Increased agricultural development in Zambia will compromise the country’s food security if peasant farmers continue to be driven off customary land to pave the way for large-scale local and foreign agribusiness, according to the University of Zambia’s Dean of the School of agriculture, Mickey Mwala. He argued that smallholder farmers are responsible for food security in Zambia. Land grabs and forced evictions of local farmers by both foreign and local investors are common, according to the Zambia Land Alliance, a land rights advocacy organisation. The Alliance blames the eviction of farmers on the cumbersome procedures involved in obtaining title deeds and “archaic” laws, which do not recognise customary rights as a form of land ownership. Under Zambian law, title deeds are the only legal proof of ownership of land. To get a title deed takes between two months and 10 years and is discouragingly complicated for illiterate applicants who cannot afford legal assistance.
Poverty and health
In this paper the author proposes policy options to ensure that poor Zambian families do not lose their land rights in the face of trade policies. The proposals focus on addressing the obstacles that poor families face in accessing and obtaining legal title to land. Strengthening national land policy, the legal framework and investment guidelines would help to protect the land rights of poor families. A comprehensive pro-poor land policy needs to be developed to guide the review of legislation for land administration. For these proposals to work, local communities need to register as legal entities or trusts to legally own land.
In this report, IFPRI describes the evidence on land, water, and energy scarcity in developing countries and offers two visions of a future global food system: an unsustainable scenario in which current trends in resource use continue, and a sustainable scenario in which access to food, modern energy, and clean water improves significantly and ecosystem degradation is halted or reversed. The report provides on-the-ground perspectives on the issues of land tenure and title as well as the impacts of scarce land, water, and energy on poor people in Sierra Leone and Tanzania and describes the work of their organisations in helping to alleviate these impacts.
This new book by UNICEF details how the economic crisis continues to inflict devastating social consequences worldwide. In it, the authors note how access to public goods and services is also increasingly being challenged in the worldwide drive toward austerity measure in terms of reduced social spending. While the average gross domestic product of developing countries is contracting at nearly double the rate as their developed counterparts, combined price, income and service delivery shocks in these nations have potentially severe and irreversible consequences, especially for children, the authors argue. Among these include increased hunger and malnutrition, worsening health outcomes, lower school attendance, higher rates of child labour and domestic violence, rising vulnerability to future shocks and widespread social unrest. Even when faced with shrinking budgets, governments can expand their fiscal space without incurring immense cost, the authors argue. This can be achieved by: re-allocating public expenditures; increasing tax revenues; lobbying for increased aid and transfers; tapping into fiscal and foreign exchange reserves; borrowing and restructuring existing debt; and/or adopting a more accommodating macroeconomic framework.
To keep its mostly maize-growing small farms productive through cycles of drought, Malawi spends 60% of its agricultural budget subsidizing fertilisers. But the findings of this 12-year study suggest farmers in Malawi and elsewhere could increase yields consistently without applying fertilisers, using instead 'fertiliser trees'. To thrive, maize requires phosphorus and nitrogen, large quantities of which have been depleted from African soils. The 'fertiliser tree' or gliricidia, a leguminous tree, has the ability to draw nitrogen from the air and fix it into soil, changing it into a form that plants can use. The trees also restore some amount of phosphorus to the soil, according to the study. In addition, the leaves shed by gliricidia return organic matter to the soil, increasing its structural stability, erosion resistance and capacity to store water. Three consecutive experiments, begun in 1991 in Malawi and Zambia, showed that when gliricidia was planted in rows between maize plants, maize yields were good year after year.
