An independent U.N. expert urged world leaders to adopt a common set of guidelines to protect the land rights of their populations and to strengthen their bargaining position when negotiating with private investors.
U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Olivier De Schutter made the call following his warning against large-scale transfer of land rights to investors offering to “develop” farmlands. This, he said, threatens the food security of hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
According to De Schutter, large-scale infrastructure projects, biofuel production, carbon-credit mechanisms and speculation are forms of “land-grabbing,” which has a negative impact on small-scale producers.
To avoid this, countries should agree on a set of far-reaching guidelines that will protect the security of tenure of smallholder farmers, nomadic herders and fisherfolk, which he says are all gravely threatened by current commercial pressures on land.
“We must escape the mental cage that sees large-scale investments as the only way to ‘develop’ agriculture and to ensure stability of supply for buyers,” De Schutter said ahead of the U.N. Committee on World Food Security in Rome Oct. 17 to 21.
Read more:
Read more development aid news online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive top international development headlines from the world’s leading donors, news sources and opinion leaders — emailed to you FREE every business day.
