Edie Mukiibi: Methods and effects of land-grabbing in Africa
Edie Mukiibi, Vice President of Slow Food International and President of Slow Food Uganda, is an expert about land grabbing in Africa. We are happy to had him as a speaker at our Future Food Convention 2020.
He has traveled across Uganda to learn about and understand the problems and difficulties small-scale farmers face.
“Land grabbing in my words is the loss of land of the people, of the communities through those with power.”
Land grabbing has great impacts on the livelihood of people, it disrupts the food security of communities, and the effects on the environment can be enormous — such as deforestation. In the process of land grabbing, resources are being exploited and local communities are being faced with huge disadvantages accessing land or having the chance to create their former source of livelihood.
Edie describes two different types of land grabbing in Africa: Land grabbing created through foreign investment (mainly from the global north), and micro land grabbing.
Foreign investments seem promising at first, especially for governments — more employment opportunities, increasing GDP — but the outturn is often the destruction of the environment and rural communities. These foreign investments for large-scale monoculture farms are especially, as Edie describes, leading to direct loss of land for rural communities.
Micro land grabbing works differently and in a much slower process. Small scale farmers are cultivating monocultures, like sugarcane, for large-scale companies. Small scale producers are obliged to produce a certain crop, even if they are facing dropping prices or other issues. If they choose to change their land use, the large-scale companies can take their land and use it as their property. That means in fact, that they have all along no power of their land. What seems at first as a good deal is exploiting small-scale farmers to the structures of big markets and production. Edie highlights that this is a common practice in Africa and that the future of food and communities is highly vulnerable because of this method.
Edies’ approach with Slow Food is to raise awareness and to create action in the communities against land grabbing and for ecosystem protection, they are also highlighting topics such as food sovereignty and cultural heritage. For him education is key to empower communities, addressing how land rights work, what is the value and benefit of land, what effects can the transmission on land have for their community and their environment. The tenure system in Uganda is quite complex, that is why it is more important to support people to make the most sustainable choice for their land.
One other tool in the work of Slow Food in Uganda, is to mobilize action through petitions, which are highlighting the needs of the community and are sent to local governments and authorities. This aims to support the legal rights and create awareness for the problems which the communities are facing. They support these rural communities and their small-scale farmers in which they try to convince the government how important and valuable their land use is. Hence to protect it and secure it against foreign investment, and not to turn it into a monocrop agricultural land for high-value export goods.
At the end of the session, Edie was asked what he is wishing for in the future. Edie responded: “Make a real choice [by] which products you consume. [Ask yourself:] how is this product related to injustice and land grabbing? [..] Support the campaigns and follow the development: we are fighting large corporations, power, large economies but we are too small to fight alone. We are small communities — we are small individuals. It is very very risky to stand in resistance to a big corporation where the government is seeing a lot of prospects, of course, the land-grabbing involves a lot of corruption and bribery issues. Many of these companies invest a lot of money. So it’s very risky for us on the front line to stand against these big investors or these big projects to defend the communities. But I request those who can support, by sharing more information and by donating to land grabbing campaigns(..).”
We are very thankful about this opportunity to speak to Edie about his work and for all the interesting insights concerning this important topic. Moreover, we hope that Edie and Slow Food Uganda is getting all the support they are wishing for and need, to fight land grabbing.
Do you want to know more about land grabbing in Uganda? Watch the whole interview with Edie Mukiibi here:
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