What Kind of Big Results? In the rush for land in Tanzania, how will the CFS

Tenure Guidelines be applied?

Doug Hertzler, Senior Policy Analyst, ActionAid USA

We’re an international federation that uses a human rights based approach to work with over 15 million people in 45 countries for a world free from poverty and injustice.

Only 5 extremely large farms operating in Tanzania today, but 26 new ones have been proposed

Washington, DC:• Has over 100

neighborhoods• 15,800 hectares of

land• Is smaller than the

average of the 26 farms planned in BRN

• the average farm size in the United States still under 100 hectares

Kilimo Kwanza (Agriculture first) 2009 Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor

(SAGCOT) WEF 2010 G8 New Alliance USAID-G8 2012Big Results Now! Ag Lab 2014

Ag Initiatives in Tanzania

Competition for land and violence In Tanzania

International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs reported:• In Kilombero and Ulanga districts in 2012-13

5000 indigenous pastoralists were evicted.• Seven pastoralists were killed• 480,000 head of cattle confiscated or forcibly

sold at low prices.

A Maasai leader told me:“Pastoralist children and farmer’s children cannot live in peace. Tension is going to explode, it will affect investment, development, the government and the elites too. There are a lot of young men who cannot find a way to live; it could create rebel groups.”

Maasai Pastoralists in Morogoro

SAGCOT Partners (leading to New Alliance)

Unpublished 2012 USAID Land Tenure Assessment of SAGCOT:

“To state it bluntly, most of the lands that the [Government of Tanzania] wishes to see developed in SAGCOT will need to be taken from villagers by government and leased to investors.”

“The concern that the SAGCOT effort may inadvertently result in a situation where large-scale commercial producers receive support at the expense of the poorest farmers is legitimate.“

G8 Cooperation framework forthe“New Alliance” in Tanzania• “Take Account of” the CFS Tenure

Guidelines• All village land in SAGCOT demarcated

by June of 2014, with 20% of village land use plans in SAGCOT completed, with 40% by 2016

• Instrument to clarify the roles of land implementing agencies so that land can then be allocated to investors.

2012 USAID Land Tenure Assessment on Village Land Use Planning:

“Director of the National Commission for Land Use Planning…. confirmed that the government’s target is to transfer 17.9% of village land into the general land category, raising the overall percentage of general land to approximately 20% (from the current 2%) to facilitate commercial development in SAGCOT. “

The Ministry is undertaking a number of initiatives to speed up the process

• Trained 25 district Participatory Land Use Management teams in SAGCOT areas

• Completed 391 Village Land Use Plans in SAGCOT districts – so far more than 900,000 hectares of potential land for investment have been identified

• Plans underway to prepare 700 village land use plans in 44 districts, including all districts within the SAGCOT corridor

• As each Land Use Plan is completed, all unutilized land within each village is recorded to the land bank

Key Elements of the Tenure GuidelinesThe Guidelines place tenure rights in the context of human rights

The numerous and profound references to human rights can be considered as one of the major successes of the Guidelines. The Guidelines are based on the UDHR, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and other international human rights instruments.

This means that The Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security are legally relevant even though they contain the word ‘voluntary’ in the title. They carry a normative force and form what is part of “soft international law”.

Section 1.1: the CFS Tenure Guidelines:

“seek to improve governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests. They seek to do so for the benefit of all, with an emphasis on vulnerable and marginalized people…

We are not implementing the Tenure Guidelines if we are making prior plans to take land away from the people who are supposed to benefit most.

The Guidelines recognize the rights and the key role of women, peasants, fishing communities, pastoralists and indigenous peoples in achieving food security

Section 12.2Considering that smallholder producers and their organizations in developing countries provide a major share of agricultural investments that contribute significantly to food security, nutrition, poverty eradication and environmental resilience, States should support investments by smallholders as well as public and private smallholder-sensitive investments.

