Country: United States

Global land grab highlights growing inequality

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Massive tracts of land in the Global South are being bought up by international investors and ultra-rich corporations, fueling growing inequality – part of a wider global trend of wealth transfers away from the poor and working people.

The report from FIAN International and Focus on the Global South, Lords of the Land: Transnational Landowners, Inequality and the Case for Redistribution, puts the spotlight on the world’s ten largest transnational landowners – who together control 404,457 km², an area the size of Japan.

This is part of a global land rush. Since 2000, corporations and financial investors have acquired an estimated 65 million hectares of land – twice the size of Germany. Today, 70 percent of global farmland is controlled by the largest 1 percent of giant industrial-scale farms.

Forced displacements

This concentration has grave implications for food security, threatening the livelihoods of 2.5 billion smallholder farmers and 1.4 billion of the world’s poorest people, most of whom rely on agriculture for survival. It is also driving violence, forced evictions, and environmental destruction while also contributing significantly to climate change.

Virtually all the top global landowners named in the report have been implicated in reports of forced displacements, environmental destruction, and violence against communities.

One of the main players is the US pension fund TIAA, which has acquired 61,000 hectares in Brazil’s Cerrado region, one of the world’s most biodiverse areas. In the Cerrado, approximately half of the land has been converted into tree plantations, large agro-industrial monocultures, and pastures for cattle production — amid reports of violent land grabs, deforestation and environmental destruction which already shows signs of impacting the climate.

TIAA almost quadrupled its global landholdings between 2012 and 2023 — from 328,200 hectares to 1.2 million hectares.

Inequality

Land concentration undermines state sovereignty and peoples’ self-determination, with distant corporations controlling vast tracts of land across multiple jurisdictions.

The industrial-scale monocropping, often carried out on this land, is a major driver of climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem destruction, preventing just transitions to more equitable and sustainable food systems and economic models.

These developments reflect a broader global trend of rising inequality and wealth concentration. Since the mid-1990s, the richest 1% of the world’s population has captured 38% of all additional accumulated wealth, while the poorest 50% have received only 2%.  An estimated 3.6 billion people, or 44% of the world population, now live on less than US$ 6.85 a day, below the threshold for a dignified life.

Because land grabbing is largely driven by global capital and the accumulation of land across jurisdictions by transnational corporations and financial entities, international cooperation is essential. The upcoming International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20) in Colombia early next year offers a critical opportunity for governments to agree on measures that end land grabbing, reverse land concentration, and ensure broad and sustainable distribution of natural resources.

In a world facing intersecting crises – from climate breakdown and food insecurity to entrenched poverty and social inequality – and amid reconfiguration of the global balance of power, now is the time to move away from neoliberal policies that have benefited very few, and to create a more just and sustainable global future for all.

Watch an expert panel discussion on the report here:

For more information or media interviews please contact Anisa Widyasari anisa@focusweb.org or Tom Sullivan sullivan@fian.org.

Transitioning towards Pesticide-free food systems: People’s Struggles and Imagination

Posted on by fredsaxo

Pesticides are causing a global human rights and environmental catastrophe. They are
responsible for an estimated 200,000 acute poisoning deaths each year. Long-term
exposure can lead to chronic diagnoses like cancer; birth defects and reproductive
harm; and abnormalities in the neurological, developmental, and immune systems.
Runoff from pesticides applied to crops frequently pollutes the surrounding ecosystem
and beyond, with deleterious ecological consequences that exacerbate the loss
of biodiversity. Pesticides can also harm the biodiversity of soils, which can lead to
large declines in crop yields, posing problems for food security.

FIAN’s study investigates how countries are transitioning to agroecology and pesticide-
free food systems. By examining cases in India, Brazil, Argentina, France, Spain,
Italy, and the United States (US), FIAN’s study offers a clear diagnosis of the human
rights and environmental problems resulting from pesticides.

It provides a foundation for grassroots movements, local and state governments,
and the international community to create pesticide-free societies that can uphold
the right to a toxic-free environment for all.

Read and download the Study Transitioning towards Pesticide-free food systems: People's Struggles and Imagination

See also  Key Elements in Regulatory Frameworks to Ban Highly Hazardous Pesticides, Phase Out Other Pesticides, and Facilitate the Transition to Agroecology

See also the report Pesticides in Latin America: Violations Against the Right to Adequate Food and Nutrition

USA pulls out from HRC while smashing human rights within borders

Posted on by fredsaxo

This week’s statement by US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announcing that the USA withdraws from the Human Rights Council (HRC) was a slap in the face for the international community. Seventy years after its adoption, for which then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt played a leading role, the USA is sending a clear message about where human rights and dignity stand in its priorities today.

At a time where human rights institutions and defenders are under attack, it is time to step up commitment rather than to retreat. This move sets a dangerous precedent, further undermining the human rights obligations that states have to global citizens. However, to some this may come as no surprise.

