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2. Putting An End To World Hunger – The European Union’s role in transforming the global food system
- Author:
- Hanna Saarinen, Rebecca Varghese Buchholz, Bertram Zagema, and Chris Joseph
- Publication Date:
- 12-2024
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Farmers around the world produce more than enough to feed everyone on the planet, yet since 2017 hunger has increased sharply. Promoting food production and distribution that are socially equitable and environmentally sustainable is a necessity, in Europe and globally. This paper highlights the European Union’s role in addressing global hunger and supporting a sustainable and equitable global food system transformation. A new direction is needed and the EU can make a positive change. Smallholder farmers in the Global South offer enormous untapped potential for fighting global hunger but they must be better supported. The EU must also stand for climate justice by taking the climate change threat to food security seriously, limit the EU’s global land use footprint by stopping unsustainable and irresponsible land use that drives hunger and inequality, and balance the power in food systems by breaking corporate domination and enhancing equitable global food governance.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Climate Change, European Union, Hunger, Land, and Farmers
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Global South
3. Emerging Local Voices and New Possibilities Toward Attaining Sustainable Peace in Bawku, north-eastern Ghana
- Author:
- Aminu Dramani, Sebastian Angzoorokuu Paalo, and Samuel Adu-Gyamfi
- Publication Date:
- 08-2023
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- African Journal on Conflict Resolution
- Institution:
- The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
- Abstract:
- Globally, conflicts continue to change dynamics and increase in complexity, weakening the potential of various peacebuilding interventions, especially in the Global South. The Bawku crisis is a notable protracted conflict in Ghana and West Africa, which attracts enormous scholarly debates, especially on how to attain sustained peace in the area. However, there remains some important dynamics that are not significantly explored in the discussions on achieving sustained peace in Bawku. Drawing on in-depth field interviews, we present a new perspective on chieftaincy and landownership (and use), shifting from absolute control to a shared system, aimed at potentially resolving conflicts. The proposed shared political and landownership system also reveals important weaknesses relating to existing court verdicts and scholarly advocacy for a parallel system or the resettlement of the Mamprusi outside of the area. However, this empirical contribution offers a new possibility to resolve the Bawku crisis and similar challenges in Ghana and Africa.
- Topic:
- Transitional Justice, Peace, Land, and Sustainability
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Ghana
4. The Political Ecology of Farmer-Herder Conflict in Ghana: A Case Study of the Kwahu Afram Plains South District
- Author:
- Bernard Okoampah Otu and Kwasi Sarfo
- Publication Date:
- 08-2023
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- African Journal on Conflict Resolution
- Institution:
- The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
- Abstract:
- Farmer-herder conflict is an age-old phenomenon, which is widely spread in the West African sub-region. Current studies on the Ghanaian farmer-herder conflict have emphasised the land-related conflicts between indigenous farmers and nomadic herders. It has focused especially on environmental scarcity and climate change approaches. However, this study adopts the political ecology framework to highlight land conflicts between migrant farmers and nomadic herders, two migrant groups that are considered “strangers” to the Kwahu Afram Plains District. The study contributes to the broader debates on farmer-herder conflict. It provides contrary evidence with regard to the popular notion in literature and theory about the prevalence of land insecurity among nomadic herders. The study argues that migrant farmers in the study area experience more land insecurity compared to the nomadic herders. This is because of their history of immigration, their relationship with the Kwahu landowners, which is driving the escalating cost of accessing land, and disputes between landowning groups.
- Topic:
- Conflict, Land, Farmers, Political Ecology, and Herders
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Ghana
5. Productivity Effects of Viet Nam’s Rice Land Restrictions
- Author:
- Peter Warr and Huy Quynh Nguyen
- Publication Date:
- 03-2023
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
- Abstract:
- Viet Nam’s 1986 programme of market-oriented economic reforms did not include the freedom of farmers to choose their crops independently. Large areas of land remain restricted to rice production. This paper studies the effects of this policy on agricultural productivity, using panel data from the Viet Nam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS), covering the years 2008 to 2016. The econometrics uses fixed effects methods with and without the additional use of instrumental variable methods to allow for the possible statistical endogeneity of the restrictions. The findings are that the crop choice restrictions reduced the overall productivity of annual crop land by about 5%, reduced the overall productivity of farm labour by about 8% and reduced the mean incomes of farm households by 5%–6%, implying increased levels of rural poverty. Moreover, rice output would have been no lower if the restrictions were removed.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Governance, Regulation, Land, and Productivity
- Political Geography:
- Vietnam and Southeast Asia
6. Large-Scale Land Deals and Social Conflict: Evidence and Policy Implications
- Author:
- Alexander De Juan, Daniel Geissel, Jann Lay, and Rebecca Lohmann
- Publication Date:
- 05-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- How do large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) increase the risk of conflict, and what kind of policies can mitigate this effect? We address these questions with a systematic and poli-cy-oriented synthesis of prior research. First, we suggest a simple conceptual framework linking LSLAs to social conflict through relative deprivation. Second, we present empirical evidence on the associations between land investments and social conflict, drawing on pre-existing quantitative and qualitative studies as well as on own descriptive analyses and case studies. Taken together, this evidence suggests that conflicts accompany a sub-stantive share of LSLAs (10 to 20 percent). Specifically, contentious dynamics often start with violations of community interests, which spur largely peaceful community protests that trigger coercion and violence at the hands of armed actors associated with national governments and investors. Third, we develop a set of policy recommendations in high-lighting the need for thorough regulatory frameworks, meaningful consultation, and full transparency.
