This 2012 Global Food Policy Report is the second in an annual series that provides an in-depth look at major food policy developments and events. Initiated in response to resurgent interest in food security, the series offers a yearly overview of the food policy developments that have contributed to or hindered progress in food and nutrition security. It reviews what happened in food policy and why, examines key challenges and opportunities, shares new evidence and knowledge, and highlights emerging issues.

This 2012 Global Food Policy Report is the second in an annual series that provides an in-depth look at major food policy developments and events. Initiated in response to resurgent interest in food security, the series offers a yearly overview of the food policy developments that have contributed to or hindered progress in food and nutrition security. It reviews what happened in food policy and why, examines key challenges and opportunities, shares new evidence and knowledge, and highlights emerging issues.

This 2012 Global Food Policy Report is the second in an annual series that provides an in-depth look at major food policy developments and events. Initiated in response to resurgent interest in food security, the series offers a yearly overview of the food policy developments that have contributed to or hindered progress in food and nutrition security. It reviews what happened in food policy and why, examines key challenges and opportunities, shares new evidence and knowledge, and highlights emerging issues.

This publication provides an overview of the findings of a review of land tenure security in Asia and the Pacific region in collaboration with key partners. It highlights the major land challenges, barriers and opportunities as the basis for future decisions about partnerships and engagement in the land sector at sub-regional and country level. The findings are based on an extensive literature review, interviews, a questionnaire, validation at several multi-stakeholder meetings and peer review.

This paper sets out how one crop – sugar – has been driving large- scale land acquisitions and land conflicts at the expense of small-scale food producers and their families. At least 4m hectares of land have been acquired for sugar production in 100 large-scale land deals since 2000, although given the lack of transparency around such deals, the area is likely to be much greater. In some cases, these acquisitions have been linked to human rights violations, loss of livelihoods, and hunger for small-scale food producers and their families.

Foreign investment in agriculture and extractive industries is increasing pressures on land and natural resources. This handbook is about how to use law to make foreign investment work for sustainable development. It aims to provide a rigorous yet accessible analysis of the law regulating foreign investment in low and middle-income countries – what this law is, how it works, and how to use it most effectively.

The responsible governance of land-based investments hinges not only on ensuring that new investments comply with guidelines and standards, but also that existing investments are conducted responsibly, and that related grievances are adequately addressed. Dealing with existing land-based investments and the grievances that they raise, however, can be difficult for host governments navigating a complicated landscape of legal obligations and pragmatic considerations.

Encroaching on Land and Livelihoods examines whether national expropriation laws in 30 countries across Asia and Africa follow the international standards established in Section 16 of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGTs). Section 16 of the VGGTs establishes standards on expropriation, compensation, and resettlement to ensure tenure security and responsible land governance. The UN Committee on World Food Security officially endorsed the VGGTs in 2012.

Political dynamics of the global land grab are exemplified in Cambodia, where at least 27 forced evictions took place in 2009, affecting 23,000 people. Evictions of the rural poor are legitimized by the assumption that non-private land is idle, marginal, or degraded and available for capitalist exploitation. This paper: (1) questions the assumption that land is idle; (2) explores whether land grabs can be regulated through a ‘code of conduct’; and (3) examines peasant resistance to land grabs.

Rural areas in Cambodia have been the target of large-scale land acquisitions since the late 1990s. As of March 2012, economic land concessions in Cambodia covered more than 2 million hectares, equivalent to over half of the country’s arable land. In this paper, we discuss the policy narratives and discursive strategies that are employed by various actors to justify and legitimize large-scale land acquisitions. We then analyze the underlying mechanisms of such acquisitions and investments and examine how they are entangled with donor-assisted land use planning efforts.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In May 2012 Prime Minister Hun Sen issued Directive 001 (also known as Order 01BB) on ‘Measures to strengthen and enhance the effectiveness of management of economic land concessions (ELCs)’ announcing a moratorium on the granting of new ELCs, the review of existing ELCs and the implementation of the so-called “leopard-skin” (or “tiger-skin”) policy, with the aim to allow communities to live side by side with the concessions.

As shown in this report, harassment of local activists in Cambodia, including defenders of the right to housing, is widespread. Cambodia’s rich and powerful are increasingly abusing the criminal justice system to silence communities standing up against land concessions or business deals affecting the land they live on or cultivate. Many poor and marginalized communities are living in fear of the institutions created to protect them, in particular the police and the courts. As forced evictions increase, public space for discussing them is shrinking.