Rural Land Struggles

Cinta-larga tribe

Headlines around the world this week again brought attention to the impacts of dams in the Amazon on indigenous people. But this time the culprit wasn’t the monstrous Belo Monte Dam planned for the Xingu River, but a smaller dam being built on the Aripuanã river in the state of Mato Grosso. The issue highlights the heightened tensions between indigenous people in the Amazon and those who seek to exploit the area’s natural resources.

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Investidores em terras agrícolas estão visando países com leis frágeis, comprando terra arável por uma ninharia e deixando de cumprir promessas de geração de empregos e investimentos, de acordo com a...

US Social Forum, Detroit, 2010

Over a half-century ago, Mahatma Gandhi led a multitude of Indians to the sea to make salt—in defiance of the British Empire’s monopoly on this resource critical to people’s diet. The action catalyzed the fragmented movement for Indian independence and was the beginning of the end for Britain’s rule over India. The act of “making salt” has since been repeated many times in many forms by people’s movements seeking liberation, justice and sovereignty: Cesar Chavez, Nelson Mandela, and the Zapatistas are just a few of the most prominent examples. Our food movement— one that spans the globe—seeks food sovereignty from the monopolies that dominate our food systems with the complicity of our governments. We are powerful, creative, committed and diverse. It is our time to make salt.

The report is due for publication next month, but leaks are already getting out, and causing a stir among Brussels’ huge development activist community.

Public opinion is clearly against the Crafar farms sale on the basis that NZ is "selling the farm", while selling a controlling stake in a processing plant is seen as another issue altogether. There...

The Federal Opposition is supporting a call for a national register of foreign purchases of land and water in rural Australia.

The agenda is currently under development and will be finalized by late August.

This page will be updated as more information becomes available.

• Here is the current Draft Meeting Schedule.
• Here is the current Draft Workshop Plan. 

August 2010 will be three years after hundreds of families forcefully settled themselves in the plantation land at Chengara, which is otherwise illegally occupied by the Harrison's Plantations. A visit to Chengara in June 2010, in a reasonably 'peaceful' time, have been a very interesting experience revealing the efforts and continuing struggle by the people there who refuse to give up with the relentless hard work and incomparable political will.

The agreement reached by the leadership of the Sadhu Jana Vimochana Samyuktha Vedi (SJVSV) with the government on the 5th October 2009 stipulates that 1432 of the 1738 families who occupied the estate land at Chengara would be given land and assistance for house construction. The 27 landless Scheduled Tribe families will get on acre of land each and Rs.1.25 lakhs each to build houses. Landless scheduled caste families, 832 in number will get 75 cents of land and Rs. 1 lakh each. Others numbering 48 would get 25 cents of land each along with Rs.75000/-as housing assistance. The same kind of benefits would be extended to 525 families who own less than five cents of land. The land was to be made available to the beneficiaries within 3 months. However, this agreement has not been materialized yet. In this context, since there is absolute silence from the Government on the implementation of the agreement, people continue their life and work at the struggle site with tremendous determination.

The most important and striking factor of change at the struggle site is the growing agricultural activity and an increased attachment to land. Our initial visits and the recent one is markedly different for two reasons: one, the threat of police action is less for the time being, surely a temporary retreat by the state; two, the scene of aged rubber trees as the only prominent vegetation around during the earlier visits is now intermittently filled with a variety of crops including banana, tapioca, yams of different varieties, sweet potatoes, taro, papaya etc. The only trouble they face with the crops is the attack by wild pigs which are many in number in and around the area and many have consistently lost their crops due to this. The aged rubber trees are also a problem since they block the sunlight and also consume more water from below, both of which affect the new crops. However, they have started tapping the rubber, as against their earlier decision, and that's added to their income at a minimal level.

Today, above ninety percent people at the site are engaged in agricultural activities. However, any yield from the existing crops to contribute enough for survival will still take time. So, a combination of outside work for daily earnings and agricultural work within the site is the existing option. Outside work remains necessary at least for one person in the family so that needs are met. Outside work include domestic work, construction work, factory work, etc. There are three or four small tea-shops inside the site. It is a marked change that many children are going to schools of nearby areas where earlier either they were denied admission or they could not reach in the absence of transportation facility. Though access to school is still a hurdle for some, things have certainly improved. Drinking water facility has also improved since they have rigged five small wells at the site.

