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WITNESS RADIO MILESTONES

Understanding China’s foreign agriculture investments in the developing world

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Canberra — China’s investment in foreign agriculture totaled $26 billion in 2016, with investments in 100 countries. But this may just be the tip of the iceberg.

A new report released by the United States Department of Agriculture on April 24 draws from Chinese language speeches, reports, and other secondary sources to understand both the scale and purpose of foreign investment in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries.

Developing countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America were among China’s investment regions, with the investment types and goals differing for each.

“In our review of Chinese investments in agriculture in developing countries, we found that some are commercial ventures, while others are foreign aid projects,” Elizabeth Gooch, an economist for the Economic Research Service of the USDA, explained to Devex. “We also found that some ventures seem inclined to pursue both commercial gain and philanthropic motivations.”

A timeline of foreign agricultural investment

According to the report, both agricultural imports and exports began to rise dramatically from 2001, after China joined the World Trade Organization. Political support for a global agriculture policy in 2007 increased foreign agricultural investments further, as did a food security measure linked to the Belt and Road initiative in 2012.

“China’s general ‘going out’ or ‘go global’ strategy began in the 1990s, as an initiative to strengthen Chinese companies by encouraging them to move out from their home base and into global markets,” the report explained.

But for agriculture, the going global strategy was more than just cementing business opportunities for Chinese companies: Foreign investment in agriculture was strongly linked to food security concerns.

A national food security strategy was outlined for China in a five-year plan from 2006 to 2010. The plan advocated for the country to “go global” using China’s large labor resources to develop foreign land, water, and energy resources.

“The plan encouraged large-scale, competitive food conglomerates to produce grains, oilseeds, and sugar crops on rented land in South and North America and Africa and then to transport these crops back to China to balance supply and demand,” the report said.

The five-year plan helped boost foreign investment in farming, forestry, and fishing, which increased five times between 2010 and 2016, reaching almost $3.3 billion, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics.

The report suggests acquisition of foreign technology to improve agricultural productivity has become another important objective in China’s outward agricultural investment linked to food security in recent years — and is particularly evident in investments related to pork, agricultural trading, and farm input companies.

Investing in developing countries

In 2017, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce estimated agriculture, forestry, and fishing investment in Southeast Asia to be valued at $3.1 billion.

“Southeast Asia has a tropical climate suited to rubber, oil palm, and cassava,” the USDA report said. “It also has a large ethnic Chinese population — an attribute that facilitates business ties.”

Malaysia and Indonesia are key investment regions for palm oil. Cambodia has also been an important location since the 1990s, when the government began leasing out large tracts of land — or economic land concessions — to foreign investors for agricultural operations. The amount of farmland available for economic land concessions now nears 1 million hectares in total, and Chinese businesses are leasing 24 percent of this total. Key investments are rubber and lumber.

Yet foreign aid has also been important to investment across Southeast Asia. In Cambodia, research into the mechanization of cassava cultivation has been a part of China’s foreign aid spending, while in Laos, aid was used to support investment in rice, corn, sugarcane, rubber, tobacco, and tropical fruit.

Investment in Latin America, meanwhile, is more closely linked with food security according to USDA, as it is a “land-abundant region that supplies more than half of China’s soybean imports.” Sugar, grains, oilseeds, and livestock products are among China’s other imports from the region.

But despite it being an important region for imports, it has been a difficult region for Chinese companies to do business in, with the USDA saying only “10 of 17 major Chinese land acquisitions in Latin America were confirmed and under cultivation.”

In Africa, foreign aid and goodwill appear to be an important factor in agricultural investment. According to the USDA, Africa has been a focus for the receipt of technical assistance related to agriculture — as well as the construction of roads, ocean ports, airports, rail, and schools which aim to foster agricultural trade in the long term.

Currently, Africa represents 12 percent of China’s foreign agricultural investment, but the country receives 2 percent of food imports from the continent. Gooch could not comment, however, on whether Chinese investment was expected to lead to greater imports from the region.

“We cannot speculate about the future impacts of Chinese investments in Africa on African exports to China, but we can reiterate the main reason for the growth in overseas investment by China in agriculture is related to China’s growing dependence on food imports,” she said.

Yet the report also suggests that this investment “may be designed to build goodwill in African countries to create business opportunities for Chinese importers and contractors.”

