Zambia’s Land-Grab

Zambia’s smallholder farmers could be made squatters on their own land as the country opens up to farming multinationals in an effort to boost its economy, said Hilal Elver, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to food. Zambia’s ambition to develop its commercial farming sector to become "Southern Africa’s food basket" risks worsening extreme rural poverty, as farmers face eviction to make way. Sixty percent of Zambians are small-scale farmers, who make up many of the nation’s poorest people but produce 85 percent of its food.

40 percent of Zambian under fives have stunted growth due to malnutrition, despite the country emerging from crisis to "impressive" levels of economic growth.

Around 85 percent of land is held under customary tenure, mostly in the hands of peasant farmers, with little legal protection from eviction, she said. After eviction, many peasant farmers are forced to work in poor conditions on large industrial farms or are obliged to sell their crops at knock-down prices for export by monopoly-type multinationals who buy produce for export, she said.

Intensive commercial farming has also led to increased use of agro chemicals proven to damage children’s health and boosted rates of deforestation and environmental damage, she added.

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