FARM NEWS

Communities in Africa fight back against the land grab for palm oil

Published

5 years ago

September 23, 2019

Co-authored by: ADAPPE-Guinée, Bread for All (Switzerland), CDHD (Congo-Brazzaville), COPACO (DRC), Culture Radio (Sierra Leone), GRAIN, Joegbahn Land Protection Organization (Liberia), JVE Côte d’Ivoire, MALOA (Sierra Leone), Muyissi Environnement (Gabon), NRWP (Liberia), RADD (Cameroon), REFEB (Côte d’Ivoire), RIAO-RDC (DRC), SEFE (Cameroon), SiLNoRF (Sierra Leone), Synaparcam (Cameroon), UVD (Côte d’Ivoire), WRM, YETIHO (Côte d’Ivoire) and YVE Ghana.

Over the past decade, agribusiness companies have been increasing their production of palm oil to meet a growing global demand for cheap vegetable oil that gets used in the production of processed foods, biofuels and cosmetics. Community lands in many African countries are a main target for the expansion of their plantations.

In 2016, GRAIN reported that over 65 large-scale land deals for oil palm plantations in Africa had been signed between 2000-2015, covering over 4.7 million hectares.^¹ Multinational companies, in collaboration with local elites and development banks, had launched a full-scale attack against communities from Sierra Leone in West Africa to the DR Congo in Central Africa to take their lands for oil palm plantations.

Things have not, however, worked out entirely as the companies had hoped. Our updated accounting shows a significant decline in the number and total area of land deals for industrial oil palm plantations in Africa over the past five years, from 4.7 million hectares to a little over 2.7 million hectares. And only a small fraction of this area, 220,608 hectares, has been converted to oil palm plantations or replanted with new palms. We believe that strong resistance by communities has been key to slowing this expansion of industrial oil palm plantations in the region.

Communities in Africa have, by now, had more than enough experience with large-scale oil palm plantations to know that they are not needed nor wanted. Their traditional systems of oil palm cultivation and palm oil production are far more dynamic and far more capable of meeting the continent’s needs. It is time to completely stop the expansion of industrial oil palm plantations, and return the lands occupied by oil palm plantation companies to the affected communities.

The state of oil palm plantations in Africa

According to our updated data set, there are currently 49 large-scale concessions for oil palm plantations in Africa, covering 2.74 million hectares (see Annex I).

Many of the oil palm plantation projects that were announced over the past decade have failed or have been abandoned, as can be seen in the accompanying table (see Annex II). Other projects have been scaled back. And, while there have been some new projects and expansions since 2014, the pace has certainly slowed, with no announcements for new, large-scale oil palm plantation projects during the past two years.^²

The geographic focus has narrowed as well. Nearly all the corporate oil palm plantation projects for Africa that were outside of Central and West Africa have been abandoned. The focus is now on a handful of countries, with the priorities being Cameroon, the DR Congo, Congo-Brazaville, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. There is also activity, but to a lesser extent, in the Central African Republic, Guinée, Sao Tome e Principe, Togo and Uganda.

Another central point that emerges from the updated data set is the massive discrepancy between the area that corporations have acquired under concessions and the area that they have converted to industrial oil palm plantations. Only 463,000 hectares or 17% of the total area acquired under concessions (2.74 million hectares) is planted with oil palms, with another 55,000 ha planted for rubber and other crops within these concessions. Moreover, the majority of these corporate plantations are old plantations that date back to the parastatal projects of the 1970s and 1980s or even further back into the colonial era. We estimate that only 220,608 hectares have been developed into industrial oil palm plantations or replanted over the past decade.^³

The most clear case is in Congo-Brazzaville. Of the 520,000 ha in concessions that the government awarded to palm oil companies, less than 1,000 ha or 0.2% has been developed into plantations. It seems likely that these concessions were merely fronts to facilitate illegal logging operations by converting forested areas to agricultural lands.^⁴ Liberia provides another example. During the administration of President Sirleaf, the first elected government following the country’s horrific civil war, 755,000 ha were handed out to oil palm plantation companies in concessions. But today, less than 54,000 ha (7% of the total concession areas) have been developed into industrial plantations, even though some of the largest oil palm plantation companies in the world have acquired these concessions.

The big companies driving the expansion

The 2016 data set identified a long list of companies, some big, many of them small and with little experience in agriculture, that were acquiring lands for industrial oil palm plantations in Africa. But the updated data set shows that many of these small and inexperienced operators have disappeared. Today, the expansion of industrial oil palm plantations in Africa is dominated by a handful of large, multinational companies. Just five companies control about three-quarters of the planted, industrial oil palm plantation area on the continent (see Table 1).

Some of these companies are big Southeast Asian oil palm plantation companies, such as Sime Darby, Golden Agri, KLK, Salim Group, and Olam. Each of these companies have one major oil palm plantation project in Africa. Wilmar, which is based in Singapore, is the most active of the Southeast Asian oil palm plantation companies. It has oil palm plantation operations in five African countries (Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Uganda), with 83,714 ha planted.

