The following report, by independent researcher Anna Bolin, explores the global trends and influences at work behind agriculture mega-projects like MIFEE in Papua.
- Down to Earth
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30 November 2011
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
From the World Bank to pension funds, efforts are under way to regulate land grabs through the creation of codes and standards. Rather than help financial and corporate elites to "responsibly invest" in farmland, we need them to stop and divest.
Global demand for agricultural land has increased 14-fold since the 2008 spike in global food prices. With that comes increasing cases of land grab, violence, and force eviction. Why every actor that could have prevent that is becoming increasingly powerless to do so.
- Foreign Policy
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11 April 2016
A visit to Mozambique dispels any notion that big business is going to ‘feed Africa’. Hazel Healy reports on a land rush in full swing.
- New Internationalist
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06 May 2013
The project leaders of Wanbao Africa Agriculture Development Limited seemed to have an emerging-market hubris every bit as blinding as that of their colonial predecessors.
Stephen Marks looks at the latest rush by China and countries in the middle east to sign lease agreements in poor countries for agricultural production, and what this trend means in terms of food security and access to arable land for local populations.
- Pambazuka
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11 December 2008
There is a large gap between SOCFIN's “responsible management” policy and the reality of violence and destruction around its plantations, where, with the complicity of national governments, the company attempts to suppress people’s resistance.
Throughout Merauke Regency in the southern part of West Papua, a land controversially annexed by Indonesia 50 years ago, indigenous communities are having to learn fast how to resist corporate manipulations.
- Awas MIFEE
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23 October 2013
For the world’s people to have secure access to the quantity and quality of food needed for a decent life, the land grabs and the development of large, highly mechanized factory farms must stop.
- Monthly Review
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02 November 2013
One of the greatest threats Africa has ever faced is the impact from this new phenomenon of land-grabbing
- AllAfrica
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21 September 2012
Pension fund giant TIAA is investing its clients’ funds in farmland and agribusinesses tied to environmental and human rights abuses in Latin America.
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.
A slew of countries and investors — from Chinese state corporations to Gulf sheiks to Wall Street firms — have started buying up farmland overseas, in an apparent attempt to acquire as much precious soil and water as possible.
- Washington Post
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26 January 2013
Civil society, including African farmers unions, need to educate local people that such land deals are not in their interests, however couched in 'win-win' terminology they appear to be.
With fires on their Cerrado properties, Harvard’s and TIAA’s deforestation exposure appears to be growing.
A new breed of colonialism is rampaging across the world, with rich nations buying up the natural resources of developing countries that can ill afford to sell. Some staggering deals have already been done, but angry locals are now trying to stop the landgrabs
- The Independent
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09 August 2009
Eight years after releasing its first report on land grabbing, GRAIN publishes a new dataset documenting nearly 500 cases of land grabbing around the world.
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