Say NO to the principles of “responsible” agro-enterprise investment promoted by the World Bank State and private investors, from Citadel Capital to Goldman Sachs, are leasing or buying up tens of millions of hectares of farmlands in Asia, Africa and Latin America for food and fuel production. This land grabbing is a serious threat for the food sovereignty of our peoples and the right to food of our rural communities. In response to this new wave of land grabbing, the World Bank (WB) is promoting a set of seven principles to guide such investments and make them successful. The FAO, IFAD and UNCTAD have agreed to join the WB in collectively pushing these principles. [1] Their starting point is the fact that the current rush of private sector interest to buy up farmland is risky. After all, the WB has just finalised a study showing the magnitude of this trend and its central focus on transferring rights over agricultural land in developing countries to foreign investors. The WB seems convinced that all private capital flows to expand global agribusiness operations where they have not yet taken hold are good and must be allowed to proceed so that the corporate sector can extract more wealth from the countryside. Since these investment deals are hinged on massive privatisation and transfer of land rights, the WB wants them to meet a few criteria to reduce the risks of social backlash: respect the rights of existing users of land, water and other resources (by paying them off); protect and improve livelihoods at the household and community level (provide jobs and social services); and do no harm to the environment. These are the core ideas behind the WB's seven principles for socially acceptable land grabbing. These principles will not accomplish their ostensible objectives. They are rather a move to try to legitimize land grabbing. Facilitating the long-term corporate (foreign and domestic) takeover of rural people's farmlands is completely unacceptable no matter which guidelines are followed. The WB's principles, which would be entirely voluntary, aim to distract from the fact that today's global food crisis, marked by more than 1 billion people going hungry each day, will not be solved by large scale industrial agriculture, which virtually all of these land acquisitions aim to promote. Land grabbing has already started to intensify in many countries over the past 10-15 years with the adoption of deregulation policies, trade and investment agreements, and market oriented governance reforms. The recent food and financial crises have provided the impetus for a surge in land grabbing by governments and financial investors trying to secure agricultural production capacity and future food supplies as well as assets that are sure to fetch high returns. Wealthy governments have sought to lease agricultural lands for long periods of time to feed their populations and industries back home. At the same time, corporations are seeking long term economic concessions for plantation agriculture to produce agro-fuels, rubber, oils, etc. These trends are also visible in coastal areas, where land, marine resources and water bodies are being sold, leased, or developed for tourism to corporate investors and local elites, at the expense of artisanal fishers and coastal communities. One way or the other, agricultural lands and forests are being diverted away from smallhold producers, fishers and pastoralists to commercial purposes, and leading to displacement, hunger and poverty. With the current farmland grab, corporate driven globalisation has reached a new phase that will undermine peoples’ self-determination, food sovereignty and survival as never before. The WB and many governments see land and rights to land, as a crucial asset base for corporations seeking high returns on capital since land is not only the basis for producing food and raw materials for the new energy economy, but also a way to capture water. Land is being revalued on purely economic terms by the WB, governments and corporations and in the process, the multi-functionality, and ecological, social and cultural values of land are being negated. It is thus more important than ever that these resources are defended from corporate and state predation and instead be made available to those who need them to feed themselves and others sustainably, and to survive as communities and societies. Land grabbing – even where there are no related forced evictions - denies land for local communities, destroys livelihoods, reduces the political space for peasant oriented agricultural policies and distorts markets towards increasingly concentrated agribusiness interests and global trade rather than towards sustainable peasant/smallhold production for local and national markets. Land grabbing will accelerate eco-system destruction and the climate crisis because of the type of monoculture oriented, industrial agricultural production that many of these “acquired” lands will be used for. Promoting or permitting land grabbing violates the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and undermines the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Land grabbing ignores the principles adopted by the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) in 2006 and the recommendations made by the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). Land grabbing must be immediately stopped. The WB’s principles attempt to create the illusion that land grabbing can proceed without disastrous consequences to peoples, communities, eco-systems and the climate. This illusion is false and misleading. Farmer's and indigenous peoples organisations, social movements and civil society groups largely agree that what we need instead is to: Keep land in the hands of local communities and implement genuine agrarian reform in order to ensure equitable access to land and natural resources. Heavily support agro-ecological peasant, smallhold farming, fishing and pastoralism, including participatory research and training programmes so that small-scale