By Da One
Arable agricultural land is in abundance in Africa. Land acquisition is comparatively uncomplicated and relatively cheap, labor cost is one of the most competitive in the world, and above all, the climatic conditions are very much suited for large-scale industrial-mechanized farming. Plants and food crops like sugarcane, cashew, Jatropha etc., can easily be harvestable twice a year. Since the drilling of fossil fuels and its related harmful emission of green-house gases into the atmosphere are becoming less and less of an alternative for a more environmentally consciously population in Europe and America, businesses and institutions from Europe, America, Asia and even from the Middle East are flocking into Africa like ravenous vultures on the carcass of the bare African land, in the name of investing in Agriculture. Of course, many of these companies are heavily subsidized by their various home governments or in the case of Europe, by the European Union. Under the guise of project implementation, they collude with African governments and the elite class to wreak havoc on farming and pastoralist communities by coercing them into signing immoral and unethical contractual agreements for land leasing/acquisition, thereby depriving entire localities of a livelihood, endangering the health of entire regions and destroying the communal cohesion that’s necessary for the survival of the native indigenes.
Land appropriation in Africa dates back to the colonial era, when some European powers demarcated the borders in Africa. The partitioning of Africa was effectively meant to boost the economic and commercial interests of the colonizers, to politically dominate and subjugate the various ethnic kingdoms that existed during that period. So it won’t be farfetched to adduce that the phenomenon of land grabbing is directly linked to the west’s devilish intention, as it always has been, to unfairly exploit Africa, hold its people to perpetual bondage through every conceivable mean, for the purpose of maintaining a standard of living back home that is neither deserved nor attained. On the other hand, governments in sub-Saharan countries are aiding and abetting the broad daylight theft of land, in practice by evicting entire farming communities from their settlements to cater for large-scale industrial farming operations the kind of which has never been seen before. To make their under-hand tactics look like the farmers’ own concession to cede their lands to the criminal investors, governments let rural people do the negotiations on their own behalves. This action exposes unsophisticated and as often the case is, uneducated rural folks to advance from people who possess a far more strategic information to land value and the implications of land alienation. Furthermore, the financial machinery behind these business operations is not immediately obvious to the naked eye, especially when the contractual fine print is all bundled up in legal jargon. To make matters worse, the government functionaries who are supposed to vet the presume investors are most often never exposed to the kind of communication tactics and specialized language used by the well-oiled wheels of the companies in question. With that kind of superiority in knowledge, there is hardly any escape route for my people, particularly the women folk.
Women, who make up more than half the population of many rural areas in Africa, are the most affected and afflicted from the phenomenon of land grabbing in Africa. Traditional land tenure systems marginalize this very important section of society, reducing them only to users of land without ever a claim to a land title-deed. In contrast to men, women, in the overwhelming number of cases, cannot inherit land. Land ownership and tenure management is the sole responsibility of male offspring in a family, by extension, in a clan.
The overall level of literacy within the female population in almost all African countries, according to some estimates stands at a 10-1 ratio. This means for every educated female, there are ten more males educated. This diminishes the ability of women to be part and parcel of the negotiation process before land is handed over to the crooks. In a scenario where it is found out that a breach of contract has taken place, the courts as a first resort, are too intimidating of a place for the uneducated women folk to take their cases. Women, however, are expected to be the nurturers of their families in a system where neither their rights to ownership is recognized nor the pivotal role they play in feeding their communities from the subsistence farming carried out on the lands that are forcefully appropriated from them, to feed and power European and American citizens and cars and homes respectively . That is genocide! Sadly, the exploitation and destruction of African land is multi-dimensional.
In 2009, a Dutch company engaged in the industrial farming of rose flowers in Mali, West Africa, became the focus of environmental activists. The activists found out that the said company used chemical fertilizers and pesticides that contravened the agreement on the lease document. The chemical residues in the soil where then washed down stream by water erosion into a nearby lake. A catastrophe waiting to happen began to unfold. More than a quarter of a million people who rely on this lake for their supply of proteins has no fish anymore. All the fish stock died out from the ensuing chemical pollution of the lake, reducing the incomes of a further ten thousand fishermen and women to zero. Along with it, came the internal displacement of thousands more, who migrated to find new sources of living. Those who became sick from consuming the contaminated fish are left to rot away like flies. Investigations carried out by Green Peace, found out the land in question belonged to a tribe, whose chief was coerced with a salary of a thousand Euros per month to sign off any rights of usage for ten consecutive years. Ten consecutive years of death and destruction to a people who are, by and large, disconnected from any international financial systems, nevertheless whose blood, sweat, tears and land keep the same financial systems oiled and functioning.
