Grain

An excellent new report from Polaris and the Oakland institute on the impact of landgrabbing on water use in Africa. 'If all the 40 million hectares of land that were acquired on the continent in 2009 come under cultivation, a staggering volume of water would be required for irrigation (…) approximately twice the volume of water that was used for agriculture in all of Africa in 2005'.

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More than 250 participants, mainly representatives of farmers’ organisations, from thirty different countries gathered in Nyéléni Village, a centre for agro-ecology training built in a rural area near Sélingué, in Mali, to participate into the first International farmers’ conference to stop land grabbing.

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"I want to encourage each of you when we sit in front our plates of food this lunchtime, to meditate and recall that human beings are dying of hunger and malnutrition at this very moment because costly meetings are organized around their fate but without the actions that could save them being carried out. We can no longer wait."

Splendid intervention of Via Campesina's Ibrahim Coulibaly at the October meeting of the FAO Committee on World Food Security

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