Please find links below to a recent Human Rights Watch report and video on the human rights impacts of coal mining in Mozambique. Our report shows that almost 60% of Tete province, site of large coal reserves, has been allocated for approved or proposed mining licenses. The report examines how serious shortcomings in government policy and mining companies’ (Vale, Riversdale, Rio Tinto) implementation uprooted largely self-sufficient farming communities and resettled them to arid land far from rivers and markets. 

Happy to be in touch to provide any additional information.

The High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) was established in 2010 as the science-policy interface of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS). The HLPE aims to improve the robustness of policy making by providing independent, evidence-based analysis and advice at the request of CFS.

ETC Group has been monitoring the power and global reach of agro-industrial corporations for several decades – including the increasingly consolidated control of agricultural inputs for the industrial food chain: proprietary seeds and livestock genetics, chemical pesticides and fertilizers and animal pharmaceuticals. Collectively, these inputs are the chemical and biological engines that drive industrial agriculture.

Providing shelter is essential in saving lives and decreasing the vulnerability of those displaced by conflict or natural disasters, and as such, should be a strategic priority in any humanitarian intervention. However humanitarian organisations increasingly struggle to provide shelter to those that need it most when the tenure of beneficiaries – that is the conditions under which they occupy land or dwellings – is uncertain or insecure.

Urgent action required to challenge impunity of perpetrators, protect citizens and address root causes of environmental crisis

Most analyses of violence in Darfur ignore the local dimension of the crisis, focusing instead on the region’s economic and political marginalization and climatic variability. However, agricultural change and other changes relating to the land-rights and land-use systems have led to competition and exclusion, and have played a major role in the collective violence that has raged throughout the region. Understanding these questions is essential for the successful resolution of political and policy debates in Darfur.

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Indigenous farmer in the municipality of Sayaxché, department of Petén, Guatemala, viewing the stunted corn crop on his land bordering an oil palm plantation. 

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The gender and equity implications of land-related investments on land access and labour and income-generating opportunities

>> A case study of selected agricultural Investments in LAO PDR (2013)

Agricultural investments create risks as well as opportunities, for instance The Case Study of Integrated Tamale Fruit Company (2013) In recent years, Ghana has witnessed increased interest from private companies in developing agricultural investments. This trend is common to many lower/middle income countries.

A Case Study of Selected Agricultural Investments in Northern Tanzania (2013)

For early reports, see FAO’s Corporate Document Repository

"For millions of people living in the world’s poorest countries, access to land is a matter not of wealth, but of survival, identity and belonging. Most of the 1.4 billion people earning less than US$1.25 a day live in rural areas and depend largely on agriculture for their livelihoods, while an estimated 2.5 billion people are involved in full- or part-time smallholder agriculture.

In line with the conventional view that customary land rights impede agricultural development, the traditional tenure system in Nigeria has been perceived to obstruct the achievement of efficient development and agricultural transformation. This led to the Land Use Act (LUA) of 1978.