Land grabbing worsens hunger: Communities resisting land grabs to commemorate ‘World Foodless Day’

Land grabbing worsens hunger.

Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP) and its partner communities will commemorate this year’s ‘World Foodless Day’ on October 16 through a coordinated campaign against land grabbing, a widespread phenomenon that is believed to be a major factor in aggravating existing conditions of poverty and hunger across the region.

Data shows that despite positive economic indicators heralded by many countries in Asia, the number of hungry and malnourished are continuously climbing.  According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 925 million people are hungry and malnourished around the globe. Around 578 million of them are in Asia, with women and children as the most vulnerable.

“This month, the FAO Committee on Food Security will once again tackle the issue of hunger and malnutrition in its 39^th session, without recognizing that hunger and poverty are rooted in the lack of access to productive resources, particularly land. We will bring to the fore the voices of small food producers, indigenous peoples, and rural women who are being driven away from their lands by large-scale foreign investments in agriculture,” said Sarojeni Rengam, PAN AP executive director.

The latest data by the international NGO GRAIN has recorded hundreds of cases of large-scale agricultural investments all over the world, encompassing 227 million hectares of land since 2001.These land grabs have already caused or will cause the displacement of entire populations. In Asia, there are cases of massive land grabbing in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Philippines, India, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Laos and Indonesia. In Laos alone, almost half or 43% of farmlands are already controlled by foreign corporations.

Rengam decried neo-liberal policies that encourage large-scale foreign investments in export food production, palm oil and bio fuel production, timber plantations, special economic zones, and tourism—both as a food supply strategy by import-dependent countries and as a renewed source of profits by the industry. “The so-called ‘approaches to ending hunger’ by the FAO, multilateral institutions, and Asian governments are all hinged on policies which cause massive displacement and hunger of food producers,” she said.

In Indonesia, almost 300,000 hectares of forest land has been acquired by foreign corporations and are being turned into sugar cane or palm oil plantations, with thousands of peasants losing lands that they have tilled for decades. “The loss of our food sovereignty is caused by policies on trade liberalization and the monopoly of vast areas of land,” said Rahmat Ajiguna, secretary general of Alliansi Gerakan Reforma Agraria (AGRA).

But communities have learned to fight back. On January 2012, thousands of peasants mobilized in front of the Presidential Palace and Parliament, resulting to a special legislative committee to address agrarian conflict.“Peasants organize, reclaim lands that have been grabbed, and file suits against government policies that  support land monopoly and land grabbing,” Ajiguna said.

Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, peasants and fisher folks are forcibly evicted from their lands and fishing grounds by plantation and tourism projects. “As a response, we are holding actions in the district, national, regional, and global levels. These include conferences, signature petitions, street drama, prayers, dialogues, and mobilizations,” said Herman Kumara, national convener of the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement (NAFSO).

Similar actions will be held by partner organizations in Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, and India from October 1-16, as communities prepare to bring to global attention the often neglected issue of land grabbing. Mean while, PAN AP will continue to engage the FAO, which is building international consensus on the Principles of Responsible Agricultural Investment. The group believes that is crucial for the demands of small food producers, which are majority of the world’s hungry and poor, to be heard in the process.

“Our demand is to stop these large-scale agricultural investments as the most effective way to curb world hunger and malnutrition. Do not deprive access to lands, seas, and other productive resources to people who have been their custodians and who have fed their nations for generations. Uphold people’s food sovereignty and implement genuine agrarian and fisheries reform!” Rengam concluded.