Af Linda Engström
Ikke en eneste af Tanzanias biobrændstof-virksomheder er funktionsdygtig, men mange marginaliserede bønder og hyrder har mistet adgang til deres land.
NAI researcher Linda Engström is in Tanzania to investigate biofuel investments. Many farmers and pastoralists have lost access to land, but not one of the biofuel companies is operational.
Information on large-scale biofuel investments in African countries is scarce and often contradictory. One thing we know with some certainty is that not a single large-scale biofuel investment in Tanzania is operational.
The trend is similar in other African countries such as Ghana, Zambia and Ethiopia. In Tanzania, a biofuel policy is now on its way. The question is whether it will be implemented.
However, one company that initially aimed to produce palm oil for biodiesel has temporarily switched to annual food crops and is planning to start large-scale production soon.
We are currently in western Tanzania on the shores of Lake Tanganyika to investigate the impacts of this investment on smallholder land access and food security.
The Belgian-Tanzanian company Felisa obtained the land in Kigoma district in 2007. It had from the outset sought general land managed by the state, rather than village land, which it associated with problems. A few years earlier, the land had been surveyed at the request of the Tanzania Investment Centre through the regional commissioner.
The purpose was to set aside land for the national land bank, to which large-scale agricultural investors can be directed. This is in line with international and national policies increasingly aimed at foreign investment and large-scale agricultural production. The land identified for the land bank belonged to a nearby village.
The village border was moved so that the only permanent river is now outside village land, and a village area of 7,700 hectares was cut off for the land bank, nearly 50 per cent of total village land. Felisa now leases 4,258 hectares of that land on a 99 year contract.
The actors we meet have different opinions on how, when, where, why and even whether the steps in this process were taken. These steps include land survey for a village land certificate, the survey for the national land bank, meetings between different actors, evictions from company land, court cases, bribes to village chairs, climate change, etc. It is very difficult to know what really has happened.
Læs hele artiklen her: http://www.nai.uu.se/news/articles/2013/04/17/111904/index.xml
Linda Engström forsker i landovertagelser og biobrændstof ved Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.
Kilde: Nyhedsbrev fra Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, April 2013.