The other key companies operating oil palm plantations in Africa are the old European colonial agribusiness companies. The two most important are SOCFIN of Luxembourg and SIAT of Belgium. Both of these companies have built their plantation empires upon the ruins of a World Bank programme to construct oil palm and rubber plantations across several countries in West and Central Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. That programme was carried out in close collaboration with SOCFIN’s consulting firm, SOCFINCO. SIAT’s founder and co-owner was a member of the SOCFINCO team at the time.

Under this World Bank programme, SOCFINCO oversaw the development of blueprints for national oil palm and rubber plantation programmes, helped identify the lands for conversions to industrial plantations, and was paid to manage the plantations and, in some cases, oversee the sales of the rubber and palm oil by the state plantation companies established through the programme (see box: The World Bank and SOCFIN/SIAT’s plantation projects in Nigeria). The World Bank provided loans to the African governments for these projects, and then, in the 1990s, with the state plantation companies deep in debt, it pushed for privatisation. SOCFIN and SIAT ended up with several of the most prized plantations.^⁵

Today SOCFIN and SIAT have a combined total of 123,336 hectares planted to oil palm plantations in Africa (91,081 ha for SOCFIN and 32,255 for SIAT). These two companies therefore control a quarter of all the large oil palm plantations on the continent.

Table 1. Top five oil palm plantations companies in Africa

Company	Area under oil palm plantations (ha)	Countries
SOCFIN (Luxembourg)	93,764*	Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, DRC, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Sao Tome e Principe, Sierra Leone
Wilmar (Singapore)	83,714**	Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Uganda
Olam (Singapore)	71,500	Gabon
SIAT (Belgium)	32,415	Ghana, Nigeria
Feronia (Canada)	23,500	DRC

* Includes plantations owned by SOGUIPAH in Guinea.

**Includes plantations owned by SIFCA in Liberia. Wilmar owns 27% of SIFCA.

The World Bank remains an important actor in driving the expansion of industrial oil palm plantations in Africa, particularly through its International Finance Corporation. But it is not the only development bank active in this area. There are numerous development finance institutions (DFIs) that are involved in corporate oil palm plantations in Africa. Most of them are from European countries, but there are also DFIs from the US and China that are involved, as well as several African-based development banks, such as the African Development Bank and the West African Development Bank. Often the DFIs channel their money into plantation companies through private equity funds that are based in offshore tax havens, such as the African Agricultural Fund in Mauritius, which has shares in Goldtree (Sierra Leone) and Feronia (DR Congo).

Typically these DFIs provide loans to oil palm plantation companies on favourable terms. In some cases, they have provided support at the outset of the project, while in other cases they have stepped in to enable a company to expand its plantations or to keep it from going bankrupt. In certain cases, DFIs have even acquired shares in plantation companies and have taken seats on their boards of directors, such as with Feronia Inc in the DR Congo and Goldtree in Sierra Leone, in which DFIs now constitute the companies’ majority owners.

It is likely that without the current and historical involvement of the World Bank and other DFIs, many of the industrial oil palm plantations that exist in Africa today would never have gotten off the ground. For those of us working to stop palm oil companies from grabbing lands, it is thus important to keep pressuring DFIs to stop funding these industrial plantations.

Resisting the land grab

There are at least 27 large scale oil palm plantation projects reported or announced over the past decade that were abandoned or have failed. Numerous other projects have been scaled back or have stalled. These projects were supposed to transform over 3.1 million ha of land into industrial plantations, but they have not come near to this figure.

One reason for this failure is that many of the projects were led by companies with little or no previous experience with large scale agriculture. Some of these companies simply wanted to profit on the rush for farmland in Africa, and most were interested in securing leases or concessions over large areas of land that they could then sell to another company after making minor investments in operations or no investments at all. Other companies, such as China’s ZTE in the DR Congo, the Singapore-based Siva Group in Cameroon and Sierra Leone or India’s Karuturi in Ethiopia, lacked the capacity to carry out the projects they had embarked upon.

But a more important explanation for the difficulties that companies have had in pushing through on their projects is the resistance that they encountered from affected communities and groups supporting these communities. Protests by villagers in the Rufiji District of Tanzania killed a 20,000 ha industrial oil palm plantation project by the British company African Green Oil Ltd.^⁶ An intense struggle by communities in southwestern Cameroon, supported by community organisations and national and international groups, forced the government to scale back the concession it granted to US firm Herakles Farms from 73,000 ha to less than 20,000 ha. Ultimately the US company backing the venture pulled out, and the new investors have been unable to move ahead with the project.^⁷

Other villagers in Cameroon have stopped the expansion of Pamol’s plantations or are fighting protracted battles to get their lands back and stop the expansion of SOCFIN’s subsidiary Socapalm.^⁸

In Liberia, the Joegbahn clan stopped the UK company Equatorial Palm Oil, now owned by one of the largest oil palm plantation companies in the world, from taking their lands for plantations, despite the government having provided these lands to the company under a concession agreement.^⁹ The other major palm oil companies operating in Liberia are also coming up against fierce resistance from villagers and their partner organisations, as they try to carry out their industrial plantation plans.^¹⁰

Land conflicts are costly for companies. The fact that so many industrial oil palm plantation projects in Africa are embroiled in land conflicts has the effect of discouraging companies from pursuing investments. The resistance to Herakles Farms, for instance, surely influenced the decisions of the international food corporations Cargill and Sime Darby to pull back from pursuing oil palm plantations in Cameroon. The international criticism of development banks for their funding of Feronia’s plantations in the DR Congo has likely caused them to refuse funding for other industrial oil palm plantation projects in Africa. While there is no way for us to say for sure which projects or how many projects were shelved because of risks of land conflicts or local resistance, we do know from our experience in different struggles that resistance is having a big impact on their decisions and capacity to move industrial plantation projects forward.

