Biofuels and Land Grabbing in Africa - Mokoro

presentations by some of the usual suspects; the World Bank, FAO and UNCTAD, looking
for a ‘win-win-win’ situation.
Justiça Ambiental (JA) has recently produced a preliminary analysis of land grabbing in
Mozambique. It earlier offered a detailed and highly critical analysis of jatropha farming
there, arguing that the current rush to develop large-scale production is ill-conceived. It is not
the miracle crop it has been marketed to be, and JA calls for it to be halted. ‘Europe and the
United States should look inward for their energy sustainability solutions rather than towards
Africa.’
LDPI (Land Deals Policy Initiative), which organized the land grabbing conference at IDS,
Sussex, has also produced 4 useful working papers.
Mokoro includes this author’s 4-page rant, later transformed into a vaguely respectable
‘academic’ paper asking ‘Would Cecil Rhodes have signed a code of conduct?’, a summary
of Liz Daley’s ILC paper on gender and land grabbing, and the report of a seminar on Land -
Tenure, Grabs, Gender and the Law.
Norwegian People’s Aid has an important new report on ‘large-scale land-based
investment in Southern Sudan’ which recommends: adopting a presumption in favor of
disclosure for all documents; developing clear jurisdictional roles for public institutions at all
levels; consider establishing a graduated land ceiling and a temporary moratorium on all land
acquisitions above a certain size; establishing a technical committee to review all existing
contracts; promoting alternative business models that better account for the needs of local
populations; exploring opportunities for constructive engagement with companies that
demonstrate a willingness to adhere to regulatory standards.
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has a major report on ethical issues of biofuels.
onValues has produced the report of a Geneva conference on The investment case for
responsible investments in Africa.
Oxfam, my former employer, has finally discovered land grabbing! An excellent briefing
paper of September 2011, Land and Power. The growing scandal surrounding the new wave
of investment in land cited the Land Matrix Partnership (of the ILC and others) figure of ‘227
million hectares – an area the size of Western Europe – has been sold or leased since 2001,
mostly to international investors. The bulk of these acquisitions has taken place over the past
two years.’ Oxfam has also produced some useful briefings on biofuels; some serious
engaged, critical work in Tanzania, in collaboration with LARRI; an eastern Africa workshop
on land grabbing which said that governments were the major land grabbers in the region;
and an October 2010 study of land grabbing and possible policy responses.
PLAAS has interesting papers on South African farmers moving north and whether Africa
can develop a regional response to ‘resource grabbing’.
The journal Rural 21, in its No.1/2010 edition, has a good section on ‘land acquisitions –
land grabbed?’
SDC (Swiss Development Cooperation) organized a symposium in Bern in October 2009 on
‘large-scale investment in agriculture and land’. PowerPoint presentations were made by
IISD, ILC and EBG Capital, and a mass of background material was made available online.
SDC also wrote a good issues paper on biofuels.
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