Technical ability is an important asset element in the foreign agricultural investment made by China in the developing world to build goodwill. It began with the 1996 establishment of a rice farm in Cuba by the Xintian Group — a 5,000 hectare rice farm that produced food for local markets. It was followed by similar investments in Mexico.

China does not import rice from either country.

Hubei Provincial Seed Group and Yuan Long Ping High-Tech Agriculture Company are among other Chinese companies that have played an important role in exporting rice seeds to support China’s foreign aid projects in Southeast Asia and Africa.

And USDA believes that rice will also play an important role in the delivery of technical services through the Belt and Road initiative.

While there is large investment from China across the globe, USDA reports that the majority has been concentrated in neighboring areas of Southeast Asia and the Russian Far East — areas both accessible and with an abundance of land for Chinese businesses. It is expected this will grow with the Belt and Road initiative.

Shifting to mergers and acquisitions

The USDA report identified a new trend in China’s foreign agricultural investments — a shifting away from land purchases toward mergers and acquisitions.

For example, the state owned China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation is gaining more control over commodity trading, processing, and logistics. Another state-owned entity, Bright Foods, is working to assemble a variety of companies and brands under its roof, while the privately owned New Hope Group, an animal feed company, has established joint ventures with Australian and New Zealand to meet the demand for animal protein in China.

But despite this push, they are facing a number of barriers in this space because of differences in legal systems and governance, cultures and values — as well as negative perceptions of Chinese companies internationally.

The report states that the scale of China’s outbound agricultural investments “appears to be less than is often portrayed in global news media.” Still, it is growing rapidly.

“Chinese officials have ambitious strategic plans for agricultural investments to help reshape patterns of agricultural trade and increase China’s influence in global markets,” the report says.

Limitations to the study

The USDA report highlights the barriers that exist in understanding China’s focus role in developing countries and what their aid program achieves. It draws its information from secondary sources within China, including speeches, reports, and news media — a methodology that clearly has limitations.

“There are differences between reported figures and reality,” Gooch said. “We specify in our report that we include Chinese acquisitions of agribusinesses that work in the processing and distribution of agricultural commodities as part of ‘going global’ in agriculture, and these ventures are not defined as agricultural overseas investments according to the Chinese government.”

“We are uncertain about the percentage we missed but are certain that the investments we present in the paper are not all the investments that China has made.”

For many researchers, the hope is that the newly established State International Development Cooperation Agency will provide greater transparency on China’s investments internationally, including agricultural investments in the developing world.

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WITNESS RADIO MILESTONES

Uganda: Land-grab victim communities will join counterparts in commemorating the 2024 International Day of Struggle Against Industrial Plantations.

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By Witness Radio team.

On September 21, 2024, land-grabs communities under their group, the Informal Alliance for communities affected by irresponsible land-based investments in Uganda for the first will join fellow victims in commemorating the International Day of Struggle Against Industrial Plantations, highlighting the growing threat posed by large-scale monoculture plantations.

These industrial plantations have led to the forced eviction of millions of people across Uganda, displacing indigenous communities and stripping them of their land rights and livelihoods. Driven by multinational companies and government-backed investors, with the support of government and private security entities, these evictions prioritize profits over people.

Among the many Ugandan communities still suffering the devastating impact of monoculture plantations are over 30,000 people who were violently displaced from the Namwasa and Luwunga forest reserves between 2006 and 2010 to make way for the New Forests Company’s pine and eucalyptus plantations. In addition, thousands of local and indigenous communities were illegally evicted to make way for palm oil plantations in Kalangala district. Nearly 4,000 people had their land grabbed by the Formosa tree planting company in the Mubende district, and over 35,000 were displaced in Kiryandongo to make way for industrial agriculture to grow maize, soybean, and sugarcane plantations, among others. These and other affected communities united and formed the Informal Alliance for Victims affected by irresponsible land-based investments to defend their rights in early 2019.

The International Day of Struggle Against Industrial Plantations was first celebrated on September 21, 2004, during a community network meeting fighting against industrial tree plantations in Brazil. Since then, it has become a day when organizations, communities, and movements worldwide come together to celebrate resistance and raise their voices, demanding an end to the relentless expansion of industrial tree plantations.