From a cultural and traditional standpoint, land ownership is associated with prestige, honor and social standing in many, if not all tribes in Africa. For example, a man’s ability to marry can directly be linked to the hectarage of land in his family’s possession. On the other hand, a woman’s respect or lack thereof, in the family she married into is intertwined with how much land she could use (not own) from the family she descended from. The practice might differ from one tribe to the other, or even take on regional or national traits, nonetheless its recognizable that land grabbing, with it’s devastating consequences, has negatively impacted the social order in indigenous tribes and pastoralist communities. Many young men and women struggle to come to terms with the new realities thrown at them after their land is literary been seized from them. The living situation becomes one of total desperation, leading to conflicts. The harmony and coexistence that once flourished in our social settings and peaceful tribal correlations becomes a thing of the past. Drum beats that once filled the air during traditional wedding and initiation ceremonies in the villages and towns are replaced by intermittent gun fires. This scenario has played out in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, just to name a few. Still, we witness the passiveness of the respective African governments in tackling land grabbing. The trend is further fueled by the endemic corruption and the mismanagement of public offices across all institutions in Africa. The governments and the various local institutions in Africa are, however, not the only culprits helping the European and American scavengers lasciviously mutilate our lands and customs.
The European Union and the World Bank Group agencies are the ones encouraging the most aggressive mandatory targeting of African land. In 2009, a legislation requiring 20 percent of all energy used in the EU states and 10 percent of member states transport fuel to come from renewable sources by 2020 was passed into law. The lion share of this is expected to come from bio fuels. Hence, most European countries are turning to African land in order to fulfill these requirements. As for the World Bank’s agencies such as the International Financial Corporation(IFC) and the Foreign Investment Advisory Service (FIAS) exist in large part to promote foreign direct investment through the promotion of policies and technical assistance to governments in order to spur foreign direct investment in agriculture in developing countries. These two agencies insist on regulatory reform in order to increase the business enabling environment, as well as the investment climate of their client countries. As evidenced in many sub-Saharan countries, the international financial corporation advice governments to increase investor access into land markets. Turning this advice into action has undermined the wellbeing of local communities, both in terms of land rights and access to food. It’s clear from the onset, that the priorities of the financial agencies lie primarily with the investor, and cooperation with African governments is ultimately aimed at facilitating access for the investor. Thus with the investors’ priorities in mind, it is not surprising that their presence in Africa has spurred the land grab trend to the detriment of marginalized local people.
In my opinion, a multi-disciplinary approach is what is needed to address the problem of land grabbing in Africa once and for all. This is a gigantic task, however failing to do so would render the future of Africa on a plate to be prostituted, abused and finally dumped by Europe and America. A good first step would be to streamline and merge land policy formulations and policy implementation in all African countries. Regardless of the geo-political and ethnolinguistic realities in the different countries in the continent, this should be the goal of the African Union.
Secondly, as dissatisfaction with the quality of consultation is the common element across communities that have suffered land grabbing, community-based organizations and other civil society entities should be given more powers to manage their lands in a democratic and transparent fashion. They should be legally empowered to bargain for their own benefits and have the mandate to make sure provisions in land usage contractual documents are not honored with disregard by the investors. Failure by the investors to respect commitments should be prosecuted with the full force of the law, so that affected farmers could be compensated for any damages (financial or otherwise) they might have suffered.
Above all, a continental land policy framework should strengthen the rights of women by protecting them against negative impacts of large-scale agricultural investments. This would dramatically alter the insecurity, disempowerment and abuse that are associated with poverty and inequality, and would create new fronts for rolling back HIV and AIDS.
In conclusion, we can see that the standards that can guide the African countries to holistically address land grabbing through the development of comprehensive and appropriate revision of existing land related sectoral laws are very high, nevertheless doable and potentially gainfully.
It is clear that African governments seriously intending to promote meaningful sustainable and responsible investment in agriculture must be willing intensively invest the time, multi-sectoral human resources in implementing the desired policies and instituting the legal frameworks necessary to prevent a second wave of slavery and colonialism. Land grabbing is seriously threatening the livelihoods of marginalized groups like small scale farmers, women and many pastoralist communities. By focusing on the foreign investors who have only energy and security interests, it will be difficult, if not impossible for African governments to realize the aspirations of their people for the promotion of agriculture.
It is worth noting at this juncture, that African governments alone cannot bring the desired result of stopping land grabbing whilst at the same time encouraging genuine investments in agriculture from both national and international investors. The onus lies on each and every individual who can add his/her voice in calling for fair trade practices with African countries, particularly, for the vulnerable farmers.