- Topic:
- Reform, Regulation, Conflict, Transparency, Land, and Community
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
7. Gaining Ground in the Struggle Against Extractivism
- Author:
- Antulio Rosales and Claudia Rodríguez Gilly
- Publication Date:
- 03-2022
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
- Abstract:
- From oil to mining, resource exploitation is the central battlefield for Venezuela’s land and environmental movements.
- Topic:
- Environment, Oil, Natural Resources, Social Movement, Mining, Land, and Extractive Industries
- Political Geography:
- South America and Venezuela
8. Environmental Justice in the Age of Unnatural Disaster
- Author:
- Chris N. Lesser
- Publication Date:
- 03-2022
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
- Abstract:
- The recent mudslides in Petrópolis are just the latest examples of the issues of unequal access to land and precarious housing in Brazil.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Environment, Natural Disasters, Inequality, Justice, Land, and Housing
- Political Geography:
- Brazil and South America
9. Taxless fiscal states: Lessons from 19th-century America and 21st-century China
- Author:
- Yuen Yuen Ang
- Publication Date:
- 03-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- How do modern fiscal states arise? Perhaps the most dominant explanation, based on the European experience, is that democratic institutions that limited the extractive power of states—exemplified by the 1688 Glorious Revolution in England—paved the way for the rise of fiscal capacity and subsequent prosperity. Revisionist accounts, however, reveal that this dominant narrative is flawed. In fact, numerous factors converged to enable the rise of European fiscal states, and in England, debt and land were particularly salient factors. Building off this literature, I bring attention to the role of ‘taxless public financing’ (i.e. financing public infrastructure through means other than taxation) in the making of fiscal states in two seldom compared cases: 19th-century America and 21st-century China. Both countries relied heavily on taxless financing to launch an infrastructure boom that spurred rapid growth along with massive corruption and financial risks.
- Topic:
- History, Finance, Tax Systems, and Land
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, North America, and United States of America
10. Farm Attacks or 'White Genocide'? Interrogating the Unresolved Land Question in South Africa
- Author:
- Adeoye O. Akinola
- Publication Date:
- 01-2021
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- African Journal on Conflict Resolution
- Institution:
- The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
- Abstract:
- Apartheid South Africa was noted for historical land dispossession, domination by the white group and disempowerment of the black population. Post-apartheid South Africa has struggled to address the land-related structural and physical violence in the country. Despite the implementation of land reform programmes since 1994, land inequality and impoverishment of black South Africans persist. The government’s failure to use land reform as instrument for socio-economic empowerment has engendered frustrations among those craving for land reform. This has found expression in farm attacks and murders. The subsequent instability in the farming sector and the categorisation of farm attacks as ‘white genocide’ have demonstrated the acute dynamics of the conversation, and the urgency to combat farm attacks, ameliorate the racial discourse and resolve the land question. Through unstructured interviews with key actors involved in the land and farm conflicts, the article engages the land attacks and ‘white genocide’ discourses and provides a more nuanced understanding of conflict recurrence in South Africa. It is claimed that unequal access to land and other intrinsic factors account for the destruction of lives and property on farms. It is concluded that, while white farmers are the major victims of farm murder, a conceptualisation of such as ‘white genocide’ does not adequately characterise the reality. One step among others would be for the government to inaugurate a ‘Panel of the Wise’, comprised of well-respected elders from all races, who would contribute to land reform and conflict-resolution strategies for the farms and agricultural sector.
- Topic:
- Discrimination, Land, Farming, and Socioeconomics
- Political Geography:
- Africa and South Africa