Table evidencing case study specific land grabs

  

Blog 4: Table evidencing case study specific land grabs

Table 1: The Nile Basin: Irrigation, irrigation potential & leased land - figures in numbers of hectares
Country	Irrigation potential	Already irrigated	Leased out since 2006	surplus/deficit	Comments
Total for all four countries	8,516,500	5,369,818	8,640,000	-5,493,318	FAO, commenting on its own figures, states that the irrigation potential figures should be considered with caution and are probably much lower. It puts the overall irrigation potential of all countries in the Nile basin at around 8 million hectares, but 'even these 8 million hectares are still a very optimistic estimate and should be considered as a maximum value'
Source: Irrigation figures from FAO Aquastat and FAO: 'Irrigation potential in Africa: A basin approach'   Land lease figures from GRAIN dataset on land grabbing  2012 and other sources.

Table 2: Selected African land deals and their water implications
Land deal summary	Water implications
Mozambique, Limpopo river
30,000 hectares close to Massingir dam leased to Procana for sugarcane production. Project was suspended and government is now looking for new investors. One study puts the total new irrigation plans due to the various land acquisitions at 73,000 hectares	One study concluded that the Limpopo River does not carry sufficient water for all planned irrigation and that only about 44,000 hectares of new irrigation can be developed, which is 60% of the envisaged developments. Any additional water use would certainly impact downstream users and thus create tensions. [1]
Tanzania, Wami River
Ecoenergy has been granted a concession of 20,000 hectares to grow sugarcane. The company claims that  the size of the project has now been reduced to 8000 hectares.	The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the project revealed that the amount of water EcoEnergy requested to withdraw from Wami River for irrigation during the dry season was excessive and would reduce the flow of the river. The EIA also predicts an increase in local conflicts related to both water and land.[2]
Kenya, Yala Swamp (Lake Victoria)
Dominion Farms (US) established its first farm on a 7,000 hectare piece of land in the Yala Swamp area in Kenya, which it obtained on a 25-year lease.	The local communities living in the area complain of being displaced without compensation, of losing access to water and pasture for their livestock, of losing access to potable water and of pollution from the regular aerial spraying of fertilisers and agrochemicals. They continue to struggle to get their lands back and to get Dominion to leave.[3]
Sudan & South Sudan, Nile River
Multiple investors, including Citadel Capital (Egypt) Pinosso Group (Brazil), ZTE (China), Hassad Food (Qatar), Foras (Saudi Arabia), Pharos (UAE), and others. Total land deals documented by GRAIN amount to 3.5 million hectares  in Sudan, and 1.4 million hectares in South Sudan.	Together Sudan & South Sudan have some 1.8 million hectares under irrigation, virtually all of it drawing from the Nile. FAO calculates that, together, Sudan and South Sudan haven an irrigation potential of 2.8 million hectares. But GRAIN identified almost 4.9 million hectares that have been leased out to foreign investors in these two countries since 2006. Of course, considering the recent tense political situation, it remains to be seen whether and when this land is put under production. But even if a part of it is, there is clearly not enough water in the Nile to irrigate it all.
Egypt, Nile River
GRAIN documented the acquisition of some 140,000 hectares of farmland by Saudi and UAE agribusiness in Egypt for food and fodder for export by Al Rajhi  and Jenat (Saudi Arabia), Al Dahra (UAE) and others	Egypt is fully dependent on the water of Nile for its food production. Currently the country has some 3.4 million ha under irrigation, and FAO calculates that it has an irrigation potential fo 4.4 million ha. It still has to import much of its food.  The country  is continuously expanding its agricultural area, including the Toshka project to transform 234,000 hectares of Sahara desert into agricultural land in the South, and the Al Salam Canal to irrigate 170,000 hectares in the Sinai, Despite concerns over the needs for water to feed its own population, the Egyptian government has signed off to lease at least 140,000 hectares to agribusiness from the Gulf States to produce food and feed for export. It is difficult to see how this is compatible with feeding its own population.
Kenya, Tana River Delta
The government has given tenure rights and ownership of 40,000 hectares of Tana Delta land to TARDA (Tana River Development Authority) who entered into a joint venture with Mumias Sugar company to establish sugarcane plantations. A second sugar company, Mat International, is in the process of acquiring over 30,000 hectares of land in Tana Delta and another 90,000 hectares in adjacent districts. The company has not carried out any environmental or social impact assessments. Bedford Biofuels Inc, from Canada, is seeking for a 45 year lease agreement on 65,000 hectares of land in Tana River District to transform it into biofuel farms, mainly growing Jatropha.	The Tana is Kenya's largest river. Its delta covers an area of 130,000 hectares and is amongst Africa’s most valuable wetlands. It is home to two dominant tribes, the Orma pastoralists and the Pokomo agriculturalists. According to one study more than 25,000 people living in 30 villages stand to be evicted from their ancestral land that has now been given to TARDA. The impacts of these intensive agricultural projects are numerous and they raise both environmental and social issues. Even the Environmental Impact Assessment of Mumias questions whether the proposed abstraction of irrigation water from the Tana River can be maintained during dry months and drought periods. Reduced flow could lead to damage of downstream ecosystems, reduced availability for livestock and wildlife and increased conflict, both inter-tribal and between humans and wildlife.[6]

Source: https://www.grain.org/es/article/entries/4516-squeezing-africa-dry-behind-every-land-grab-is-a-water-grab

Land-Grabbing: to what extent is it hydro-colonial practice?

