World Bank Warns on ‘Farmland Grab’
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A controversial leaked report by the World Bank exposes exploitation with programs that promote investment in agricultural lands, particularly in poorer nations. The Financial Times online reports, “The draft highlighted a few successes in land acquisition…but the overall picture it gave was one of exploitation, warning that investors either lacked the necessary expertise to cultivate land or were more interested in speculative gains than in using land productively.”
Official data around farmland deals is hard to come by, often relying on information from local media, but the leaked report does offer official data for a few countries, including 3.9m hectares transferred in Sudan and 1.2m in Ethiopia between 2004 and 2009.
The report offers recommendations to improve transparency, urging the establishment of a “consistent format for reporting on land acquisition,” and committing governments, mainly in developing countries, to disclose information about land acquisition. But the Oakland Institute, a US-based think-tank, says the WB report contradicts its own advice to developing countries.
In a related story in the Wall Street Journal, Olivier de Schutter, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, gives further warning. “Investment is needed…but not investment under any conditions. You don’t want to encourage or allow a market for speculators,” He says, adding that the arrival of big outside investors “often pushes the original land users off the land.”
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