The final chapter for industrial oil palm plantations in Africa

West and Central Africa are the origins of the oil palm. It is deeply embedded in the culture and history of most countries in the region– providing not only an important source of cooking oil to many, many generations of communities, but also beverages, animal feed, textiles, building materials, medicines and all kinds of spiritual and ceremonial uses.^¹¹ The local production of palm oil was thriving until it was brutally interrupted by a colonial occupation in which much of the region’s oil palm forest groves were put at the service of foreign companies and huge areas of lands were violently taken over to make way for the world’s first large-scale oil palm plantations.

The European colonial rulers selected from the diverse African palms and, with the same brutal force, established massive oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia. The cheap palm oil produced on these plantations, with virtual slave labour, would eventually be shipped back to Africa, turning a region that once had no problem to produce surpluses of palm oil, into a major importer.

The post-colonial period was not much better for communities in the region. Through the cover of the World Bank’s African plantation programmes of the 1970s and 1980s, the old colonial plantation companies were able to re-establish their presence in the region (see box: The World Bank and SOCFIN/SIAT’s plantation projects in Nigeria). In fact, because the oil palm plantation expansion during these years was led by parastatal companies claiming to act in the national interest, the companies could rely on governments to use Presidential decrees and the brute force of the army to displace people from the best lands for oil palm cultivation. The African governments also used public money to pay for this expansion, by way of loans from the World Bank, and then handed the plantations over to foreign companies in the 1990s and 2000s, through the privatisation processes forced upon them by the World Bank, as part of so-called structural adjustment programmes.

Box: The World Bank and SOCFIN/SIAT’s plantation projects in Nigeria

The World Bank pursued a programme to develop large-scale palm oil production in Nigeria in the 1970s and 1980s with the Nigerian government. This programme, financed by multi-million dollar loans from the World Bank and other development banks and ultimately paid for by the Nigerian public, was drawn up and executed by SOCFINCO, a consultancy firm created by the Belgian colonial plantation company SOCFIN, in association with the Dutch company HVA. The person leading SOCFINCO’s operations in Nigeria was the founder of SIAT, Pierre Vandebeeck. From 1974 to the end of the 1980s, SOCFINCO crafted master plans for at least 7 World Bank-backed oil palm projects in 5 different states. Each project involved the creation of a parastatal company that would both take over the state’s existing plantations and develop new plantations and palm oil mills as well as large-scale outgrower schemes.

SOCFINCO was then hired, with lucrative management fees, to handle the project management. All of the projects generated enduring land conflicts with local communities, such as with the Oghareki community in Delta State or the villagers of Egbeda in Rivers State. After dispossessing numerous communities from their lands and incurring huge losses for the Nigerian government, the parastatal companies were then privatised, with the more valuable of the plantation assets ending up in the hands of SOCFIN or SIAT, which Vandebeeck formed in 1991 to take over the plantations of the Oil Palm Company Ltd of Bendel State (now divided into Edo State and Delta State). These plantations are now operated by SIAT’s Nigerian subsidiary Presco. In 2011, another SIAT subsidiary in Nigeria, SIAT Nigeria Limited, acquired the 16,000 ha of plantations of the Rivers State palm oil company, Risonpalm, which Vandebeek, as staff of SOCFINCO, had overseen as plantation manager during the World Bank programme from 1978-1983.

SOCFIN, for its part, took over the oil palm plantations in the Okomu area that were developed under the World Bank programme. It was SOCFINCO that first identified this area for plantation development as part of the appraisal study it was hired to undertake in 1974. The Okomu Oil Palm Company Plc. (OOPC) was subsequently established as a parastatal company in 1976 and 15,580 ha of land within the Okomu Forest Reserve of Edo State was de-reserved and taken from the local communities to make way for oil palm plantations. The company hired SOCFINCO as the managing agent to oversee its activities from 1976-1990. Reports vary, but at some point between 1986 and 1990, OOPC was then divested to SOCFIIN’s subsidiary Indufina Luxembourg.^¹²

The new wave of industrial oil palm plantations that has taken place in Africa over the past 15 years is built, quite literally, on the back of this brutal history. The majority of recent industrial oil palm projects that are being implemented involve old concessions, abandoned plantations and long simmering land conflicts.

