Malaysia's biggest company Sime Darby has struck a deal with the Liberian government to develop oil palm and rubber estates in West African nation as land runs out at home and global demand for palm oil surges.

The bigger question—one Tasmania must answer soon—is how much of its food-bowl can be outsourced to balance sheets before community cohesion snaps.

The host communities of oil palm companies in Edo State are alleging injustice, violations of rights and devastation of their environment by the companies.

Allegations of illegal activity and land-grabbing against Indonesia’s second-largest palm oil company continue to mount as a new report reveals the firm’s violations appear to be more extensive than initially documented.

The alleged plan for the sale of the Salala Rubber Corporation (SRC) by its parent company Socfin, has raised concerns among civil society organizations and communities affected by the operations of the company amid the ongoing lawsuit for forcefully taking local community land to extend their rubber plantations.

This LDPI Working Paper Series includes work in progress presented at the 2024 Global Land Grabbing Conference in Bogotá, addressing urgent challenges related to land, water, and natural resource grabbing.

The World Bank’s independent watchdog, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), has finalized its investigation into a complaint filed five years ago, alleging grave human rights violations by communities living near the Salala Rubber Corporation in Liberia.

Klimat X intends to expand operations in Sierra Leone beyond the 57,000 ha that have been secured to date to at least 100,000 hectares and will transfer the same model to other countries across Africa, starting in Ghana and Liberia

Cocoa farmers in Oluwa Forest Reserve in Odigbo council area of Ondo State, have raised the alarm over the destruction of their N500m worth of cocoa plantations by thugs hired by oil palm plantation company SAO Agro-Allied Services Limited.

Episode 1 of a new podcast that highlights the different layers of oppression women face once industrial plantations invade their territories.

Arizona’s attorney general has called for an investigation into a 2015 deal between the Saudi agribusiness company Fondomonte and the Arizona State Land Department for desert farmland west of Phoenix at one-sixth its market value.

Industrial palm oil production in West and Central Africa is mainly controlled by five multinational corporations, and could continue expansion. Plantations take up large tracts of land and water. The current water crisis in these territories would not exist if corporations had not grabbed the land from communities.

Fresh controversy has emerged over the leading certification scheme for sustainable palm oil after a verification mission exposed ongoing issues around certified oil palm plantations in Cameroon.

Records show that the Campbell potato farming group has transferred more than $13 million worth of farmland to entities tied to Bill Gates, who is reputedly the largest farmland owner in the US.

In April 2022, Socfin’s Swiss subsidiary Socfinco FR announced it will stop providing managerial assistance to the state-owned Guinean rubber and oil palm company Soguipah by the end of 2022. A commentary.

Managing Director of Okomu Oil Palm Company, Edo State, Dr. Graham Hefer, lamented gunmen’s attacks on the company’s plantation and challenged host communities to volunteer information.

AgriPalm Ltd, a subsidiary of Flour Mills Nigeria Plc, has unfolded its plan to cultivate the remaining 3000 hectares of land with palm oil trees, to bring the total cultivated land to 4,500 hectares.

An analysis of land conflicts involving palm oil companies in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of the commodity, shows the country lacks effective mechanisms for addressing these problems.

Aminata Massaquoi of the Informal Alliance Against Industrial Oil Palm Plantations in Africa speaks about the struggles of women in Sierra Leone opposed to the oil palm plantations of Socfin and other companies.

The Indonesian government is failing to protect the rights of communities living on or near peatland converted to commercial agriculture. It is also permitting the widescale destruction of one of the world’s most important carbon sinks, Human Rights Watch said.

Germany’s Rainforest Rescue (Rettet den Regenwald) and Washington, D.C.-based Center for International Policy (CIP) blasted a baseless defamation lawsuit brought to the Hamburg Regional Court by a supplier to the Korindo conglomerate, a notorious Korean-Indonesian palm oil, logging and wind tower manufacturing giant.

Agricultural investors say the COVID-19 crisis has had little impact on their business and investment intentions, with Australian agricultural land, water and business assets as appealing as ever to investors.

Mbonjo sits in the heart of Cameroon’s country’s largest oil palm and rubber-producing region and owned by the Belgian holding company Socfin.

Indonesian government have alleged that permits underpinning a multi-billion dollar plantation project in Papua were falsified. The land is being opened up by investors whose identity is hidden behind anonymously owned companies, as part of a plan to develop an oil palm plantation almost twice the size of London in the remote region.

Stakeholders attending a two-day regional dialogue on oil palm development in West Africa have called for the inclusion of local communities in oil palm development in the sub-region.

Brazil’s Federal Police have launched an investigation, dubbed “Operation Far West,” to crack down on an alleged massive land grab by an agribusiness collective in western Bahia, one of Brazil’s largest soy producing regions.

In 2011, the plantation management company, Socfin opened a new palm oil plantation in Malen, in south east Sierra Leone. The subsequent eight years have seen a grave property conflict emerge between a number of local residents and the company.

The rise of Jair Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly threatened the landless movement with violence, has residents of Amazon agrarian reform settlements deeply worried.

Communities in Papua New Guinea's West Pomio District will suffer more than $US73 million worth of damage due to Special Agriculture Business Leases, according to a local advocacy group Act Now.

2017 went down as one of the deadliest years ever for land defenders. It was also a pretty bad year for several land grabbers.