In Uganda, on Saturday, September 21, the 2024 commemoration will start with a radio program in a local dilect (Luganda) purposely to highlight weird experiences faced by communities displaced by large-scale monoculture plantations, struggles for justice, and holding companies and financiers accountable. A one-hour radio program starting at 10 a.m. EAT will feature leaders of the loose alliance. Listen to the radio program on Witness Radio platforms on the website www.witnessradio.org or download the Witness Radio App on playstore.

Later, land-grab victims in Uganda will join their colleagues from Africa and other countries around the globe in a webinar meeting aimed at fostering organizations’ and rural communities’ connection across member countries and communities to build confidence, share experiences, strengthen our campaign to reignite hopes and forge a bond of understanding between the Informal Alliance and victim communities shattered by destructive plantations as well as deterring future plantations expansion.

The Webinar will start at 3PM EAT and will be aired live on Witness Radio platforms on the website www.witnessradio.org or download the Witness Radio App on playstore.

Please note: Both the radio show and Webinar will be live on Witness Radio on www.witnessradio.org or download the witness radio app on playstore to listen live.

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WITNESS RADIO MILESTONES

Uganda: CSOs claim Agilis Partners forcibly evicting local communities to pave way for agribusiness; company did not respond

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Witness Radio and its partners have alleged that thousands of people from local and Indigenous communities have been forcefully evicted from their land to make way for Agilis Partners Limited’s large-scale farming operations, in violation of international human rights law.

They have raised concerns about severe human rights abuses including forced evictions and lack of prompt, fair, and adequate compensation; violations of Indigenous peoples’ right to free, prior, and informed consent; abduction, arrest, torture, and judicial harassment of human rights defenders, and alleged sexual violence against women and girls, as well as other negative social and environmental impacts.

Witness Radio and its partners representing PAPs have written to Agilis Partners on several occasions seeking a dialogue between the company and people who have been harmed however, the company has not responded to their communications.

In a letter to Agilis Partners in June 2024, 36 civil society organizations called on Agilis Partners and its financial backers to take immediate action to stop the human rights abuses and harassment committed against community members, engage in dialogue with the communities, and restore the lands to the people that have been displaced.

We invited Agilis Partners to respond to the letter, the company did not respond.

Company Responses

Agilis Partners. No Response.

Source: business-humanrights.org

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DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS

Breaking: Witness Radio and Partners to Launch Human Rights Monitoring, Documentation, and Advocacy Project Tomorrow.

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By Witness Radio Team.

Witness Radio, in collaboration with Dan Church Aid (DCA) and the National Coalition for Human Rights Defenders (NCHRD), is set to launch the Monitoring, Documentation, and Advocacy for Human Rights in Uganda (MDA-HRU) project tomorrow, 22nd February 2024, at Kabalega Resort Hotel in Hoima District.

The project, funded by the European Union, aims to promote the protection and respect for human rights, and enable access to remedy where violations occur especially in the Mid-Western and Karamoja sub-regions where private sector actors are increasingly involved in land-based investments (LBIs) through improved documentation, and evidence-based advocacy.

The three-year project, which commenced in October 2023, focuses its activities in the Mid-Western sub-region, covering Bulisa, Hoima, Masindi, Kiryandongo, Kikuube, Kagadi, Kibale, and Mubende districts, and Karamoja sub-region, covering Moroto, Napak, Nakapiripirit, Amudat, Nabilatuk, Abim, Kaabong, Kotido, and Karenga districts.

The project targets individuals and groups at high risk of human rights violations, including Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) and Land and Environmental Defenders (LEDs). It also engages government duty bearers such as policymakers and implementers in relevant ministries and local governments, recognizing their crucial role in securing land and environmental rights. Additionally, the project involves officials from institutional duty bearers including the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC), Equal Opportunities Commission, and courts, among others.

Representatives from the international community, faith leaders, and business actors are also included in the project’s scope, particularly those involved in land-based investments (LBIs) impacting the environment.

The project was initially launched in Moroto for the Karamoja region on the 19th of this month with the leadership of the National Coalition for Human Rights Defenders (NCHRD).

According to the project implementors,  the action is organized into four activity packages aimed at; enhancing the capacity and skills of Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) and Land and Environmental Defenders (LEDs) in monitoring, documentation, reporting (MDR), and protection, establishing and reinforcing reporting and documentation mechanisms for advocacy and demand for corporate and government accountability;  providing response and support to HRDs and marginalized communities; and lastly facilitating collaboration and multi-stakeholder engagements that link local and national issues to national and international frameworks and spaces.

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