Transcript Slide 1

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
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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 incountry, 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 Woodhouse
School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester
Chair: Max Spoor (ISS)