For communities across African countries, today’s industrial oil palm plantation projects are experienced as another round of colonial occupation.^¹³ Their lands are being taken from them, often by force, without consultation or consent. The industrial plantations destroy their forests and local biodiversity and pollute their water sources. They lose access to lands to grow food as well as their traditional palm groves, and they are forbidden from producing their own palm oil. The companies are only able to produce palm oil for cheap because the labour conditions on their plantations are so bad, often even worse than they were in colonial times, with wages, when they are paid, not covering basic living expenses and the vast majority of jobs being for daily labourers, with no job security. There are barely any social investments, such as schools, clinics and infrastructures, that might provide some compensation– and villagers rarely see any of the rental payments that companies claim to make.

Much like under the colonial period, villagers living in and around the concession areas are constantly harassed and beaten by company security guards who accuse them of stealing palm fruits from the company plantations. Opponents of the company are also routinely beaten, arrested and intimidated, and sometimes even killed. But it is women who suffer the most, and almost always in silence. The level of sexual violence faced by women living around the plantations or working at the plantations is generally horrific.^¹⁴

Yet today’s agrocolonialism is nevertheless cloaked in the story of a mission to help Africa, just as it was during the colonial period. All of the companies claim to be “responsible investors”, with several adhering to the principles of the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and making ‘zero deforestation’ pledges. Although the RSPO certification criteria cannot be considered sustainable, since it promotes industrial plantations, it is interesting to see how few of these companies have achieved RSPO certification for their industrial plantations in African countries. Only 9 of the 52 large scale oil palm plantations in operation in Africa have RSPO certification.

Most of the corporate plantation projects include outgrower schemes, where the companies organise local smallholders to supply them with oil palm fruits. Sometimes, companies lure farmers into these programmes by providing seedlings and promising that such schemes are a way for villagers to ‘get rich quickly’. These programmes are sometimes written into the concession agreements with the government and companies often receive funding from African governments, UN institutions, donors or development banks for these outgrower or smallholder programmes. In several cases, the schemes are carried out with the collaboration of NGOs. Some outgrower schemes have existed for decades, and were established through the World Bank funded industrial oil palm programmes of the 1970s and 1980s. This is the case in Ghana, where the area under outgrower schemes is larger than the area under industrial plantations.^¹⁵ In most recent cases, however, these outgrower schemes are not the priority for the companies, and the companies channel far more of their resources into their own company plantations, for which they can maintain stricter control over production.

Olam, for example, established a joint venture company with the Gabon government to develop ‘outgrower’ programmes in nine provinces to allegedly support the country’s food security. The programme, called GRAINE, is supposed to develop smallholder plantations of oil palms and other crops covering 200,000 ha and involving 1,600 villages by 2020. Yet, by the end of 2017, the joint venture had invested $40 million in the GRAINE programme, in contrast with the $643 million that Olam’s plantation company spent on its own industrial plantations. Moreover, rather than increase food production, the GRAINE programme had instead devoted the funding it received from the African Development Bank to the development of a large oil palm plantation on a 30,000 ha concession in the savannah zone at Ndendé in Ngounié province.^¹⁶ A recent report indicated that this GRAINE oil palm plantation may now be handed over to Olam’s plantation company!^¹⁷

Where companies are actually implementing outgrower programmes or maintaining the smallholder schemes initiated by the previous plantation owners, the results are not much better. The villagers participating in these programmes have to cultivate industrial oil palms exclusively on part or on all of their lands and must produce exclusively for the company. The company sets the terms of the contract and determines the prices that are paid. Experience shows that the companies typically fix the contracts to guarantee their profits, while the villagers end up in debt at the end of each year. The villagers also sacrifice lands that they could have used to produce food for their families and communities.

Corporate oil palm projects are clearly a disaster for the local communities where they are based. The number of failed projects and the losses incurred by many active plantation companies at their operations in Africa seem to indicate that the companies are not profiting much either. But this does not mean that the main people behind these companies do not profit. The executives and directors of loss making oil palm plantation companies always ensure that they are paid handsomely, through salaries, bonuses, share options and all kinds of “service fees” or exaggerated expenses that they charge to the companies. While a company like Feronia Inc, which is heavily financed by development banks, complains of not being able to pay its workers even the legal minimum wage or to build decent health clinics within its concession in the DR Congo, its top executives received over $2 million in salaries and share options in 2017.^¹⁸ Moreover, when there are (declared) profits, such as with some of the SOCFIN owned plantation companies in Africa, most of the profits are distributed to the shareholders, and are not used to improve the wages of its workers or to construct the social projects that were promised to communities.^¹⁹

Turning the page

The experience with this latest wave of industrial oil palm plantations in Africa makes it clear that this model of corporate agriculture is totally inappropriate and ineffective for the continent. Villagers in many parts of the region have a long history of cultivating oil palms and producing palm oil without the involvement of big companies, and women are usually the main actors in these small scale systems. Today, smallholders in African countries, supplying small-scale mills, account for the vast majority of palm oil that is produced on the continent, and they are far more capable of expanding production to meet the growing local demand, if they have access to lands and markets.^²⁰ They also produce a palm oil that is of higher quality and more suited to local food cultures, whereas the industrial plantations produce a highly-refined palm oil designed for industrial uses, including unhealthy, ultra-processed foods and biofuels.

