Who has the right to land?


In Southern Africa, investments on land has led to thousands of farmers losing their land and livelihood. Large foreign investors are favoured at the expense of small-scale, especially women, farmers' rights to land and seeds. How can we stop this development and what responsibilities do we have in Sweden?

Afrikagrupperna welcomes you to a seminar where you will take part of stories from the smallholder farmers in northern Mozambique, as several has been, and still are, affected by land grabbing.

The shadow under the trees

The Nacala corridor in northern Mozambique consists of 14 million hectares of land. Within the area the Mozambican government develop, with the help of foreign investors, infrastructure and agriculture for export. But there are also four million people living in the area who are completely dependent on agriculture.

The Norwegian forestry company Green Resources, where Västerås Stift is one of the owners, is one of the companies that have been formally approved by the government to exploit the land.

The plantations have led to several conflicts and many farmers have been forced to move and leave their land. A recently released report shows that the consequences for locals became larger and more long-term than they had anticipated. Now the organizations who has written the report, Justiça Ambiental, Livaningo and the National Farmers' Organization UNAC, has been to Sweden together with three farmers affected by the exploitation,and talked about the responsibility of foreign investors and the situation for the people in the Nacala corridor. We take part of information from their visit.

About Afrikagrupperna

Afrikagrupperna is a solidarity organization. We support local organizations in Southern Africa that are working with the people’s right to food and land, the right to decent living and working conditions and sexual and reproductive health and rights.

In Mozambique three of our partner organizations are organizing small scale farmers, and support local communities’ claims on land. The issues of investments in land in Mozambique is an example of the problem we see when foreign investors, with good intentions or not, are looking to invest in an area where the understanding of cooperate logics and market economy is far from peoples everyday life.

När: 7 oktober 2017 13:00 - 7 oktober 2017 13:30

Var: Fair Trade Forum, Ågatan 55 / Linköping

Arrangör: Afrikagrupperna

Mer information.