In this background paper, the author argues that the concept of the right to food is an invaluable in development policy as it recognises the links between food security, culture and resource rights, and as a legal principle, it requires a state to ensure that its people are free from hunger. In recent years, the right to food among Kenya’s indigenous peoples has been challenged by climate change and state interventions that have resulted in land loss and resettlement. Past policies aimed at pastoral development - such as the Maasai Group Ranches - have failed in light of their lack of economic, social and cultural viability. Ultimately, the effectiveness of right to food is not only predicated on claimants’ ability to make demands on the state, but also on the state’s compliance with international law, the author argues. In terms of policy, she points out that Kenya is bound by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of 1976, which stipulates the right to food, as well as its new constitution, signed in August 2010, which includes a provision related to the right to food. This provision is a significant step at the national level in regards to addressing food security. The next step ultimately involves the development of legislation, policies and programs to ensure the principles of the right to food are realised at the local level.
This Background Note is an initial exploration of the political economy of adopting public works programmes (PWPs) to promote social protection and employment in low-income countries and fragile states. The author found that one main reason why some external funders (donors) and governments favour public works programmes over other forms of social protection is their anticipated economic and political benefits, such as household, local and national economic development, increased productivity and graduation out of poverty, and the promotion of political stability. This preference for PWPs is not entirely evidence-based, however, as current data on the impacts of PWP implementation are inadequate. The popularity of PWPs may be linked in part to political and organisational interests as well as concerns about programme outcomes, and political dynamics can lead to inflated expectations about impact if programme design and institutional capacity are not given adequate attention. The author recommends political economy analysis as a useful tool for better understanding these issues. It can contribute to the development and design of interventions that are more likely to deliver significant welfare and employment benefits, while also being politically acceptable.
Economic growth is necessary but not sufficient to accelerate the reduction of hunger globally according to this report by the FAO, which presents new estimates of undernourishment based on a revised and improved methodology. The new estimates show that progress in reducing hunger during the past 20 years has been better than previously believed, and that, given renewed efforts, it may be possible to reach the Millennium Development Goal hunger target at the global level by 2015, namely eradicate extreme hunger. Policies and programmes that will ensure “nutrition-sensitive” growth include supporting increased dietary diversity, improving access to safe drinking water, sanitation and health services and educating consumers regarding adequate nutrition and child care practices. Economic growth takes time to reach the poor, and may not reach the poorest of the poor. Therefore, social protection is crucial for eliminating hunger as rapidly as possible. Finally, rapid progress in reducing hunger requires government action to provide key public goods and services within a governance system based on transparency, participation, accountability, rule of law and human rights.
Civil society is calling on the Tanzanian government and agri-business for a frank discussion on the objectives and benefits of the ongoing Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (Sagcot) project, which forms part of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra). Agra is considered by activists fighting poverty as a means to destroy small-scale farming in Africa and introduce large-scale, mechanised agriculture producing genetically modified crops, with disastrous results for food security on the continent. Critics argue that the government’s version of green revolution is fundamentally flawed, as it seeks the participation of large-scale, mostly foreign, investors, while conveniently ignoring the fact that agriculture in the country is overwhelmingly small-scale, sustaining about 80% of the population. The fate of these farmers is uncertain. As the implementation of most of these projects also seems complex, lacks transparency and raises accusations of land grabbing, civil society organisations are also calling on coordinators of the project to explain the nature of partnership with key international partners, some of whom have controversial commercial and agricultural undertakings. The ensuing discussions should address issues such as how local societies will be key players in farming, technological advancement and value addition.
In the last decade, enough agricultural land has been sold off to grow food for a billion people, which is equivalent to the number of people who go hungry in the world each night, according to Oxfam. Over 60% of investments in agricultural land by foreign investors between 2000 and 2010 were in developing countries with serious hunger problems. However, two-thirds of those investors plan to export everything they produce on that land. While Oxfam supports greater investment in agriculture and to small-scale producers, it argues that the unprecedented rush for land has not been adequately regulated or policed to prevent land grabs. This means that poor people continue to be evicted, often violently, without consultation or compensation. Many lose their homes and are left destitute, without access to the land they rely on. Oxfam calls on the World Bank to temporarily freeze investments involving large-scale land deals so it can review its advice to developing countries, help set standards for investors, and introduce more robust policies to stop land grabs.