Despite all the support they get from governments, banks and donors, the plantations of the big palm oil companies still account for only 10% of the total harvested area of oil palms in Africa.^²¹ Most of the palm oil that the big companies sell in Africa is imported from Malaysia and Indonesia and this cheap, low quality palm oil undercuts the local markets for the higher-quality traditional palm oil supplied by small-scale producers.

It is the history of diverse small scale production that needs to be the foundation for the future of palm oil production on the continent. Communities do not need companies to manage their lands and to produce palm oil. As we have seen over the past decades, companies only drain the profits to far away places and their model of production leaves nothing but misery and pollution for local people.

For all of these reasons, there needs to be an immediate ban on all future, large-scale oil palm plantation projects and a halt to those currently being implemented. Where large-scale plantations already exist, the lands must be returned to the control of the local communities, who can then develop a vision for how they want to utilise and organise these lands, now and into the future. The concession agreements governments have signed with companies, most of which are in violation of the law and the rights of the local communities, must be scrapped.

It is time to turn the page on colonial plantations in Africa, and put oil palms back into the hands of communities!

1 GRAIN, “The global farmland grab in 2016: how big, how bad?”, June 2016: https://www.grain.org/e/5492

2 The exception is the company Africa Palm Corp which claims to have secured agreements with Guinea-Bissau, Republic of the Congo, Togo and Ghana covering 5 million hectares. There is little evidence, however, to indicate that this company will be able to move forward with these projects.

3 This comprises the plantation areas developed/replanted by Pamol, Nana Bouba Group, Palme d’Or, Agro Panorama, DekelOil, Feronia, Blattner, Volta Red, Olam, Golden Agri, KLK, SIFCA (Liberia), Sime Darby, Goldtree, Kalyan Agrovet and IDC, as well as the expanded/replanted areas by SOCFIN (27,980 ha), Wilmar (27,231 ha), SIAT (8,605 ha).

4 Earthsight, “The Coming Storm,” March 2018: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/624187_3b22354dff0843789fc440cb4674caaf.pdf

5 SOCFIN and SIAT acquired plantations that were developed and or privatised by way of World Bank programmes in Cameroon (Socapalm), Côte d’Ivoire (SOGB), Gabon (Agrogabon, now owned by Olam), Ghana (GOPDC and SIPL) and Nigeria (Presco, SIAT Nigeria, and Okomu).

6 Kizito Makoye, “Tanzanian Farmers Crack the Code for Fighting Land Grabs” MSN, November 2018: https://www.msn.com/en-xl/africa/life-arts/tanzanian-farmers-crack-the-code-for-fighting-land-grabs/ar-BBPDXXv

7 WRM, “Palm oil concessions for logging: the case of Herakles Farms in Cameroon,” September 2015: https://wrm.org.uy/articles-from-the-wrm-bulletin/section1/palm-oil-concessions-for-logging-the-case-of-herakles-farms-in-cameroon/

8 Fern, .Speaking truth to power: the village women taking on the palm oil giant,” September 2018: https://www.fern.org/news-resources/speaking-truth-to-power-the-village-women-taking-on-the-palm-oil-giant-45/

9 Silas Kpanan’Ayoung Siakor and Jacinta Fay, “When our land is free, we’re all free,” Synchronicity Earth, https://www.synchronicityearth.org/when-our-land-is-free-were-all-free/

10 Ashoka Mukpo, “‘We come from the earth’: Q&A with Goldman Prize winner Alfred Brownell”, Mongabay, June 2019: https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/we-come-from-the-earth-qa-with-goldman-prize-winner-alfred-brownell/

11 GRAIN, “Planet palm oil: peasants pay the price for cheap vegetable oil”, September 2014: https://grain.org/e/5031

12 Much of the information from the period of the World Bank programme is derived from the World Bank archives (http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/506921468098056629/pdf/multi-page.pdf; http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/735641468915257440/text/multi0page.txt; http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/328231468082133313/text/multi-page.txt; http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/735641468915257440/text/multi0page.txt; http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/477341468075533881/pdf/multi-page.pdf). See also Emmanuel Okachukwu A. Omah, “Public Enterprises and Community Development in Rivers State: A case study of Risonpalm Limited,” June 2002: https://oer.unn.edu.ng/download/public-enterprises-and-community-development-in-rivers-state-a-case-study-of-risonpalm-limited; Nwizugbe Obiageri Ezenwa, “Corporate Community Crisis in Nigeria; Case Study of Presco Industries Ltd and Oghareki Community,” IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science, March 2014: http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jhss/papers/Vol19-issue3/Version-7/J019378289.pdf; and documentation from the evaluations of Okomu’s extension plans from 2016 conducted by Proforest and Foremost Development Services Limited.

