* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Malcolm Childress is co-director of Prindex and executive director of Global Land Alliance
Large-scale land acquisitions have been increasing in developing countries following the 2007/8 high food price crisis. Countries with limited agricultural potential, like Gulf states, have been driving foreign acquisitions in developing countries. Many developing country governments see these investments as an opportunity to increase foreign direct investment and employment opportunities for rural communities.
The global soybean trade was worth about 9.5 billion of US dollars in 2000. By the end of this year – in 2020 – it is projected to exceed 60 billion[1]. This is just one of the many figures that explains why the last two decades might be remembered as the Great Soybean Expansion, the period when soybean became one of the most traded commodities in the world – but also one of the most controversial.
For rural people, especially low-income rural people, land and livelihood are one and the same. Access to land means the opportunity to earn a decent income and achieve food and nutrition security, and it can also pave the way for access to social benefits such as health care and education. A lack of secure land access, on the other hand, can disempower rural people and expose them to the combined threats of poverty, hunger and conflict.
We represent around five percent of the population of humanity, but we preserve around eighty-two percent of the world's biodiversity. We have a very important role in thinking about sustaining the life of the planet and this responsibility has fallen on us. We believe that if we do exactly with our way of life the protection of all humanity, it is also important that humanity guarantees the life of our people from the territory. When the territory dies, two deaths occur, his and our identity's, because the living body remains, but the tradition dies.
Covid-19 pandemic has further worsened India’s hunger and malnutrition woes, more so for the millions of informal workers, now struggling to meet two ends in their rural homes, post the mass migration from their place of works, during lockdowns. Their embedded informality over labour, land, housing tenure, has uprooted and shaken them with loss of income, occupation and habitat, multiplying their already entrenched nutrition vulnerability.
Under the British colonial rule, Sierra Leone’s land mass was divided into two areas, the colony area and protectorate area. The British government, under the Crown Queen, had direct rule over the land within the capital of Freetown, which was the colony, leaving the provincial lands under the customary rule of chiefs and tribal heads, naming that area as the protectorate region.
I was assigned to lead the preparation of the assessments and amendments to the land consolidation legislation in 2016. That appeared to be a burdensome task. The first two land consolidation projects in North Macedonia were initiated according to the existing Land Consolidation Law and the implementation was blocked. The Law simply had no legal solutions for the identified field situations. The problems were many and each was ascending the other in its magnitude and sensitivity.
The increasing number of salmon in the Skjern River in Denmark is a positive sign, as the Danish salmon is the only strain of wild salmon left in Danish rivers. Before the Skjern River Nature Restoration Project, the salmon had almost gone extinct owing to the state of the environment. The project area now offers ideal conditions for flora and fauna and has already acquired great natural value. In fact, it has already grown into a bird site of national importance.
It happened on the 29th of January 2020 in Bitola in North Macedonia. More than 200 landowners from Egri village gathered in Bitola’s theatre, taking turns to vote on the Land Consolidation Plan. The serious faces of men and women, old and young, were a sign that they may have been as nervous as we were ourselves. The voting on the first majority based land consolidation ever in the country was coming to an end. And then the result was there….. 83% in favour of land consolidation! The villagers were cheering. Our team was overwhelmed by emotion.
The ongoing pandemic and the formal and informal responses to its spread have very direct impacts on the food and nutrition security of people in all parts of the world. Strong concerns have been voiced that the global health crisis could turn into a global food crisis.