Blocking progress internationally

The USA does not boast a strong track-record when it comes to supporting human rights internationally or domestically. Indeed, it is one of the few states that has taken a firm position against ratifying or adopting any international human rights into its domestic legal structure. More concretely, for the USA, the right to food, a basic right for the survival of any human being, is not an “enforceable obligation”.  Its stance in international spaces for the right to food, such as in various processes in Geneva and the Committee of World Food Security in Rome, has focused on  blocking any progressive policy making, further threatening the multilateral spaces in which those most impacted by hunger and malnutrition make their voice heard. 

The public financial future of the UN is currently at risk, as the USA has already significantly reduced its annual UN financial contribution, impacting several agencies and processes, particularly  the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which has been the main support for some 5 million Palestinian refugees in the Occupied Territories, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

Food insecurity within its borders

In addition to increasing abuses and violations as a result of condoned police brutality, racism, violence and abuses to migrant adults and children, the current administration has also presented proposals to cut social support for food programs ( including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps), which would end or cut benefits for a substantial number of low-income people. 

In a situation where roughly 41 million people in the USA are facing food insecurity, a number that has increased by some 5 million since 2008, this move is a clear signal that human welfare and dignity is not at the top of its to-do list.

Ahead of us, without the US

In the present moment, where human rights institutions are weakened and corporations are acquiring a disproportionate power, it is fundamental that states call for a more inclusive multilateralism that aims at protecting people and not business. The HRC does have room for improvement, and  ongoing processes, such as the Declaration for the Rights of Peasants and the Treaty on Transnational Corporations and other business enterprises are opportunities to reassert the role of the UN, and ensure that the issues of those persons who are most marginalized globally are addressed.

For media enquiries, please contact delrey[at]fian.org 

IACHR meets European counterparts at a critical time

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The Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) – Organization of American States (OAS), Paulo Abrão will cross the Atlantic to meet his European counterparts this week.

A series of high-level meetings will be held with EU and EU Members States officials as well as international CSOs, which have been supporting both politically and financially the inter-American system, particularly during last year’s financial crisis.

Abrão will also take the opportunity to present its recently approved Strategic Plan, which various CSOs contributed to, including FIAN International’s section in Ecuador on behalf of all FIAN entities.

Need for real commitment

In a context where States and the private sector (particularly transnational corporations) are increasingly pushing for voluntary guidelines to take over internationally binding human rights instruments and standards, it is crucial to genuinely reinforce the political and legal role of regional human rights systems. This is particularly imperative for OAS Member States that have progressively been withdrawing their financial and political support to the IACHR, thereby leading the latter to its worst crisis in history. 

The lack of political commitment by OAS States is also reflected on some of their sponsored candidates, whose competences are questionable, for the two seats that the 47 Regular Session of the OAS General Assembly will choose in June. The 163rd Period of IACHR Sessions in July will also see the appointment of the first rapporteur on economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, which could suppose a positive change for communities across the Americas. 

Guarani and Kaiowá, seeking justice in IACHR

The Inter-American system is crucial for fighting injustice and structural inequalities against most marginalized groups, especially indigenous communities. This is the case of the indigenous peoples Guarani and Kaiowá in Brazil, who have been facing evictions and violence throughout their struggle for the right to ancestral territory as well as to food and nutrition, and whose situation has only worsened following the Parliamentarian coup d´état.

Last December, the Guarani and Kaiowá’s great assembly Aty Guasu, with the support of CIMI, FIAN International and its Brazilian section, as well as Justicia Global, filed a petition to the IACHR against the State of Brazil. Not only this petition will contribute to further developing standards on the right to food and nutrition in connection with the right to ancestral territory, but also to the IAHRC rapporteurship on economic, social, cultural and environmental rights.

FIAN International hopes that OAS Member States strengthen and prioritize their political and financial support to the IACHR. In addition, this should be reflected on the dialogue and cooperation between the EU and its Member States with the OAS, as regional systems are a crucial element for the development and implementation of the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders and EU Action Plans on Human Rights.  

The organization will engage in the IACHR visit, together with the European CSOs network CIFCA to keep supporting the consolidation of regional human rights systems. 

For more information, please contact castaneda-flores[at]fian.org 
For media enquiries please contact delrey[at]fian.org 

No right to food and nutrition without women’s rights

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Despite calls for the inclusion of women and a gender perspective in food and nutrition security, the status of hunger and malnutrition of women and girls is still not improving. These groups are particularly susceptible to the dominant economic and development model, exploitative of people and natural resources, which coexists with patriarchal policies and practices. With the current trends in global governance weakening the ability of States to comply with their human rights obligations, women’s equal enjoyment of their rights remains unfulfilled and they are denied a life of dignity. 