CFS Tenure Guidelines on Large-Scale Land Acquisitions (Sections 12.5,12.6 12.10)

• States should protect legitimate tenure rights, human rights, livelihoods, food security and the environment from risks that could arise from large-scale transactions in tenure rights.

• States should: Define what constitutes large scale transactions in tenure rights

in the national context Consider ceilings on permissible land transactions, and

measures such as parliamentary approval on transfers of a certain size.

Promote partnership and investment models that do not result in the large-scale transfer of tenure rights to investors

make provisions for different parties to conduct prior independent assessments.

Ensure participation and consultation of all persons affected..

Redistributive reforms

The Guidelines provide norms to implement redistributive reforms in order to facilitate a wide and fair access to resources for all, especially when a high degree of ownership concentration is combined with a significant level of rural poverty (15.1, 15.2 and 15.3)

Planning Large-Scale Land Acquisitions while failing to assess the situations of landless people who might benefit from access to land, is a failure to implement the Tenure Guidelines.

G8 Land Transparency Partnership for Tanzania

1st Objective• “Improve transparency and benefits of

large-scale land deals”3rd Objective• “enhance security of tenure for all land

holders in Tanzania, including women and other vulnerable groups”

The CFS Tenure Guidelines do not just include, they “emphasize” these groups.

G8 Land Transparency Partnership

Activities and Milestones:The Partnership Agreement includes three sequenced areas of activities:Immediate — enhancing transparency and benefits of large-scale land deals;Short-medium term — policy and institutional development; andLonger term — land tenure regularisation.

Distortion of Village Land Use Planning

2013 Report of Stockholm Environmental Institute found:

• The Tanzanian government’s “drive to encourage investors has run ahead of the capacity of local people and communities, and even government itself, to implement the measures needed to ensure that their interests are protected.”

• Investors are paying for Village Plans• Village Councils are pressured by government

My Preliminary Research:

Case 1 (planned sugar plantation):• Two villages included land desired by an investor in their

prior Village Land Use Plans.• One village center was closer to the land in question and

this village was farming the land.• The district government recognized the land farmed by the

first village as belonging to the second village that was not farming it, because they were willing to transfer it the investor.

• The investor hired a consultant to draw a new plan for the affected village.

Case 2

• For several years a group of villagers has been resisting pressure to give up land they use for food for a sugar cane project in fertile heavily populated area.

• They have gone to court because that they discovered in the district government office, a signed and completed Village Land Use Plan, that had never been presented to the Village Assembly, designating their land for one of the high priority SAGCOT/BRN sugar projects.

Land Use Planning and Implementing Tenure Guidelines

• Becomes impossible when policies are oriented toward prioritizing large-scale land acquisitions.

• Legitimate Land-Use planning requires professional services that are independent of investor influence and the investigation of alternative paths to economic development.

Why focus on small farms?

Investment in small farms can lead to:

• More people and especially more women have direct access to food production and natural resources, increasing food security at the local level and beyond.

• Less mono-cropping (more diversity and less risk.)• More easily adaptable to changing conditions, more

climate resilience.• Stronger and more stable rural communities.• Greater productivity: small farms are more

productive per land area than large ones when farmers are have reasonable access to key resources

Observations at Agrica-KPL “Showcase of SAGCOT.”

My Observations at Agrica KPL• Plantation technology is different from smallholders

(can’t be transferred directly) Public support is key.• Smallholder yields are higher than on commercial

farm (with extension support).• Extensionists promote sponsors’ products such as

Yara fertilizer, over cheaper fertilizers.• Farm terrain varies, smallholders adapt better to soil

variation.• Smallholders prefer not to sell to large farm, don’t

like monopoly buyer. Agrica says they lose money on smallholder contracts. No incentive to continue.

Smallholder Irrigated Rice without LSLAs Bagamoyo- Public Investment

2013 FAO report on FDI in Ag• Large-scale land acquisitions in

countries where land rights are unclear and insecure, the disadvantages often outweigh the few benefits to the local community.

• Other forms of investment should be considered.

Thanks