The global rush for international companies to grab lands for private
sector investments in most Southeast Asian countries has put their poorest
people at high risks of hunger, an international aid agency warned.
In its latest report, Oxfam, an
international aid agency that started a campaign to end land grabs, has noted
that the global food system that focuses on profit margins has been in practice
in many poor developing countries in Southeast Asia, where governments resort
to record-high private sector investments instead of public investments in
agricultural support services.
“Agriculture is key in helping
poor people feed themselves and earn a living at the same time, so they have a
chance to escape poverty. But the way the global food system is designed now
doesn’t seem to prioritise poor people’s welfare,” said Norly Grace Mercado,
Oxfam’s East Asia regional spokesperson, in a statement released on the
occasion of World Food Day on October 16 .
“The irony couldn’t be sharper
and more painful here in Asia where poor people who grow food for a living
comprise the poorest segments of the economy and are scarcely able to eat,” she
added. In developing countries in Asia, some 945 million are estimated to be
living in absolute poverty, and six out of 10 people go to bed hungry, she
said.
She said that the the global rush
for international companies to buy up and grab lands in developing countries,
coupled with the aggressive promotion of international free trade, had
displaced many poor farming and fishing villages and weakened their
productivity and market competitiveness.
“Global land grabs and, in
particular, the upsurge of areas devoted to bio-fuel production have sent food
prices in a tizzy, making it harder for poor people to buy affordable food,”
she said.
“The prospects will be even
dimmer for them with climate change threatening food production by skewing seasonal
planting patterns or birthing more and more extreme weather events that could
wipe out entire harvests,” she added.
She said that Oxfam found out
that as many as 227 million hectares of land, including coastal land, in
developing countries have been sold or leased since 2001, mostly to
international investors.
“Weak government regulation has
left many farmers and fishers succumbing to unfair terms to let go of their
lands or to work on farms owned by foreign companies,” she said.
She noted that the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) must protect their poor communities by
regulating foreign investments in agricutlure.
“The Association of Southeast
Asian Nations should come up with a regulatory framework that may be adopted by
member countries.
Countries could also conform to
the FAO Voluntary Guidelines for Land Tenure and Responsible Investments to
safeguard their food and uphold the right of poor food producers to sustainable
livelihoods,” said Mercado.
She noted, however, that the framework
and policy interventions to be adopted must attend to the needs of poor women,
whom she said were often excluded from government agriculture programmes even
though they were the primary providers of food in poor households.
She cited the example of how land
titles were often named after men in most countries, even though women worked
on farms while still performing household chores.
“Women are often excluded from
government agriculture programmes because their role in food production isn’t
valued if at all recognised,” she said.
Fat Reyes
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