28 May 2014

GRAIN | La Vía Campesina

For immediate release

Friends of the Earth’s report, ‘What’s your pension funding? How UK institutional investors finance the global land grab’, highlights the investments of UK institutional investors, such as British Airways Pension Fund, Legal & General and Standard Life, in companies accused of grabbing land, destroying the environment, and undermining sustainable livelihoods.

This briefing paper makes the case for proactive business engagement in respecting land rights and ensuring legal, fair and inclusive practices on land use, access to natural resources and equitable development opportunities. It outlines key challenges, provides an overview of existing instruments that can help companies address issues related to land, and points to practical entry points for improved business practices.

A guest post by Zemen Haddis Gebeyehu, Senior Agriculture Policy Advisor, USAID/Ethiopia

The structure of ownership of agricultural land, despite of the developing market with agricultural land in recent years, has not changed considerably. Most of agricultural land in Slovakia is, even after 6 years from the entry of Slovakia into the EU, leased. According to the Structural census of farms (2001), the lease of agricultural land represents 96%, in 2010 it was 91% (EUROSTAT, 2010).

Redistributive land reform in southern Africa is reviewed against the background of the recent land crisis in the region. The dilemmas created for governments and donors are described, as are attempts to grapple with them. Answers are sought to four questions: What has been the experience with land redistribution in the region over the last decade or so? What has been the impact on people's livelihoods? How are redistribution programmes expected to develop in future?

Articles in this edition develop several areas and introduce specific experiences relating to land reform. The main thread running through the articles is that of change; how we can help to understand what change means and how it can be managed.

The authors report on the first empirical study of its kind to examine - from the perspective of transaction costs - factors that constrain access to land for the rural poor and other socially excluded groups in India. They find that: a) Land reform has reduced large landholdings since the 1950s. Medium size farms have gained most. Formidable obstacles still prevent the poor from gaining access to land.

Since agricultural development in Zimbabwe contributes to both economic growth and the standard of living for most people living in the Communal Areas, it is imperative that the government protect and enhance the land resources existing in those areas. Unless the current degradation and deterioration is arrested, the country's development goals will not be attainable. It is, therefore, with this economic imperative and sense of urgency that the present study has been undertaken.

Land means the basic part of the natural environment, the basic instrument of human life, activity and immovable property, which is being disposed of in the process of land relation. Land should be used when coordinating private and public interests as well as environment protection requirements.

Socialist Republic of Viet Nam is undergoing a process of transformation from a centrally planned economy to a market-oriented economy.

Through an analysis of the right to adequate food and the right to land, this civil society report, argued that achieving food sovereignty requires agrarian reform.