Global AgInvesting Middle East (February 25-27, 2013) offers a comprehensive overview of agriculture investment opportunities, risks, and return profiles across all major global production regions, as well as strategies for diversified ag portfolios including regional variation, private equity, liquid investments, water, and protein plays. Produced by HighQuest Partners, GAI Middle East will highlight strategies for ensuring food security, including outsourcing and technological advances. Panel discussions will provide attendees with a picture of the agriculture investing landscape and a clear idea of where the real money is moving in the space. GAI Middle East is produced in conjunction with the Food Security Center of Abu Dhabi.

Débat sur la question de l'accaparement des terres africaines
Vendredi 22 février de 18h30 à 21h
Maison de l'Afrique
7 rue des Carmes, 75005 Paris
Métro : Maubert Mutualité
(Entrée libre et gratuite)

We’ll be discussing global land grabs and food sovereignty. A New York Times commentary on February 5, 2013, The Global Farm Land Rush, details the astounding scale of land grabs around the world, leading to the displacement farmers and peasants. At stake is the issue of who will own and control the world's natural resources. Speaker information: Alexandra Spieldoch is an independent consultant on gender, food security and sustainable development issues. She has worked with international NGOs, farmers' associations and foundations globally for many years. Alexandra is a contributor to a new book on land grabs from Island Press, The Global Farms Race: Land Grabs, Agricultural Investment, and the Scramble for Food Security. Redwan Hamaza is chair of the Oromia Human Rights and Justice Council in Minneapolis, and an advocate for the protection of fundamental human rights and freedoms of the Oromos and other peoples in Ethiopia. Redwan will talk about land grab policies of the current Ethiopian regime and its impact on the indigenous life. IATP President Jim Harkness will host and share his insights to land grabs in China.

Date and time: Wednesday 6 February 2013, 6.30-8pm
Venue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Speakers: Megan MacInnes, Fred Pearce, Dr Subir Sinha
Chair: Professor Chetan Bhatt

The forcible expropriation of land from people by states and Megan MacInnescorporations – ‘land grabbing’ – is occurring on a phenomenal scale and affects every continent and most countries of the ‘South’. Land grabs and the forced displacement of populations, including through state and corporate violence, have been justified through economic development, human development, the extraction of natural resources, the use of land for economic growth, among many other factors. Yet deforestation and land Subir Sinhagrabs in Indonesia, slum clearances and land grabs throughout India, environmental destruction and population displacements in the Amazon and in various countries of southern America, and massive land grabs, including through natural resource mining across the African continent, have created misery and havoc on a large scale for many populations. In some places, land grabs have gone hand in hand with environmental destruction, conflict and war, forced labour, child labour, illegal expropriation of natural resources, widespread poverty and serious violations and abuses of human rights.

This event explores land grabbing as a global phenomenon that some writers have described as a new form of ‘primitive accumulation’ and ‘accumulation by dispossession’. The origins of land grabbing and its consequences for human rights, including indirect causes related to environmental destruction and climate change, are discussed.

The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) is co-hosting with Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), a panel discussion and the launch of its annual review of the current status of forest and land rights in developing countries. In 2012, a key choice facing developing countries was revealed ever more starkly. Would they choose a development path built on inclusiveness and respect for the rights of their citizens, or would they opt instead for extractive exploitation of their people's land and natural resources? The report identifies this and other key choices and challenges that emerged in 2012 for forest rights and tenure globally, faced now by leaders of developing countries in 2013 and beyond. Panelists include:
Li Ping - Senior Attorney, Landesa, China
Alfred Brownell - Executive Director, Green Advocates, Liberia
Samuel Nguiffo - Director, Center for Environment and Development, Cameroon
Maung Maung Than - Project Coordinator/Consultant (Capacity Building Program for Community Forestry in Myanmar), RECOFTC - The Center for People and Forests
Joji Carino - Coordinator of the IIFB Working Group on Indicators, Tebtebba, Philippines
Saskia Ozinga - Campaign Coordinator, Climate Change, Export Credit Agencies and Forest Peoples, FERN
Jeffrey Hatcher - Director, Global Programs, Rights and Resources Initiative
The agenda for this event will be available soon. Please contact Madiha Qureshi at [email protected] with questions.

Day-long conference on the “Impacts of Indian agricultural investments in Ethiopia” with representatives from impacted communities along with Oakland Institute researchers and Indian civil society. Preceded by a press conference.

El Departamento de Campañas y Redes de Manos Unidas ha organizado una mesa redonda sobre el acaparamiento de tierras en Africa. Un fenómeno por el que países ricos y empresas agrícolas multinacionales adquieren tierras fértiles y agua en países pobres para producir para el mercado internacional de alimentos, biocombustibles, créditos de carbono, especulación con los alimentos, etc.
Todo ello afecta a las personas más pobres que se ven muchos de ellos expulsados de sus tierras. El acaparamiento de tierras es uno de los factores que hoy en día dificulta a nivel mundial garantizar una seguridad alimentaria para todos, especialmente para los más vulnerables.
¿Dónde? Universidad Pontificia de Comillas. Sala de Conferencias. C/Alberto Aguilera, 23. Madrid
¿Cuándo? El martes 22 de enero de 2013 a las 12:00h
Organiza: Manos Unidas
Entrada: Libre

The theme of GFFA 2013, organised by the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV), the Senate of Berlin and the Messe Berlin GmbH, is "Responsible investment in the food and agriculture sectors – Key factor for food security and rural development". Land grabbing is very much on the programme.

The panel will consist of the following speakers:
Willy Schuster -an organic farmer and representative of Romania’s peasantry whose interests he defends as co-president of the EcoRuralis NGO.
Attila Szocs works for EcoRuralis where he focuses on the CAP reform, landgrabbing, seed issues and agroecology.
Carlo Horn an organic farmer from the German county of Brandenburg.
Simon Wolk is cofounder of the Germanagrar group and its various subsidiaries. Since 2001 he has been in charge of the company’s agricultural investments and farming in the Baltic States and since 2005 he is responsible for Germanagrar’s Romanian activities.
Stig Tanzmann works for the Bread for the World – Protestant Development Service. He is currently working on the international dimension of the reform of the Common European Agricultural policy, EU meat exports to Africa and seed policies.
Hannes Lorenzen is senior adviser to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg.

At Markthalle 9
Eisenbahnstraße No. 42/43, 10997 Berlin.
On 17. January 2013
From 19:00 pm.

The conference is scheduled to take place in Utrecht, the Netherlands, from January 14-15, 2013. Details at landgovernance.org.