In the last three years, 13 people from the site have died due to different medical reasons. Illnesses and accessibility to hospitals are still a major issue. Some of those who left the site did so due to health problems and among those who remain, some are suffering with serious health issues and its dangerous and risky for them to continue while others are constantly under the attack of contagious diseases like fever, diarrhea etc. The nearby hospitals refuse to provide medicines when the patients insist on giving their address as 'Chengara struggle site'. Moreover, the present Monsoon rains have hit them so badly that the tents are severely damaged and huge number of inhabitants affected by viral fever.

At the time of the occupation, the inhabitants had divided themselves into 6 wards/divisions (what they call as counters). At present, the numbers of wards are five and there is a 31-member committee, which has five conveners (however, unlike earlier there are less women in the leadership) who look into matters of helping with housing, health issues or any other disputes at the site. The overall number have certainly dwindled, the more determined have stayed back. In the context of the agreement with the government, more people are now trying to come to the site of the struggle. Around 30 people who tried to come back to the site got arrested recently. Now they are coming in smaller groups. The Chengara leadership expects that the forthcoming elections to the local bodies and later to the Kerala Assembly may provide some breathing space for the people at Chengara, as the government will find it difficult to use force now. No doubt, it is going to be a long-drawn out battle.

Chengara has been a land struggle of the landless and its has been one of the rare occasions in which people of many communities waged a united struggle led by the dalit community for access to agricultural land. There have been many attempts to divide this struggle both in the past and in the present. A demand for one acre of land has been brought down to an offer of 50 cents each by the authorities to the majority of dalits. The CPI (M) has been once again reiterating recently the supremacy of class against community identity. However, while the landless people at Chengara were united throughout the struggle in demanding equal share of land for everyone, the government's position in the agreement divided them into tribals, dalits, and others who can own I acre, 75cents or 25 cents. When the agreement was reached, Laha Gopalan, the leader of the SJVSV admitted that he was forced to compromise.

However, he said, 'we are accepting it, in the current circumstances'. In the absence of implementation of the agreement, the people at the struggle site have taken the initiative to divide the land into approximately 50 cents each to every family to start cultivation. One thing the leadership insists interestingly is that only those who wish to cultivate should stay. With great joy the people at Chengara showed us their the new crops and said they are ready to show the outside world their determined faith in land and their readiness to engage in meaningful farming. It's certainly a successful struggle, even though getting legal rights for the land is still a long way ahead. The state and the Harrisons should not be allowed to defeat this unique struggle.

Join the David Brower Center, International Rivers, and the Madera group for the closing reception of the photo exhibit Water, Rivers, and People / Agua Rios, y Pueblos.

Have a drink with us and join a tour of the photo exhibit led by International Rivers' Executive Director, Patrick McCully.

Reception begins at 5:30pm.
Photo tour begins at 6:15pm.

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The UK-based EPO has almost 170,000 ha of land suitable for sustainable crude palm oil cultivation and its aim is to be a 100,000 ha producer with output totalling 250,000 tonnes per annum.

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Arab nations are considering launching an ambitious strategy involving investment of nearly $65 billion in the next 20 years to expand their farming sector and ensure food for their fast-growing...

The Greens have called for a national register of foreign purchases of land and water in Australia.

Guyana investment agency is working with several investors who have interest in large projects for soybean, livestock, cattle and rice covering 70,000 acres in Pirara, Region 9.

Thailand’s commercial banks are increasingly lending to neighboring Mekong countries, including to hydropower projects in Laos. The dams that they have financed to date, namely Nam Theun 2, Nam Ngum 2, and the Theun-Hinboun Expansion Project, have all inadequately addressed social costs and environmental impacts. This paper finds that:

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Prime Minister John Key yesterday warned of other potential foreign buyers of large tracts of New Zealand farmland lining up behind the Hong Kong company bidding for the Crafar farms as his...

Hedge funds and bankers are buying everything from farmland to mines across the Global South. Mark L Thomas looks at how speculators here fuel exploitation half a world away

Afin de garantir leurs approvisionnements alimentaires et/ou énergétiques, de nombreux pays investissent dans des terres agricoles dans les pays en développement. Face à ce phénomène en pleine...

Investors in farmland are targeting countries with weak laws, buying arable land on the cheap and failing to deliver on promises of jobs and investments, according to the draft of a report by the...

Nearly two months ago, 600 farmers and Indigenous people came together in Puerto Princesa on Palawan Island to urge the Provincial government not to endorse the proposed mining plans of MacroAsia and Ipilan Nickel Corporation (INC). Thankfully, the government ended up agreeing with the protesters, at least in part, stating that there should be a [...]