food providers can produce ample, healthy and safe food for everybody. Overhaul farm and trade policies to embrace food sovereignty and support local and regional markets that people can participate in and benefit from. Promote community-oriented food and farming systems hinged on local people's control over land, water and biodiversity. Enforce strict mandatory regulations that curb the access of corporations and other powerful actors (state and private) to agricultural, coastal and grazing lands, forests, and wetlands. No principles in the world can justify land grabbing! La Via Campesina – FIAN – Land Research Action Network – GRAIN 22 April 2010 Statement co-sponsored by: Africa African Biodiversity Network (ABN) Anywaa Survival Organisation, Ethiopia Association Centre Ecologique Albert Schweitzer (CEAS BURKINA), Burkina Faso Coordination Nationale des Usagers des Ressources Naturelles du Bassin du Niger au Mali, Mali CNCR (Conseil National de Concertation et de Coopération des Ruraux), Sénégal Collectif pour la Défense des Terres Malgaches TANY, Madagascar Confédération Paysanne du Congo, Congo RDC COPAGEN (Coalition pour la protection du patrimoine génétique africaine) East African Farmers Federation (EAFF) Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers' Forum (ESAFF) Economic Justice Network of FOCCISA, Southern Africa Food Security, Policy and Advocacy Network (FoodSPAN), Ghana FORA/DESC, Niger Ghana Civil Society Coalition on Land (CICOL), Ghana Haki Ardhi, Tanzania Inades-Formation IPACC (Indigenous People of Africa Co-ordinating Committee) London International Oromo Workhshop Group, Ethiopia ROPPA (Réseau des Organisations Paysannes et des Producteurs de l'Afrique de l'Ouest) Synergie Paysanne, Bénin Asia Aliansi Gerakan Reforma Agraria (AGRA), Indonesia All Nepal Peasants' Association (ANPA), Nepal Alternative Agriculture Network, Thailand Alternate Forum for Research in Mindanao (AFRIM), Philippines Andhra Pradesh Vyvasaya Vruthidarula Union (APVVU), India Anti Debt Coalition (KAU), Indonesia Aquila Ismail, Pakistan Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) Bantad Mountain Range Conservation Network, Thailand Biothai (Thailand) Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia, Cambodia Centre for Agrarian Reform, Empowerment and Transformation, Inc., Philippines Centro Saka, Inc., Philippines CIDSE, Lao PDR Daulat Institute, Indonesia Delhi Forum, India Focus on the Global South, India, Thailand, Philippines Foundation for Ecological Recovery/TERRA, Thailand Four Regions Slum Network, Thailand Friends of the Earth Indonesia (WALHI), Indonesia HASATIL, Timor Leste IMSE, India Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), India Indonesian Fisher folk Union (SNI), Indonesia Indonesian Human Rights Committee for Social Justice (IHCS), Indonesia Indonesian Peasant' Union (SPI). Indonesia International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF), India Kelompok Studi dan Pengembangan Prakarsa Masyarakat/Study Group for the People Initiative Development (KSPPM), Indonesia KIARA-Fisheries Justice Coalition of Indonesia, Indonesia Klongyong and Pichaipuben Land Cooperatives, Thailand Land Reform Network of Thailand, Thailand Lokoj Institute, Bangladesh MARAG, India Melanesian Indigenous Land Defense Alliance (MILDA) My Village, Cambodia National Fisheries Solidarity Movement (NAFSO), Sri Lanka National Fishworkers Forum, India National Forum of Forest Peoples and Forest Workers, India Northeastern Land Reform Network, Thailand Northern Peasant Federation, Thailand NZNI, Mongolia PARAGOS-Pilipinas, Philippines Pastoral Peoples Movement, India PCC, Mongolia People's Coalition for the Rights to Water (KruHA), Indonesia PERMATIL (Permaculture), Timor-Leste Perween Rehman, Pakistan Project for Ecological Awareness Building (EAB),Thailand Roots for Equity, Pakistan Sintesa Foundation, Indonesia Social Action for Change, Cambodia Solidarity Workshop, Bangladesh Southern Farmer Federation, Thailand Sustainable Agriculture Foundation, Thailand The NGO Forum on Cambodia, Cambodia Village Focus Cambodia, Cambodia Village Focus International, Lao PDR World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP), Sri Lanka Latin America Asamblea de Afectados Ambientales, México BIOS, Argentina COECO-Ceiba (Amigos de la Tierra), Costa Rica FIAN Comayagua, Honduras Grupo Semillas, Colombia Red de Biodiversidad de Costa Rica, Costa Rica Red en Defensa del Maiz, México REL-UITA Sistema de la Investigación de la Problemática Agraria del Ecuador (SIPAE), Ecuador Europe Both Ends, Netherlands CADTM, Belgium Centre Tricontinental – CETRI, Belgium CNCD-11.11.11, Belgium Comité belgo-brasileiro, Belgium Entraide et Fraternité, Belgium FIAN Austria FIAN Belgium FIAN France FIAN Netherlands FIAN Norway FIAN Sweden FUGEA, Belgium Guatemala Solidarität, Austria SOS Faim – Agir avec le Sud, Belgium The Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, Italy The Transnational Institute (TNI), Netherlands Uniterre, Switzerland North America Agricultural Missions, Inc. (AMI), USA Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach, USA Cumberland Countians for Peace & Justice, USA Grassroots International, USA National Family Farm Coalition, USA Network for Environmental & Economic Responsibility, United Church of Christ, USA Pete Von Christierson, USA PLANT (Partners for the Land & Agricultural Needs of Traditional Peoples), USA Raj Patel, Visiting Scholar, Center for African Studies, University of California at Berkeley, USA The Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First), USA Why Hunger, USA International FIAN International Friends of the Earth International GRAIN La Vía Campesina Land Research Action Network (LRAN) World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous People (WAMIP) World Rainforest Movement (WRM) [1] "Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment that Respects Rights, Livelihoods and Resources " Available at: http://www.donorplatform.org/ component/option,com_docman/ task,doc_view/gid,1280