13 World Rainforest Movement, GRAIN and an Alliance of community and local organisations united against industrial oil palm plantations in West and Central Africa, “Booklet: 12 tactics palm oil companies use to grab community land’ April 2019: https://grain.org/e/6171

14 RADD, Muyissi Environnment, Natural Resource Women Platform, Culture Radio, GRAIN, WRM, “Breaking the Silence: Violence against women in and around industrial oil palm and rubber plantations,” https://wrm.org.uy/all-campaigns/breaking-the-silence-violence-against-women-in-and-around-industrial-oil-palm-and-rubber-plantations/

15 Kwabena Ofosu-BUDU and Daniel Bruce SARPONG, “Oil palm industry growth in Africa: A value chain and smallholders’ study for Ghana,” Chapter 11, FAO: http://www.fao.org/3/i3222e/i3222e11.pdf

16 RADD, SEFE, YETHIO, SYNAPARCAM, GRAIN and WRM, “The seed of despair: communities lose their land and water sources due to OLAM’s agribusiness in Gabon,” 11 July 2017, https://grain.org/e/5755

17 “Gabon: la gestion du projet Graine cédée à la CDC,” Gabon Media Time, Novembre 2018: https://pmepmimagazine.info/gabon-la-gestion-du-projet-graine-cedee-a-la-cdc/

18 According to Feronia Inc’s annual report for 2017, available here: https://www.sedar.com

19 See Socfinaf’s 2018 annual report: https://www.socfin.com/sites/default/files/2019-04/Rapport%20annuel%20-%20Socfinaf%282018%29.pdf

20 Ordway, Elsa M et al. “Oil palm expansion and deforestation in Southwest Cameroon associated with proliferation of informal mills.” Nature communications vol. 10,1 114. 10 January 2019: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6328567/

21 According to FAOSTAT, the total harvested area in Africa in 2017 is 4,578,074 ha.

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FARM NEWS

Farmers count losses as dry spell scorches maize gardens

Published

5 days ago

July 22, 2024

witnessradio.org

Many farmers say they had borrowed money from banks and Saccos

During the first planting season, which usually kicks off in March, many farmers had hoped for a bumper harvest.

However, the unrelenting dry spell in some parts of the country has withered the crops, resulting in poor food harvests mainly maize and beans.

Although some districts received rains last week, many farmers, especially those growing maize and groundnuts, are counting losses after several acres of the crops got scorched by sunshine.

In the central region, the most affected are farmers in the districts of Nakasongola, Kiboga, Kayunga, Mubende, Kyankwanzi, Gomba, and parts of Rakai.

In Nakasongola District, the most affected sub-counties include; Nabiswera, Wabinyonyi, Kalungi, and Kalongo where farmers now stare at eminent hunger and lost cash invested in their respective gardens.

In Mulonzi Parish, Nabiswera Sub-county, Mr Simon Male has lost 35 acres of maize.

“I grow maize on a commercial scale, but my entire garden is scorched by the hot sun. I have lost the hope of harvesting any grains from this particular season. I did not anticipate the hot sun. Part of the money invested in my agriculture projects is from the loans,” he says.

Mr Ali Kisekka, a maize farmer and chairperson of Kabulasoke Sub-county in Gomba District, says all his 30-acre maize plantation withered two months after germination (between March and April).

“I spent money on renting the land, labour, purchase of seeds, and other inputs, amounting to Shs6m. Unfortunately, the rain did not come in sufficient amounts,” he says.

“Almost 50 percent of farmers in my sub-county are counting losses. We are now praying for the next season,” he adds.

Irreparable damage

Mr Emma Kintu, another farmer in Kabulasoke, says: “The damage has already been caused and we cannot save anything even if we get rain now, we are going to cut the maize and use it for mulching.”

Mr Samuel Muwata, a produce dealer in Kampala’s Kisenyi suburb, says the poor maize harvest may cause a spike in maize flour prices as was the case last year.

“The demand [for maize ] is increasingly high, and if there is no importation of maize from countries like Tanzania, there will be shortage which will cause prices to increase possibly in August or at the beginning of September when schools open for Third Term,” he says.

Currently, a kilo of maize grains costs between Shs800 and Shs1000, down from Shs500 a month ago while maize flour (corn) is between Shs1,800 and Shs2,000, down from Shs1,500.

Mr Augustine Wafula, a farmer in Busabana Village, Lunyo Sub-county, Busia District, says he only harvested four acres of maize from his five-acre garden. “I got a bank loan to plant five acres of maize, but ended up harvesting only four bags,” he says.

Mr Wafula’s loss has dealt a huge blow to his marketing prospects, especially in Kenya, which is a good destination for maize from Sofia and Marachi markets in Busia Municipality.

Because of the relatively good market for cereals in Kenya, several Ugandans were forced to rent land to plant maize. Unfortunately, the weather has left most of them counting losses.

Mr Anatoli Kizza, a farmer in Kiyindi Village, Buikwe District, says he used to supply schools with maize grains, but since the beginning of the year, he had not planted any because of the dry season.

“I tried to purchase the maize grains locally, but they could not reach the kilogrammes desired by the schools,” Mr Kizza says, adding that the dry spell is a result of abuse of the environment, including deforestation and encroachment on wetlands.

