICULTURE

ESIAs. The mass influx of foreign investors
eager to obtain thousands of hectares brought
the issue into sharper focus. These investors
were applying for large areas of land used by
farmers and transhumant herders. In several
cases, construction works began without any
prior ESIA and sometimes even before the lease
contract had been signed with the ON. Some
foreign developers considered an investment
agreement signed with the central government
to have sufficient legal authority to authorize
commencement of operations, and saw signature
of the contract with the ON as ‘just one more
administrative stage’ (Papazian, 2011). During
the fieldwork for this chapter, several people
commented that, when ESIAs do take place,
it is very rare for the proper procedures to be
followed.
Another key issue that large agricultural
investments must deal with is payment of
compensation for affected communities and with
resettlement if local communities are displaced.
For example, Libyan company Malibya reportedly
began construction of the road and canal not
only without any prior ESIA but also without
taking any account of existing land uses in the
project site. Traditionally, the area of Macina is
used for transhumant herding. A local convention
and development scheme for the agro-pastoral
areas supported since 2006 by the German
cooperation was trumped by the implementation
of the project. Temporary camps were apparently
destroyed and transhumance routes obstructed
along 7 km in Kolongo municipality (Brondeau,
2011).
N-Sukala and Tomota also began to clear
the land without any public consultation or
preliminary ESIA. Tomota cleared around 1,400
hectares in the same way as Malibya and with
the same effects. In the area of Bewani, the
land cleared by N-Sukala belonged to the local
villages and was used for grazing, firewood
collection and dry cereal cropping. Local people
were not adequately informed through the public
consultation required by the decree concerning
the environmental and social impact studies.
They received no prior compensation. The same
happened in the area of Sanamandougou, where
local people originally opposed the M3 SA project
Part 4: Business models for agricultural
investment: Impacts on local development
before giving up after confrontations with the
police which were followed by arrests and various
promises made by the developer (Papazian
2011, Oakland Institute, 2011; Diallo and
Mushinzimana, 2009; Adamczewski and Jamine,
2011; and data collected during fieldwork).
Conversely, as will be discussed later,
the operational guidelines of the African
Development Bank, similar in content to those of
the World Bank, were applied in respect of the
environmental impact study and resettlement plan
in connection with the PSM. Various provisions
favouring the local people were put forward as
support measures.
In the absence of clear national guidelines in
respect of the displacement and resettlement of
affected communities, everything depends on the
goodwill of the developer and any requirements
imposed by lenders.
A fundamental problem lies in the
government’s commitment to make land available
‘free of all legal encumbrances and tenure rights’.
As already mentioned, the land leased is usually
outside the irrigated perimeter – investors are
allocated undeveloped land for them to build
irrigation infrastructure. In these areas, local
communities exercise rights, whether customary
or not, to use the land for cereal farming or for
livestock grazing. Although the ON management
decree affirms the monopoly of the Office
du Niger over any land that can be irrigated
from the Markala dam, the legal status of this
undeveloped land falls into two categories: i) land
that has already been registered, with title deeds
transferred to the Office du Niger; and ii) land
that has not yet been registered and over which
resident communities exercise customary rights.
Registration of this latter land category requires
the taking of customary rights and compensation
for the holders, following the spirit and letter of
the CDF, the management decree and the ESIA
decree. This is a task for the government, but
government agencies are not always in a position
to perform this task to standard. By 2002, only
199 046 hectares of ON land had been formally
registered with the state, mainly within the
irrigation schemes (according to the 2002 ON
Framework Agreement). So the vast majority of
ON land, and even more so of undeveloped land
241
MALI