New land acquisitions or ‘global land grab' are drawing upon, restructuring and challenging the nature of both governance and government. While ‘the state’ is often invoked as a key player in contemporary land deals, states do not necessarily operate coherently or with one voice.
Sergio Sauer talks of history of land struggles in his native country and the dualistic roles his government plays to both restrict and expand land grab patterns in and out of Brazil.
Alberto Alonso-Fredejas on the narrative contexts in which land grabs are presented and legitimized, and how such activities lead to questions around capital, labor and community relations.
Maria Luisa Mendonça, Fabio T. Pitta, Carlos Vinicius Xavier
18 ဇူလိုင်လ 2013
Paper
An examination of ethanol production in Brazil, highlighting the role of financial capital, the territorial expansion of agribusiness and the impacts on labour relations and indigenous peoples and peasant farmers.
The rise of flex crops—crops with multiple uses across food, feed, fuel and industrial complexes—has far-reaching implications for global land governance.
The new land and investment laws benefit large corporate investors and not small- holder farmers, especially in ethnic minority regions, and do not take into account land rights of ethnic communities.
This report looks into the new land restitution law, which Santos portrays as integral to Colombia’s ‘veritable revolution’, against the backdrop of agrarian policy in Colombia historically.
Using the case study of the 2012 illegal occupation of farmland owned by the University of California (“Occupy the Farm”), this paper investigates the promises and practical limits of constructing food sovereignty through direct action in the global North. Many grassroots activists find inspiration in the work of the Landless Peasant Movement (MST), La Via Campesina, and the concept(s) of Food Sovereignty (FS); many also express desires to transcend the market/state dichotomy through the creation of “commons”.
