Insight / Right to Food and Agriculture
This morning I read a BBC report that Tanzania doesn’t have enough sugar. Supplies on the store shelves are getting low and the price is rising. Apparently this happened in response to a government decision to restrict sugar imports. According to the BBC, Tanzania produces about 320,000 tons of sugar…
Insight / Land Rights
Yesterday morning, Lenca indigenous community land rights activist, human and environmental rights defender, Berta Caceres, was assassinated by gunmen in the town of La Esperanza in Honduras. Over the past two weeks, Berta had been involved in leading a protest by Lenca indigenous people against a hydroelectric dam in the…
Insight / Land Rights
Last week, representatives from communities affected by palm oil expansion in Guatemala delivered a civil society petition with nearly 50,000 signatures to the Guatemalan Attorney General demanding justice for the killing of environmental defender Rigoberto Lima. Rigoberto was shot outside the local courthouse in Sayaxché, Petén, on September 18, just one day…
Insight / Right to Food and Agriculture
Black activists here in the U.S. are showing that “Black Lives Matter”, forcing the glaring racial and social justice inequality in our societies into the global spotlight. This year’s Food Sovereignty Prize – which is awarded annually to one U.S. based and one international organization working on food rights issues…
Insight / Land Rights
Guatemalan indigenous human rights activist Rigoberto Lima Choc was murdered last Friday by two gunmen riding a motorcycle. Media outlets have noted the likely connection between Lima Choc’s assassination and his leadership in community demands that the palm oil company REPSA be held responsible for the pesticide contamination of La Pasión…
Insight / Land Rights / Right to Food and Agriculture
Pressure on the New Alliance continues to mount with the launch of a new report showing how the world’s largest palm oil producer, Wilmar International, has grabbed land in Nigeria for a palm oil plantation, an ingredient found in processed food, cosmetics, and the biofuels in our cars and trucks.…
Insight / Land Rights / Right to Food and Agriculture
Last year during a research trip to Tanzania, I visited Agrica’s Kilombero Plantations Limited, a large-scale 14,000 acre rice farm, supported by donor governments, international investors, and philanthropists. This project is part of the G7’s New Alliance and is the proto-type for their “win-win” strategy for investors and farmers – the idea…
Insight / Land Rights / Politics & Economics / Right to Food and Agriculture
EcoEnergy’s massive sugarcane project has “vanished into thin air”, according to initial media reports. The Swedish government has decided to withdraw its offer to invest $100 million in the project, citing the company’s failure to meet conditions for the financing by their April 30 deadline. The decision followed the release of ActionAid’s report which…
Insight / Land Rights / Right to Food and Agriculture
President Obama’s appointment of Gayle Smith to head the United States Agency for International Development is a chance for USAID to take a fresh look at rural development strategies. USAID needs to change direction away from initiatives taken by its former Administrator Rajiv Shah, which put the interests of private investors over…
Insight / Land Rights
On Monday I was joined by Josaphat from our team in Tanzania and Adriano Campolina, ActionAid International’s CEO, to deliver a petition from nearly 6,000 ActionAid supporters calling for an end to the New Alliance. We met with Gayle Smith, who advises the President on global development issues, to discuss…
