A government commission formed to identify farmland ownership disputes will bring over 300 cases of land grabs to the attention of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw before the next session begins.
This piece is part of "Water Grabbers: A Global Rush on Freshwater", a special National Geographic News series on how grabbing land—and water—from poor people, desperate governments, and future generations threatens global food security, environmental sustainability, and local cultures.
The NGO FONGA claims that 80,000 people will be thrown off the land by Wanbao, a Chinese company that signed a concession for 20,000 ha in Gaza Provice Mozambique for rice production.
Campaigners opposed to a large palm oil plantation in a rainforest covering part of the Korup National Park in southwestern Cameroon say up to 45,000 people risk losing their livelihoods if the project proceeds.
"If the populace objects, we will not develop the land," says Sime Darby
Ander Einarsson, a partner at Phatisa and the team leader responsible for the Feronia deal, answered a few of How we made it in Africa’s questions.
Imagine a land of 14 million hectares, bigger than Switzerland and Austria combined. Populated by millions of farming families that together practice shifting cultivation. Now imagine a foreign consultant saying that all of these are abandoned lands.
A Swedish pension fund has become the latest of a series of purchasers of Australian farmland, a buying spree which has fuelled public concerns, and raised discussion over curbs on foreign ownership.
From a a palm oil plantation run by a Malaysian company, Sime Darby, the Today programme's Evan Davis looked into whether lands deals are a route into better life, or a signing away of the nation's wealth.
Governments, IFIs and corporations are collaborating in major new projects to reorder land and water use and create industrial infrastructure over millions of ha in Africa to ensure sustained supplies of commodities and profits for markets.
Mercy Corps, a non-governmental aid agency, plans to set up a $10 million private equity fund in Ethiopia to encourage foreign investment, primarily in agriculture.
Documentary film examines the experience of Mali with large-scale farmland grabs.