GLOBAL INVESTMENT AND

1

• GLOBAL INVESTMENT AND
• LARGE SCALE LAND ACQUISITION
• Governments, investors smallholder farmers
• - Risks and opportunities

Land Tenure and Management Unit FAO contact
paul.mathieu_at_fao.org
Presentation at CTA Briefing (Brussels, 25 Febr.
2009) Credit and thanks H. Liversage- IFAD
2
FAOs Role

• Advise and support Governments
• to assess situations analyze the options
• to make well-informed responsible decisions
• gt to minimize risks and maximize opportunities
• gt food security , rural poverty alleviation
• Stakes rural poverty, rural people and land in
  SSA
• 73 of people in SSA live in rural areas, 90 of
  agricultural production is done by small-scale
  producers who have access to, on average, 2 ha
  of cultivated land.
• De jure the state owns most land but 80 of
  rural land is untitled and de facto owned under
  diverse tenure systems Women tend to have
  weaker land rights but are the main producers.
• Pastoralists use 40 of all land in SSA.

Paul MATHIEU
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION
CTA Briefing
3
THE CONTEXT Trends, drivers, facts

• Trends
• K looking for L
• For outsourced food production or imported
  FS
• also for biofuels, carbon markets, financial
  gains.
• Long term structural global change
• ...in development processes and in international
  relations
• ... in scarcity, value and price of land.
• Increasing demands and pressures for land in
  developing countries with abundant land.

Paul MATHIEU
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION
CTA Briefing
4
THE CONTEXT drivers, facts

• Drivers
• Demand for alternative fuels
• Strategies to secure food imports through
  outsourced and secured food production
• Search for profitable investment opportunities,
  partly speculative (anticipation of growing land
  values).
• Context
• Increasing flows of FDI worldwide,
• In many countries, moves to make FDI easier and
  more secure through adhoc legislations and
  treaties.
• Facts not totally new process... but
  differences
• current trends gt rapid increases in land
  scarcity and land values
• .... with missing or weak institutions and
  regulatory frameworks.

Paul MATHIEU
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION
CTA Briefing
5
QUESTIONS - CONCERNS

• Who decides? - who benefits?
• Is this beneficial for development?
• - for poverty alleviation?
• Winners and losers beneficial to all actors
  involved ?
• Risks and opportunities?
• - particularly for rural people and small
  producers currently using the lands?
• How to minimize the risks and maximize the
  opportunities and benefits for all ...but
  primarily for the rural poor?

Paul MATHIEU
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION
CTA Briefing
6
MINIMIZING THE RISKS Maximizing the benefits

• Risks and possible losses
• Loss of land (i.e. loss of long term control over
  land, for countries and for communities)
• More food insecurity and landless people
• Land and social conflicts, social instability
• Loss of local labour and income opportunities
• Corruption, bad governance private gains at the
  expense of collective LT interest
• Unbalanced negotiations between unequal actors

Paul MATHIEU
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION
CTA Briefing
7
MINIMIZING THE RISKS Maximizing the benefits

• Opportunities and possible benefits
• Agricultural sector modernization, stimulating
  rural
• economies
• Development of non-farm/processing activities
• Livelihood diversification and employment
  generation
• Increased agricultural productivity, from
  improved seed varieties, know-how and new
  technologies
• Infrastructure building gt access to markets
• Social infrastructure, social services gt create
  greater capabilities and enhance human capital
• More public investment in general, from increased
  public income (taxes or land rentals/
  concessions).

Paul MATHIEU
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION
CTA Briefing
8
MINIMIZING THE RISKS Maximizing the benefits

• States opportunities/ responsibilities
  gtnegotiation of contracts, public policies
• well- informed and well negotiated contracts
• flexibility in contractual terms
• guarantees that food exports will not be at the
  expense of local and national food security
• good negotiation of benefits and compensations to
  promote LT development
• no excessive rush to contract land value is
  increasing in the long term
• financial benefits invested (partly) in social
  investments
• external investment means, not ends one
  element in strategic vision and rural development
  policies

Paul MATHIEU
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION
CTA Briefing
9
MINIMIZING THE RISKS Maximizing the benefits

• For communities
• Minimize long term unconditional transfer of
  land rights forced displacements.
• Balancing large scale and mechanized farming,
  BUT also local development and support to
  sustainable intensification of existing
  agricultural systems in other areas.
• Gaining or keeping control over land assets
  secured land rights with land leases, contract
  farming, outgrowers schemes.
• In medium and LTerm diversification of rural
  economies, new jobs and income opportunities.
• If displaced from the land fair and real
  compensations.

Paul MATHIEU
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION
CTA Briefing
10
Minimize risks Maximize benefits HOW ?

• Secure land rights for small producers
• Improved land governance
• Massive and affordable legalization of existing
  land rights
• Support to effective, accessible, transparent
  land administration systems
• Community land delimitation
• Require local community approval in the granting
  of land rights to outsiders
• Legal empowerment to secure land rights gt
  education, awareness, capacities to document and
  assert land rights
• gt affirmative action, legal support to vulnerable
  groups poorest, marginal, pastoralists,
  illiterate populations

Paul MATHIEU
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION
CTA Briefing
11
WHAT DOES FAO DO?

• Guidelines and manuals/ best practices
• Land leasing
• Good governance in land tenure and land
  administration
• Compulsory acquisition of land and compensation
• State and public sector land management
• Best practices and manuals/ methods for
• Community land delimitation
• Legal empowerment to secure the land rights of
  the rural poor

Paul MATHIEU
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION
CTA Briefing
12
WHAT DOES FAO DO (2)?

• Information and decision tools
• Data bases on land-use and soil degradation
• Decisions Support Tools on biofuels investments
  (in collaboration with UN-Energy), including land
  tenure aspects and implications for local
  communities.
• Studies (with IFAD, World Bank, IIED)
• Impacts of international investments in
  agriculture
• Land tenure implications of international
  investments
• Large scale land acquisition for agricultural
  production

Paul MATHIEU
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION
CTA Briefing