Press Releases

Dear People of India: I greet you in peace and hope that the good people of India, who have yourselves thrown off the shackles of colonialism only 63 years ago, will join with Ethiopians and other Africans in confronting the hundreds of Indian companies who are now at the forefront of colluding with African dictators in robbing the people of their land, resources, lives and future! As either prospective buyers or simply as justice-loving Indians, you deserve to have full disclosure regarding the nature of these Ethiopian “business deals,” the impact it is having on “real people” on the ground, and the risks of “doing business” in Ethiopia with the current dictator of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi.

The African Centre for Biosafety warmly welcomes the new reports from The Oakland Institute, which brings to light further shocking evidence on the widespread hunger, suffering and displacement being caused by massive land grabs in Africa.

A new report from the US-based Oakland Institute shows that by early 2011 close to 500,000 ha of farmland in Sierra Leone had been leased or were under negotiation for lease by foreign investors. That represents almost 10 percent of the country’s estimated 5.4 million hectares of arable land suitable for farming.

The Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) and the Oakland Institute (OI) have jointly published a comprehensive report: Understanding Land Investment Deals in Ethiopia, which resulted from extensive research and an in-country assessment of the new phenomena of the explosion of land investment deals within Ethiopia.

The Oakland Institute (OI) and the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) announce the June 8, 2011 release of their joint report on Ethiopia; part of the OI’s more comprehensive report on “Understanding Land Investment Deals in Africa.”

The Oakland Institute's Report released today on massive land grabs in Africa by large scale investors also reveals details of significant water grabs.In Sierra Leone, for example, a Swiss oil and gas company, Addax and Oryx (AOG) which is chaired by Swiss billionaire Jean Claude Gandur, has secured control over 20,000 hectares of land to produce sugarcane for ethanol exports to the European Union.Since sugarcane production requires a great deal of freshwater, AOG struck a sweetheart deal for rights to withdraw virtually unlimited volumes of freshwater from the Rokel River for their mass irrig

Our mission at the Oakland Institute is to increase public participation and promote fair debate on critical social, economic and environmental issues in both national and international forums.Land grabs encompassing the size of France, displacing thousands of families, building miles of irrigation canals without concern for environmental impacts, allowing crops to be planted that do not improve food security for Africa--done with little or no consultation with those directly impacted, and have no accountability or transparency--are exactly the kind of issues the Oakland Institute was establis

Reports reveal never-before-seen materials connecting financial backers – including U.S universities and pension funds – to land deals responsible for destabilization of food prices, mass displacement and environmental damage

Financial backers – including U.S universities and pension funds – are lured by high returns and turn a blind eye to theft of land, displacement of people.

August 2, 2010. Oakland (CA): Recently leaked draft report from the World Bank, The Global Land Rush: Can it Yield Sustainable and Equitable Benefits, challenges the publicly held position of the World Bank on investments in agricultural lands in poor nations – a trend that has come to be popularly known as land grabbing.