(Bio)Fueling Injustice? - Europafrica

Executive summary
Adding value to the reflection on land grabbing and biofuels
The present report builds on the findings presented in the 2009-2010 EuropAfrica
study on land-grabbing prepared by FIAN International (the “Monitoring” report ”) 1 and
on documentation of new cases and relevant reports on issues of commercial
investments in land in Africa and the role of biofuels released since. It focuses on the
impacts of the EU biofuel policy regarding food security, sustainable small-scale
agricultural production and other related social, economic and environmental
aspects, with special attention to Africa. It concludes that, as it stands, this policy is
not coherent with EU development objectives and that, in applying it, the EU and its
Member States are violating human rights standards.
This contradiction, however, can be corrected. The report is framed in the spirit of the
shared aim that no harm and suffering should result from EU policies. It seeks to
constructively suggest ways to improve the existing policies and to create a
space for dialogue between EU actors, civil society and affected people to this effect.
Land grabbing: a growing phenomenon
Based on the latest scientific research, the term “land grabbing” is used to refer to
the phenomenon of concentration of land and associated natural resources,
particularly water, due to domestic or foreign investments, with implications for
human rights, food security and the environment. Land concentration tends to
involve concentration of decision-making about how land is to be used in the hands of
a few. Without overemphasizing quantitative approaches, given the methodological
caveats in quantifying the phenomenon, estimates of the scale of the rush for land,
released since 2010, by organisations such as the World Bank, the Committee on
World Food Security’s High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition
(HLPE) and the International Land Coalition, indicate that investors have acquired
amounts of land ranging from 50 to 80 million hectares (ha) in the past few years.
Between one-half and two-thirds of these land transfers relate to Africa and,
according to an analysis of media reports by the World Bank, the biggest flow of
investments is from investors based in Europe and Central Asia, thus confirming
the importance of monitoring land-grabbing on the African continent and assessing the
involvement of the EU.
More importantly, these recent studies also reconfirm the devastating impacts these
deals have on the local populations. Developing country governments, under
pressure, are often led to negotiate deals that are not in the interests of their countries,
and a large number of commercial land investments in Africa feature unbalanced
contracts that protect and benefit investors to the detriment of the local population.
In a context of high and volatile food prices, and with close to 1 billion people suffering
from hunger, these deals generally threaten present and future food security and local
livelihoods by imposing an export model on food insecure countries; jeopardising local
3