The event will bring women’s rights activists from around the world together with the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food to discuss common strategies to hold duty bearers accountable. They will present an understanding of the right to food that does not simply reduce women to their role vis-à-vis their children, families and communities, but rather that sees the realization of women’s rights as an end in itself. 

Coming from Guatemala, India, Spain, Togo, and the USA, the participants will delve into the root causes of hunger and malnutrition, in a world where global and national policies seem to maintain poverty circles and increase inequalities. They will speak up for rural and urban women around the world that feel the impact of economic restructuring, migration, unregulated and unsustainable development, and climate change, with grave implications for their human right to adequate food and nutrition.

Organized by a long list of civil society groups and co-sponsored by several countries, the side event will be held between sessions of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) at the centre of global policy making, the Palais des Nations, on International Women’s Day, March 8.

For further information, see flyer.
To register, please contact fyfe[at]fian.org and visit the latest updates on the event page. 

94 U.S. House Members Express Concern about Human Rights Situation in Bajo Aguán, Honduras

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FIAN welcomes the letter of House members sent to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on March 9, in which they express concern about the grave violations human rights in the case of the agrarian conflict in the Bajo Aguan valley in Honduras, where countless violations of the human right to food, as well as murders and persecutions, against members of peasant organizations  have been committed.

On invitation of the Latin America Working Group and Rights Action, human rights defenders from Honduras and FIAN called the attention of U.S. Congress members to the case in October 2011.

Ninety-four members of the U.S. House of Representatives, one of the two bodies of the Congress, sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to raise concern over human rights violations in Honduras where human rights defenders, journalists, community leaders and opposition activists are subject to death threats, attacks and extrajudicial executions. According to the letter, “In the Bajo Aguán region, forty-five people associated with peasant organizations working to resolve ongoing land disputes have been killed since September 2009, as well as seven security guards, a policeman, a journalist and his partner, and three other persons.  Underlying the violence are long-standing land conflicts, and witnesses have reported that private security guards on disputed farmlands are the perpetrators of many of these crimes.”

The letter asks the State Department “to suspend U.S. assistance to the Honduran military and police given the credible allegations of widespread, serious violations of human rights attributed to the security forces.”  The letter also asks the State Department to continue efforts to pressure the Honduran government to protect the fundamental human rights of its citizens, investigate and prosecute abuses in the Bajo Aguán region and throughout the country, give an accounting of the specific status of cases, and hold accountable private security companies that have acted with impunity.  In addition, the Honduran government should comply with the agreements already signed with peasant associations to address the land conflicts in Bajo Aguán and seek comprehensive solutions to lack of access to land and livelihoods that underlie this conflict.

FIAN has worked on the Bajo Aguan case for 10 years, with the peasant organizations in Honduras and other supporting organizations and individuals. This work has involved joint fact finding missions with other international networks, capacity building workshops, urgent action campaigns and reports on the situation to the EU, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and UN Human Rights bodies, among others. On several occasions, FIAN has urged the government of Honduras, as a Party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to investigate the abuses of peasants and to provide for their loss of livelihood, thereby fulfilling their obligation to respect, promote and guarantee human rights, in particular the right to life, the right to food, to housing, to health and education, and the right to personal integrity.

Download the letter (pdf) below

Nearly 200 Civil Society Groups Urge President Obama, Congress to Curb Food Speculation to Fight Global Hunger Crisis

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The letter notes that “A significant part of last year’s food price fluctuations were the result of excessive speculation in the commodities markets by the very hedge funds and investment banks that helped create the current economic meltdown.”

“The need for international action is urgent to fulfil the Right to adequate Food of the most-vulnerable populations directly affected by the crisis.”, says FIAN International Secretary General Flavio Valente. “This urgent action should include policy measures that guarantee immediate protection against factors that clearly are aggravating the crisis, such as, among others, speculation on the commodities ‘futures’ market.”

“Investors need to realize that their apparently innocent investments in food and energy commodity futures have driven up world food prices. This has forced hundreds of millions of people already living on the edge into desperate situations. Children are going hungry, even dying.” said David Kane of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. “It is absolutely unacceptable that investors are enriching themselves off of the suffering of so many. President Obama and the Congress must act quickly in order to avoid another food crisis this year.”

The letter was signed by 183 social justice and civil society groups including 107 international groups from 29 countries and 76 groups based in the United States.  The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 200 million additional people in the developing world faced malnutrition because of surging food prices in 2008. The signatories urge the president and congress to re-regulate the commodity futures market to prevent speculation from continuing to contribute to global hunger and food insecurity.

The letter states that the 2008 food price volatility “could have been stopped with sensible rules that, if enforced, would have staved off the malnutrition and starvation that was caused by excessive gambling of food prices.  Important reforms are needed now to prevent mega-investors from viewing the futures market like a casino where they can gamble on hunger.”