Grassroots International Signs on to STOP LAND GRABBING NOW!

Grassroots International, along with scores of organizations and global activists, endorses the call of the Via Campesina to “Stop Land Grabbing Now!” and say no to the principles of “responsible” agro-enterprise investment promoted by the World Bank.

The statement below outlines the damage done as private corporations (like Goldman Sachs and Citadel Capital) along with state investors buy up tens of millions of acres of land in Asia, Latin America and Africa in order to grow crops for bio-fuels. This land grabbing is a serious threat to the food sovereignty of our peoples and the right to food of people in rural communities, as well as farmers and consumers worldwide. Land grabbing – even in the rare cases where there are no related forced evictions – denies land for local communities, destroys livelihoods, reduces the political space for peasant-oriented agricultural policies and distorts markets towards increasingly concentrated agribusiness interests and global trade rather than towards sustainable production by small farmers for local and national markets.

Along with the Via Campesina and land rights proponents across the globe, Grassroots International says: No principles in the world can justify land grabbing!