Foreign investors, with the World Bank, are acquiring vast tracks of land in Africa – at the expense of local farmers. Smallholder farms are disappearing across Africa because of large-scale foreign investment. The “town” chief of the village seemed to be in a state of shock. Sitting on the front porch of his mud and thatch home in Pujehun District in southern Sierra Leone, he struggled to find words that could explain how he had signed away the land that sustained his family and his community. He said he was coerced by his Paramount Chief, told that whether he agreed, or not, his land would still be taken and his small oil palm stand destroyed. He didn’t know the name of the foreign investor nor did he know that it planned to lease up to 35,000 hectares of farmland citeste si comenteaza …

We believe that this is a scandal and it’s a scandal that needs to be stopped because land grabs render people refugees, they make people become refugees in their own God-given land. They make people go hungry and making people go hungry is a violence against those people. You take away their rights of livelihood from the people; you take away their rights to shelter to food to clothing to anything they can do with the land…” An activist says prolific land grabbing across Africa is a scandal by African governments and foreign entities that robs Africans of their livelihoods and dignity. In the background of this, prolific land grabbing across the African continent by the international community in the hundreds of thousands of hectares, described as ‘the new scramble’ is taking its toll citeste si comenteaza …