In Bugiri District, Mr Imani Mumbya, a groundnuts farmer in Isegero Village, Nabukalu Town Council, says he harvested nothing after planting the crop in his five-acre garden last season [August to December 2023] due to the unpredictable weather pattern, which was characterised by scorching sunshine.

Abrupt weather change

Mr Mumbya says following the first rains in January, he rushed to plant groundnuts. However, the rains abruptly stopped before the seeds barely sprouted.

He adds that because few seedlings sprouted, he cleared the garden in preparation for the second rains in April, which lasted until the end of May and helped the seedlings to sprout.

“But before the groundnuts could spend their entire 86-day period to mature, another drought came which prevented me from harvesting,” Mr Mumbya further explains, describing it as “the worst season during the 10 years he has been a farmer”. Mr Aloysious Kizito, a renowned farmer in Bbugo Village, Kyotera District, says maize harvests in the area have been too low as compared to last season which has reduced farmers’ expected returns on invested funds.

Although this area previously received heavy rains, Mr Kizito believes it was not evenly spread throughout the whole season, which led to poor harvests.

“We received heavy rains for two and half months yet most seasonal crops take three to four months to completely mature,” he says.

The most affected seasonal crops are maize, soya beans, peas, and Gnuts, which is likely to result in food shortages in the coming months.

Mr Abdul Birungi, a cereal farmer in Lubumba Village, Kyotera District, says although he reaped seven tonnes of maize last season from his seven-acre garden, this season he got only one tonne .

He attributes the poor harvests to what he describes as misleading messages issued by experts from the Uganda National Meteorological Authority (UNMA) which warned farmers against planting crops in January and early February.

“I wanted to plant in early January, but changed my mind upon getting their [UNMA] advice, I feel puzzled because those that didn’t go with their advice in our area at least got good harvests,” he says.

But Ms Lillian Nkwenge, the UNMA principal public relations officer, says many farmers always fail to follow their forecasts as issued and end up blaming the Authority.

“The country is not expected to have major changes in the usual rainfall patterns this year. Most parts of Uganda normally have two rainfall seasons separated by dry season. So , we hope to get the second wet season in early September,’’ she says.

Weighing options

In Teso Sub-region where farmers have for decades relied on rain-fed farming, they have started having a discourse on how to wholly revert to livestock or continue to depend on crop farming which continues to be affected by the erratic rainfall pattern.

The call to revert to livestock farming comes amid yet another failed crop harvest.

Mr John William Ejiet, the Kapelebyong District production officer, says when farms were at a critical stage of flowering, the drought again set in, leaving hundreds of farmers dejected.

He says now is the time for farners to invest in micro-scale irrigation.

“Whereas there are small grants for small irrigation from the government for farmers, the rate of adoption is still low yet we are at a critical moment when we need to adapt to new farming techniques other than the rain-fed farming which is no longer reliable,” Mr Ejiet says

Ms Joyce Akwii, a resident of Omodoi in Ocokican Sub-county, Soroti District, says she invested more than Shs3m in crop farming but got less than Shs500,000.

“I have resolved that come next year, my five acres of land that I have been using for crop farming will be turned into a goat and sheep farm,” Ms Akwii explains.

Last resort

Mr Mike Odongo, the chairperson of Ngora District, says for farmers to have a win -win situation, it is high time that they invested in both livestock and crop farming,.

“The goats and sheep can scavenge in the harsh environment,” Mr Odongo reasons.

He says the once good environment that defined Teso has heavily been depleted and it is one of the reasons for the altered rainfall patterns.

“There is a need for soul searching among people of Teso, and deliberately focus on a greening campaign like we have started in Ngora with over 20,000 trees donated by Roofings Group and Centenary Bank. This is one of the mechanisms that may enable farmers to manage to retain water in the soil,” the district chairperson advises.

Mr Stephen Ochola, the Serere District chairperson, says the ultimate answers lie in livestock farming.

“If you can’t find Shs10m in growing cereal crops, you can find that in only three fattened animals and you will readily be able to have your children at university,” he says.

Contradiction

While agriculture is the backbone of Uganda’s economy and employs more than 70 percent of the population, most farmers practice it without any training, something that has limited their opportunities of transitioning to large-scale merchandised commercial agriculture. In the new budget (2024/25 budget), the government reduced the allocation to the sector by 37 percent from Shs1 trillion last year to only Shs644.39b. This budget allocation is already far below the required 10 percent allocation to the sector agreed under the 2003 Malabo declaration.

Original Source: Monitor

FARM NEWS

Strengthening Small-Scale Farming in Uganda through Farmer Field Schools.

Published

2 weeks ago

July 16, 2024

witnessradio.org

By Witness Radio and ESSAF teams.

In Uganda, the shortage of desired and high-quality plant genetic resources remains a barrier to small-scale agriculture and threatens food and nutritional security, yet small-scale farmers are known for being the highest producers of the world’s food.

Indigenous seeds are vital for ensuring food and nutrition security and play a crucial role in sustainable agriculture. Small-scale farmers rely on farm-saved seeds obtained through farmer-managed seed systems (FMSS).

