Landgrab-Japan | 20 December 2013

1. Overall Comment

The Concept Note (CN)¹ which was formulated by the ProSAVANA-PD and was announced on and dated September 2013, maintains the same concept of the ProSAVANA-PD’s Report No.2 (2013 March) prepared as a “blue print” for the Master Plan, a copy of which was obtained by civil society². However, due to recent international criticism, the presentation of agrobusiness participation and land acquisition within the project are now either evaded or treated in a hidden way. Instead, a strategy of “agricultural revolution” is proposed. This is described as “implementing the program of registering DUAT of the individual farmers, and demarcating and fixing the use right of the cultivated land, so as to clarify the area of unused land”. It is claimed that this portion of land will then induce agricultural investment, and such strategy forces the small scale farmers within the target area to transform their farming into a so-called “high-input high-productivity type of agriculture”. However, such a strategy of coercing small farmers to drastically transform their farming practices to a high-input type of agriculture is likely to subordinate them to agribusiness through one-sided contract farming or to lead to the loss of their lands.

http://www.farmlandgrab.org/post/view/22964#sthash.JpNeaY9S.dpuf