The November 2011 edition of AEFJN's Forum for Action is now online. It contains articles on the ethical responsibility of the Church on the climate issue, on the clean up of the Ogoniland oil spills, which will take decades, on the spread of Libyan arms in the Sahel, on the production of medicines in Africa and on the EU's attempt to force African countries to sign EPAs.
The national election campaign officially started the 28th October in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), exactly one month ahead of historic presidential and legislative elections, scheduled for November 28 2011. 41 humanitarian and human rights organizations, among them AEFJN, have expressed concern about the high political tension and deteriorating security situation. They have called upon all Congolese and international actors involved to take urgent measures to prevent electoral violence, better protect civilians and ensure credible, free and fair elections.Land grabbing:
Is the EU the largest net importer of agricultural produce and ‘virtual’ land?
EU has become the world’s largest net importer of agricultural produce, and therefore the largest user of agricultural land that is not its own.
"The policies to achieve the EU’s 10% biofuel objective would also increase the rate of land-grabs" says the OPERA report (1).
“The term ‘land grabbing’ has hugely emotive connotations but the EU has to acknowledge the global implications of its policy decisions and the effects generated by not tackling the issue of competitiveness and productivity of European agriculture.” said the OPERA’s Policy Team Coordinator, Alexandru Marchis.
The Humboldt University/agripol analysis shows that between 1999 and 2008 Europe’s use of foreign land for its own agricultural production has grown by 40%, or 10 million hectares. It also increase greenhouse gas emissions from the conversion from forests, grasslands and refuge into cropland.
(1) The OPERA report is called ‘EU Agricultural Production and Trade: Can More Efficiency Prevent Increasing ‘Land-Grabbing’ Outside Of Europe?‘.
Note that this study was developed, at the request of a number of stakeholders from the agri-food sector, to provide a scientific evaluation and policy recommendations on the subject. The paper has also benefited from the sponsorship of Bayer CropScience and Syngenta that give one direction to conclusions.