by Nick Young

Uganda took centre-stage in global debates about land investments last week when Oxfam hit international headlines with a report claiming that 20,000 farmers in Kiboga and Mubende were evicted to make way for a ‘sustainable’ tree planting project.

The Oxfam International briefing paper cites the UK-based New Forests Company’s concessions in Kiboga and Mubende as evidence that big land-deals, although often favoured by governments and corporate investors, are not helping the world’s poor.

According to the briefing, the Ugandan National Forestry Authority awarded the New Forest Company—which “presents itself as a ‘sustainable and socially responsible forestry company’”—a licence to the plantation areas in 2005.  Local smallholders were removed in a process that lasted from 2006 until 2010.  Army and police, the briefing says, were deployed to enforce the evictions, which were neither voluntary nor compensated.

“Many of the people who lived in the Mubende concession area say they were allocated land in the area as Second World War veterans, who fought in Egypt or Burma for the British, or their descendants,” according to the briefing.   Evicted farmers have been seeking legal remedy through the Ugandan courts.

The briefing paper also discusses similar cases of commercial land concessions in South Sudan, Indonesia, Honduras and Guatemala. It comes at a time when rising population, rising demand for bio-fuels and the impacts of climate change are pushing up food prices and raising concerns about global food security. 

In recent years some developing country governments and investors have argued that agricultural productivity and competitiveness can be improved by large-scale commercial farming.   The Oxfam briefing, “Land and Power: the growing scandal surrounding the new wave of investments in land,” disputes this. 

It argues that:  “The new wave of land deals is not the new investment in agriculture that millions had been waiting for. The poorest people are being hardest hit as competition for land intensifies. Oxfam’s research has revealed that residents regularly lose out to local elites and domestic or foreign investors because they lack the power to claim their rights effectively and to defend and advance their interests.”

The briefing was reported in English language media around the world.

The issues it raises are particularly relevant to Uganda where three quarters of the population remain primarily dependent on smallholder agriculture.  ‘Land grabs’ are a highly sensitive and topical issue in view of presidential plans to turn over parts of Mabira Forest to commercial sugar plantation and concerns over the fate of smallholder farming and fishing communities in oil-producing areas of western Uganda.

The Land and Power briefing can be downloaded here:

http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/policy/land-and-power