Tanzania’s experience in the global land grab post-2008 led to shattered hopes, land conflicts & misery for small farmers. Yet, the current govt risks repeating history. A new report looks at this critical moment for Tanzania's small farmers & pastoralists.
Local residents who were evicted from their land for a 42,000 hectare sugar cane plantation are all the more bitter now that the unprofitable and poorly financed agricultural project has collapsed.
- Equal Times
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11 December 2023
Bloomberg exposé on Frank Timis' plan to turn Les Fermes de la Teranga (ex-Senhuile) into a major source of animal feed for the Gulf States and the implications for Dakar's water supply
- Bloomberg
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14 November 2023
A six-month investigation by Gideon Sarpong, Elfredah Kevin-Alerechi and Audrey Travère has uncovered the extent to which the relentless exploitation of rubber and palm oil resources by Socfin is fueling deforestation and displacement of indigenous populations in Nigeria and Ghana.
- iWatch Africa
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06 November 2023
Farmland purchases by the Harvard endowment contributed to a climate of anxiety, fear, and strain on Brazilian subsistence farmers.
- The Crimson
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17 April 2023
Palm oil from Brazil's Agropalma is certified as organic, fair and sustainable, and the oil is sold to food giants like Ferrero, Kellogg’s and Nestlé. But much of the plantation land of this purported model company was likely grabbed illegally.
- Rainforest Rescue
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30 Mar 2023
The case is emblematic of the spate of land grabs targeting unallocated public lands throughout the Amazon, where speculators clear and burn the vegetation, then sell the empty land for soy farms.
- Mongabay
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14 February 2023
Ten years after the signing of their first lease, we interviewed 30 inhabitants about their experiences and opinions concerning the activities of the Italian JTF-Tozzi Green in Madagascar.
- Collectif TANY
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13 February 2023
As the palm oil industry swept through Indonesia, it transformed millions of hectares of land into plantations. An opaque system supposed to improve rural livelihoods has left villagers waiting for profits — and answers.
- The Gecko Project
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12 December 2022
Some community members accuse Socfin of land-grabbing and pollution. We visited the company’s plantation in Malen to find out what’s happening beneath the palm fronds.
- China Dialogue
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08 July 2022
Une écrasante majorité des transactions foncières effectuées sur le continent ne respecte peu ou pas du tout une série de règles – appelées "directives volontaires pour une gouvernance responsable des régimes fonciers" – censées protéger les populations contre la rapacité des investisseurs internationaux, selon un rapport du Cirad.
The digitalisation of information on land and natural resources is exacerbating land grabbing in the remaining agricultural frontiers of Latin America.
Despite a federal law requiring foreign transactions of agricultural land be reported to and recorded by the government, the US Department of Agriculture’s database appears to be missing significant acres of land.
- Investigate TV
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26 January 2022
Villagers in southern Laos’ Saravane province are refusing to hand over community land to a planned Chinese banana farm, saying if they lose their land they will have no way to feed their families.
The growing financialisation of Brazilian agribusiness is enabling foreign investment in the industry most responsible for deforestation - and land grabbing
- Intercept
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23 November 2021
Ana Villa has fearlessly confronted agribusiness multinationals and armed groups that have tried to take over the land where rural communities and Indigenous people live in the Colombian plains, including the US corporation Cargill.
China is one of the world's largest consumers of agricultural commodities such as soy and palm oil that drive deforestation globally. But it isn’t just Chinese consumption of these commodities that is helping fuel forest destruction. Global Witness new analysis sheds a spotlight on the often-overlooked role of Chinese banks as some of the biggest global financiers of deforestation.
- Global Witness
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07 June 2021
Complex web of data reveals large swathes of country controlled by small number of billionaires and large companies
Global commodities giant Cargill continues to buy soybeans from a farm in Brazil that cultivates on illegally acquired and deforested land, including lands acquired by US teachers’ pension fund TIAA.
- Mongabay
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04 February 2021
Un nouveau rapport d'une alliance d'organisations de la société civile dévoile l'un des échecs les plus scandaleux des investissements des banques de développement dans l'agriculture.
- RIAO et al
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28 January 2021
A new report released today by environmental campaign group Mighty Earth alleges that Michelin, the world’s largest tire company, was complicit in and covered up industrial-scale deforestation of over 2,500 hectares of rainforest in the run-up to the launch of its flagship ‘eco-friendly’ sustainable natural rubber joint venture project in Sumatra, Indonesia.
- Mighty Earth
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06 October 2020
Major multinational companies including Nestlé and Cargill may be sourcing Nicaraguan beef from indigenous regions consumed by land grabs, settler occupation and mass deforestation.
Cresud controls 370,000 ha in the province of Salta, in the ancestral lands of the Wichi people, where, in the first months of 2020, nine children died from malnutrition and lack of water.
CRR’s sustainability analysis shows that deforestation and fires have taken place on TIAA’s farmland portfolio in Brazil, enabling negative social impacts on local communities.
With fires on their Cerrado properties, Harvard’s and TIAA’s deforestation exposure appears to be growing.
Uganda’s government is supporting the rapid growth of extractive industries, but ranged against this is the swift growth of an eco-feminist movement that regards protection of the environment as essential to the protection of human rights.
Satellite maps show the connection between Harvard and TIAA's farmland acquisitions in Brazil's Cerrado and the massive number of fires that have been burning in the region since July of this year.
- FOE US, GRAIN,NFFC, Rede Social
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22 October 2019
ANZ Banking Group violated its own policies and international human rights standards by providing 40 million $ loan to a Cambodian sugar company that seized land from local farmers, according to a statement released by Australian government body that monitors corporate behavior overs.
One of the world's major buyers of farmland is under fire for their involvement in land conflicts, environmental destruction and risky investments. A new report by GRAIN and Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos presents, for the first time, a comprehensive analysis of Harvard University's controversial investments in global farmland.
- GRAIN and Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos
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06 September 2018
Award-winning Cameroonian journalist Madeleine Ngeunga and Fern’s Indra Van Gisbergen recently visited villages in the shadow of Socapalm’s oil palm plantations to see if issues driving the dispute between locals and the company are being resolved.