Blog 3: Land-Grabbing: to what extent is it hydro-colonial practice?

With much of the land of the African continent remaining underutilised and marginalised, coupled with its associated water resources and rapidly growing domestic food markets, risk-taking investors have been keen to invest in these lands. And, of course, where there is investment you expect to see return. But exactly who is benefiting? And at whose expense? As identified in Blog 3, Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to be most affected by population growth and food insecurity - therefore exactly how land is being used, and if for agricultural purposes, will have huge consequences for the futures of these people.

Firstly, it is important to mark clear the link between land grabbing and water grabbing. Indeed, much of the literature is clear to identify that land grabbing – which is defined by Oxfam (2016) as “when governments, banks or private investors buy up huge plots of land to make equally huge profits” - is often more about the associated water than it is about the land, with the deals often a means of gaining access to freshwater resources (Rulli et al., 2012). Indeed, it is important to note that the land need not necessarily be bought, but can simply be leased and still constitute a ‘land grab’ – signifying that it is itself a contested term.

Land Matrix presents a database on the land acquisitions, including those intended, attempted and/or failed, since 2000. Though their data is sometimes speculative, its findings paint a general picture that Africa is and remains the most targeted land acquired area to date, and that these ‘hotspots’ correlate to where water is (e.g. the Nile). This is reflected in figure 1.

So you are saying that food is the motivation for land grab?

Put bluntly, yes. Agricultural potential and irrigation in Africa serves as a key reason behind these land grabs – indeed this is itself driven by economic prosperity and food security.

However, Box 1 also illustrates some of the economic drivers, as well as the ramifications, for land grabbing.

So, how does hydro-colonialism come into it?

Well, much of the literature is beginning to notice that land grabbing has come at the expense of the ‘rural poor’, who face large-scale displacement without proper compensation (Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade, 2014).  Furthermore, it has been described by some foreign companies and governments as a ‘neo-colonial push’ to annex key natural resources.

Leah (2009) contends that ‘rich countries are buying poor countries’ soil fertility and water to ship food and fuel back home, in a kind of neo-colonial dynamic’. A significant majority of these investments are thought to be for production of food crops for foreign markets (World Bank 2010); and 1/3 to be for plantations of crops for biofuels (ibid). Essentially, in many instances then, there exists an inextricable link between land, water and food. And beyond these as commodities – they are intricately linked to being functions of the economy. The deals“typically involve the leasing or other concessions (rather than sale) of large areas of land usually for production for foreign markets, by foreign companies and governments concerned with hedging against the risks of food price increases on global markets”(Cotula and Vermeulen, 2009).

What we see then is that the economies of developing countries in Africa are being poorly served by global trading systems (Allan et al., REF) in a perpetuating and negative way. Allan (REF) notes how two centuries of OECD-farmer relations with international private-sector food supply chains together with additional intense farmer engagement with legislators in Europe and the USA have contributed very significanctly to the progressive fall in world food commodity prices. And a number of private sector TNCs based in these OECD countries, Unilever, Coca-Cola and the popularly known ABCD – referring to ADM (US), Bunge (US), Cargill (US) and Dreyfus (French) (Sojamo 2010), have monopolised these transactions as they control the relevant assets, technologies and knowledge of hedging, banking and the risks.

Indeed, the negative consequences are heavily felt by the African farmers themselves. Consequently, they are never able to gain from the tendency of local crop commodity prices to increase – particularly hampering when there is local drought. As higher prices are not present in the local market, Sub-Saharan farmers are never able to invest (ibid). This is reflected in the decades after 1950, where crop productivity and returns to water in emerging and OECD economies saw a five-fold increase – whilst crop and livestock productivity fell or stayed level in Africa (REF).  Indeed, it must be stressed the immediate effects such as lack of tenure (which is also a cause) and reduced access to resources such as firewood and timber are also misfortunes that the smallholder farmers endure. The ramifications in case-study specific scenarios are illustrated in a table in my next blog.

Clearly, what can be concluded with confidence is that land grabbing is a concerning phenomenon bound and shrouded by ambiguous, inconsistent and worrying rationale- that should rightly be challenged. To answer the question I set myself bluntly then, I think yes, it is a hydro-colonial practice. It both seeks to perpetuate the monopolisation of both resources and markets that TNCs in OECD countries enjoy, and in turn, hinder the capacity for small-hold farmers to gain access to such resources and markets. This blog has also (unintentionally) pointed to the importance of food in increasing water demand and motivating stakeholders towards water abundant land – I’d love to hear your thoughts about this fact in the comments.

References:

IPS (2016) http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46724

https://newint.org/blog/majority/2009/01/21/the-really-ugly-face-of-capitalism/

Dixon, J et al., (2001) Framework for analysing impacts of globalisation on smallholders (WWW) FAO (fao.org; 17/10/16)

Grain, (2012) Squeezing Africa Dry: Behind every land grab is a water grab, (WWW), Grain, (grain.org; 16/10/16).

Nolte, K, Chamberlain, W, Giger, M (2016) International Land Deals for Agriculture. Fresh insights from the Land Matrix: Analytical Report II, Montpellier: Bern Open Publishing.

Oxfam (2016) Guide to land grabs, (WWW) Oxfam (Oxfam.org.uk; 17/10/16)