Biofuels, Land Grabbing and Food Security in Africa
Publisher: Nordic Africa Institute
Author(s): Prosper B. Matondi and Kjell Havnevik and Atakilte Beyene
Date: 2011
Topics: Climate Change, Gender, Governance, Land, Livelihoods, Renewable Resources
Land grabbing for growing biofuels and to ensure food security is capturing the imagination of multilateral institutions, donors, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), land activists, academics and the media worldwide. The subject has also become popular on e-discussion fora, in the electronic and print media, at regional and international conferences and at workshops. In the last few years, climate change, peak oil and rising food prices have made energy and food security the primary global political issues. This has spurred the search for alternative renewable energy sources and has resulted in a global push for biofuels from various agricultural feedstocks, as well as for land in order to enhance food production and food security. This development has generated new frictions and tensions both globally and within African societies (Borras et al. 2010). Active resistance to land grabbing for biofuels and food for export is growing among those local communities in the South that are affected, among NGOs and among concerned researchers in the North and South (see the Declaration of the Harare Conference of 24–25 November 2010). The resistance to land grabbing is affecting moral, economic and political relations between and within nations, classes and communities both inside and outside Africa.