Lecture Series: ‘Agriculture, Rural Employment and Inclusive Growth’

Camilla Toulmin Director, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

Whose Food – Whose Farm?

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Whose food, whose farm?SID Lecture, ISS The Hague

Camilla Toulmin, IIED

October 4th 2011

Land tenure and international investments in agriculture.

A report by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food

Security and Nutrition

Recommendations to the UN-CFS, Rome October 17-21, 2011

Drivers of price volatility and food insecurity•Short•Medium•Long term

Recommendations include measures for stocks, trade, speculation, demand, investment in agriculture, price in externalities, promote FS strategies.

Study Team members and Steering group Chair

Estimated Inventories of areas involved in large-scale land investment

Not just land but water too….

Title

Early impacts

Huge diversity of investments and context

Growing research base, but no definitive answers

Growing evidence of inadequate consultation and compensation, local conflict/resistance, land/resource loss – but few studies have considered investment project as a whole

Risks exacerbated when wider pressures on land taken into account

Who, why and how?

Multiple interests, domestic, regional, global; long-standing commercial players plus new players

Food, feed, flowers, biofuel, forests…

Governments – ministries and agencies – play a key role

Domestic investors significant

Principal drivers

Public policy

Market forces

Environmental pressures

Public policy measures

Biofuel targets

Food security

Investment promotion

Market forces

Rising demand and prices for food, feed and fuels

Growing interest in land as investment asset

Environmental pressures

Water scarcity

Drought

Conservation – wildlife and landscape

Forestry and carbon markets

Land tenure systems

Gap between statutory and customary law and practice

Legal pluralism + institutional shopping

Bundle of rights – primary/secondary rights; individual/collective

Very low coverage documented rights

Slow, high cost, inaccessible processes

Title

Nomadic Pastorialists

Title

Small and large scale farming

Long-standing debate on economies of scale. Up-downstream supply chain linkages

What evidence of difference in social, gender, environmental performance?

Sharing value, joint ventures

Joint ventures/co-ownership

Contract farming

Tenancy/sharecropping

Community leases

Mix of ownership, voice, risk, reward

The main actors involved in international land deals

Multiple instruments, what power?

High level UN principles based on Human Rights (e.g. Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, Right to Food, Business and Human Rights)

Voluntary Guidelines, PRAI, Roundtables and certification for sustainable palm oil, soy, forestry, biofuels, etc.)

National level measures

Land policies and property rights – what recognition customary, collective, unwritten land and water rights?

Environment and social impact assessment – a legal requirement?

Fiscal policy – tax/subsidies on land, farm production, credit, capital equipment

Recommendations from HLPE

Measures to be undertaken by: Host country

Corporate investors

Donor governments

Home governments of countries where investor is headquartered

Civil society actors

UN CFS

Host country government

Inclusive debate on agricultural pathways and long term choices

Strengthen and respect local rights over land and natural resources, FPIC

Promote smallscale farming, encourage inclusive business models, demand better deals from investors

Investment contracts

Legal support for better deals

Open-up contracts for wider scrutiny

Better investment relies on better contracts

Who participates, when and how? Local vs. national actors

Transparency, monitoring,accountability

Better corporate practice

Adhere to legal responsibilities re human rights

Follow best practice re FPIC, consultation with local community, and industry guidelines re environmental and social impacts

Donor governments

Align bilateral and multilateral activities

Fulfil G8 and G20 commitments to increase funding for agriculture

Increase research to sustainable intensification, agro-ecological methods, bridging the yield gap and building institutions/knowledge/social capital

Figure 8.1: Actual and agro-ecologically attainable yields for wheat in selected countries. (Source: Bruinsma 2009)

Investors’ Home Governments

Remind governments of their responsibility to ensure their companies operate to highest standards re human rights and environmental management

Establish mechanism for redress for people in third countries to hold company/investor to account

Civil society and farmer groups

Support farmer representation in-country, and social movements of rural poor + monitor investment contracts

Open up in-country dialogue, link farmers with parliament, press

Strengthen international info sharing on land acquisition and global campaign strategies

UN-Committee on Food Security

Govts should report annually on aligning investment and food security

Govts to abolish biofuel targets and subsidies

Approve VG, and establish observatory for tenrue and right to food

Support regional processes eg. AU-LPI

Ensure effective consultation on PRAI

Figure 4: The Global Banana Bottleneck – from Latin America/Caribbean to the UK

Source: Vorley 2003:51

www.iied.org

Title - Mali

Lecture Series: ‘Agriculture, Rural Employment and Inclusive Growth’

Camilla Toulmin Director, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

Phil WoodhouseSchool of Environment and Development, University of Manchester

Chair: Max Spoor (ISS)