Our Land Our Business

Driving Dispossession: The Global Push to “Unlock the Economic Potential of Land,” sounds the alarm on the unprecedented wave of privatization of natural resources that is underway around the world. Through six case studies — Ukraine, Zambia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, and Brazil — the report details the myriad ways by which governments — willingly or under the pressure of financial institutions and Western donor agencies — are putting more land into so-called “productive use” in the name of development.

Vendre les terres au plus offrant : Le plan de la Banque mondiale pour privatiser les biens communs détaille comment la Banque préconise des réformes, via un nouvel indicateur foncier dans le projet EBA, encourage les acquisitions de terres à grande échelle et l'expansion de l'agrobusiness dans les pays en développement. Ce nouvel indicateur est désormais un élément clé de l'initiative EBA, qui dicte les réformes favorables aux entreprises que les gouvernements devraient mener dans le secteur agricole.

The Highest Bidder Takes It All: The World Bank’s Scheme to Privatize the Commons details how the Bank’s prescribes reforms, via a new land indicator in the Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) project, promotes large-scale land acquisitions and the expansion of agribusinesses in the developing world. This new indicator is now a key element of the larger EBA project, which dictates pro-business reforms that governments should conduct in the agricultural sector. Initiated as a pilot in 38 countries in 2017, the land indicator is expected to be expanded to 80 countries in 2019.

Indonesia: The World Bank's Failed East Asian Miracle details how Bank-backed policy reforms have led to the displacement, criminalization, and even murder of smallholder farmers and indigenous defenders to make way for mega-agricultural projects. While Indonesia's rapidly expanding palm oil sector has been heralded as a boon for the economy, its price tag includes massive deforestation, widespread loss of indigenous land, rapidly increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and more.

The Great Ventriloquist Act: The World Bank's Bad Business in India exposes how India's one-track focus on improving its DBR has allowed massive environmental, labor, and human rights abuses to take place. Most appalling is the case of Vedanta Resources Plc, a company that benefitted from the removal of environmental safeguards and was able to operate a damaging copper smelter within the city limits of Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu--a mere 8.4 miles away from the ecologically fragile Gulf of Mannar Biosphere reserve. Not only has the smelter been responsible for massive environmental destruction, it was the site of a massacre of 13 activists protesting its expansion in May 2018.

A new brief by the Oakland Institute urges member states to deliver the final blow to the Bank’s ranking programs — the Doing Business Report (DBR) and Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA). The DBR and EBA face a growing crisis of legitimacy and confidence. Since last year, two anchor donors have ceased funding the EBA; in January 2018, former World Bank Chief Economist Paul Romer resigned after exposing politically motivated manipulation of the DBR rankings in Chile, leading the country to demand a full investigation of the rankings.

Only six multinationals currently control over two-thirds of the industrial seed sales, and pending agro-industry mergers stand to further consolidate this oligopoly. Further market expansion for these corporations depends on the shrinking of farmer-managed seed systems, which currently provide 80 to 90 percent of the seed supply in developing countries through on-farm seed saving and farmer-to-farmer seed exchange.

UK Aid Poised to Wipe Out Smallholder Agriculture In 2015, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) adopted a new Conceptual Framework on Agriculture. This new long-term strategy promotes commercialization and agroindustry development to enable a “rural transition” that would allow the majority of the rural poor to exit “primary agricultural production.” Under DFID’s vision, smallholder farmers, who currently produce 70 percent of the food consumed worldwide, are expected to become workers participating in market oriented food production or to find off-farm job opportunities.

Danida's Pro-Corporate Aid Harms Smallholder Farmers Denmark’s international development agency, Danida, claims there is a win-win intersection between development and business goals and supports private sector-led initiatives for agricultural development. This strategy supposedly allows Denmark to meet both the demand for investment and trade in developing countries and the interest of Danish companies in gaining access to new markets. However, there is substantial risk that combining aid with Danish commercial interests will shadow development objectives.

USAID: Taxpayers' Dollars Finance Big Ag's Expansion in Africa For years, US international food aid has prioritized domestic commercial interests by shipping food grown, processed, and packaged exclusively in the US to countries in need. Similarly, the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) programs for agriculture aim to create new market opportunities for US exports in developing countries and increase the control of local food systems by Northern, mostly US based, corporations.

The Netherlands: Serving Self-interest Over African FarmersIn 2010, the Netherlands development aid policy officially shifted its focus from social development to economics and trade, with growing support given to private sector-led initiatives.