Land and natural resource grabbing is putting millions of farmers, global food security and ecological balances at risk. (Ed. # 19)

This release of the « Fox of Nogent » comes back to the land and natural resources grabbing and the danger it is to millions of peasants around the world, to the global food security and to the main ecological earth equilibriums: through a publication on the confrontation between agribusiness and small family farms in Bolivia, an interview with la France Agricole, and a focus on Madagascar.

Two brief papers written by AGTER for the Agriculture and Food Commission (C2A) of the platform of French NGOs Coordination Sud also clarify several critical points regarding this problem. The first one focuses on the distinction that can be made between a so-called cultivable land and a so-called effectively cultivated one. It points out how some criteria retained to qualify land can prompt the grabbing of areas and resources that are essential for the livelihoods of numerous people, not only from an ecological perspective but also from an economic one. The second brief highlights how much the expression « Agricultural Investment » is deceptively used and the most often pronounced to name some operations that are nothing but grabbing of rents.

Alternatives to land grabs exist that can solve the main problems of humanity, such as human rights violations, food insecurity, the global environmental crisis : they perform the necessary ecological turn of the ways of production and consumption and the improvement of International Law while defending peasant farming. It is a necessity to develop these alternatives and improve the economical and political powers of the rural populations to stop land and natural resources grabbing. To the purpose of showing and analysing such constructive experiences, the C2A released a report on agroecology which is presented hereby (Agroecology: A Response to the Agricultural and Food Challenges of the 21st Century)

The video of the AGTER thematic meeting dedicated to the rural land policies in France is now available on-line. You can also watch the intervention of Michel Merlet at the conference organized by the French Institute on International Relations (IFRI) and the French Superior Council of Notaries last June 24th on « Property and development ».

Miscellaneous

The French, Spanish, and English versions of the articles and videos presented below are not exactly the same.

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