On the 6th of June 2024, the Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers Forum (ESSAF-Uganda) organized a webinar to explore the impacts of participatory plant breeding using the farmer field schools on upholding the farmer-managed seed system in communities.

In this webinar, participants shared the impacts of Farmer Field Schools (FFS) on small-scale farmers’ access to and use of quality seeds and discussed existing opportunities for FFS to upscale their seed work, thereby enhancing farmers’ income and livelihoods.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, a Farmer Field School (FFS) is an approach based on people-centered learning offering space for hands-on group learning, enhancing skills for critical analysis, and improved decision-making by local people. FFS activities are field-based, and include experimentation to solve problems, reflecting a specific localized context.

According to Ms. Margaret Masudio Eberu, the National Vice Chairperson, ESAFF-Uganda Chapter, revealed that seeds have transformed into commercial proprietary resources due to technological advancements, market influences, and evolving legal systems forcing small-scale farmers to shift from active producers to passive consumers of industrial goods, including seeds, with modern agricultural practices.

Please find the rebroadcast here:

FARM NEWS

National Coffee Forum Petitions Parliament Over UCDA Merger

Published

5 months ago

February 29, 2024

witnessradio.org

Coffee stakeholders through National Coffee Forum say UCDA merger will disrupt the coffee sub-sector. Coffee is one of the leading sources of foreign exchange for Uganda

Coffee stakeholders through the National Coffee Forum – Uganda (NCF – UG) has petitioned Parliament through the Speaker over the proposed mainstreaming of Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) into Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF)

The government plans to merge a number of Agencies to the line Ministries in a move aimed at saving about Shs1 trillion annually. If the move succeeds, UCDA will be taken to MAAIF.

However, coffee stakeholders through NCF – UG say that they find the proposal to take UCDA to MAAIF untenable and detrimental to the coffee sub-sector.

NCF-UG is a private foundation whose membership includes farmers, processors, exporters, roasters, brewers and researchers, among others.

The Forum Chairperson Francis Wakabi says that mainstreaming the entity will negatively affect the achievements Uganda has attained in coffee production and export.

“This decision will negatively affect our access to the international market and will stunt Uganda’s economic growth opportunities by distorting the functions of UCDA that have stabilized the industry over the years,” said Wakabi in a petition dated February 21, 2024. The petition was copied in to the Chairperson of Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries as well as all MPs.

He adds that Uganda should not risk its achievements by tampering with UDCA that is the main contributor to our coffee success story.

“Mainstreaming it would therefore disrupt the many livelihoods that depend on the industry and adversely affect the badly needed foreign exchange for the country,” the petition reads in part.

As a result of UCDA coffee regulation, Wakabi says that Uganda’s competitiveness was elevated on the global market, ensuring high quality Uganda coffee and enabling Uganda’s coffee to displace that of Brazil and India in Italy and UK coffee markets.

“… World over, coffee is supervised and regulated by a specialized body like UCDA for purposes of institutional memory and specialized focus. Experience from Ethiopia and Kenya who disbanded their specialized coffee authorities and mainstreamed them back into the relevant ministries had to reverse their decisions after registering negative outcomes,” said Wakabi.

The Forum further says that the European Union (EU) buys over 60% of Uganda coffee, making it the biggest market for Uganda.

“The EU has introduced a new regulation called the EU deforestation regulations (EUDR) which bans export of coffee from deforested land, taking effect from 2025. This calls for farmer traceability and the EU commission in Uganda is already working with UCDA to implement the said regulations. They require a country to constantly monitor deforested areas and map all the farmers for purposes of implementation of the farmer traceability program to maintain a high standard of quality. It was reported that Uganda has achieved most of the requirements under the EUDR and required a few steps to be declared compliant. Monitoring and implementing the scheme for the millions of farmers is a tedious activity which requires a specialized unit that can be best implemented using the already established structures of UCDA. Disrupting the current UCDA structure will not only halt the progress made in achieving compliance, but also risk reversing the gains made,” added Wakabi.

He avers that UCDA has been able to greatly contribute to Uganda’s improved Coffee quality through implementation of programs such as certification of Coffee nurseries to ensure quality of planting materials, Provision of Coffee specific extension services and agronomy to improve production and productivity, Provision of technical expertise in Coffee rehabilitation, post-harvest handling practices and pest and disease management and provision of coffee processing equipment like wet mills to farmers and cooperatives to improve quality and promote value addition. The coffee stakeholders are worried that once UCDA is taken to MAAIF which is loaded with many crops and projects, coffee, a key source of foreign exchange for Uganda may not get the necessary priority. Coffee stakeholders argue that if indeed Parliament is a people-centred institution, it should listen to the views of farmers and other stakeholders and retain UCDA as a semi-autonomous agency.

“Given the above position with the attendant reasons, the NCF advises that the proposed mainstreaming of UCDA into MAAIF should not be implemented and that the proposed Bill No. 30 (part VII) be dropped in order not to disrupt the industry and the progress made under the stewardship of UCDA. All coffee stakeholders are unanimously in agreement with this position,” reads the petition in part.

Source: businessfocus.co.ug