Policy recommendations

  • The European Union must ensure that its Energy Policy will not harm the food security of the urban and rural poor in developing countries, whose daily survival is threatened by substantially higher food prices. It should draw up a strategy to ensure the urban and rural poor are compensated for higher food prices before installing mandatory levels of biofuels;
  • The European Union should abolish its domestic subsidies and import tariffs for biofuels, in order to allow developing countries to profit from the trade opportunities biofuels offer;
  • The European Union should draw up comprehensive sustainability criteria for biofuels, including more ambitious standards for greenhouse-gas reduction a slight decrease of emissions as compared to fossil fuels is simply not enough and the protection of biodiversity and carbon-rich ecosystems;
  • The European Commission should include social criteria in its review of the Biofuels Directive to guarantee that the rural populations who live off marginal lands and forests are not hurt by expanding agricultural production;
  • The European Union should stimulate local processing and the use of sustainable biofuels in developing countries. Small-scale farmer cooperatives should be stimulated to prevent the benefits from biofuel production from only falling into the hands of large-plantation owners.

Case: Biofuels

11-01-2012 Predatory land deals questioned by MEP Matias

Following a recent report from Oxfam on 'Land and power: The growing scandal surrounding the new wave of investment in land', MEP Marisa Matias (GUE/NGL) has made inquiries to the Commissions actions to fight land grabbing.

The report shows that international investors on large scale have bought or leased arable land in developing countries, mainly for the purpose of growing crops for biofuels and export products. Human rights are often violated by these deals, as they are completed without free, prior and informed consent of the native people who are usually even evicted from their land. Moreover there are no transparent contracts and social, economic and environmental impacts are ignored.

As European funds play an important role in the completion of these deals, MEP Matias asks the Commission what steps it will take to avoid the abuses by companies and European funds. Also MEP Matias inquires if the Commission is prepared to revise and repeal its target on biofuels. This target is to have by 2020 a 20% share of energy from renewable sources in the EU final consumption of energy and a 10 % share of energy from renewable sources in each Member States transport energy consumption. Due to this ambitious target, more and more land that was used for growing food is now used to grow biofuel crops. The dodgy deals therefore are going beyond the simple grabbing of land, but also decreases the local food production, making food scarcer and pushing the prices for food up. Concluding these deals can therefore be called, as MEP Matias does, economically and socially predatory behaviour, leaving thousands of people in hunger and poverty.

Fair Politics welcomes the questions from MEP Matias, as it clearly shows an incoherence between the EU energy policy and the development of the poorest countries in the world. She asks the Commission to take up its responsibility through changing the biofuels targets and taking measures to prevent abuses by Europeans funds and companies. With that MEP Matias encourages the Commission to live up to its commitment to Policy Coherence for Development. For this contribution, Fair Politics grants MEP Marisa Matias one point in our monitoring system towards the Fair Politician of the Year Award.

Also read our case study on biofuels!

Monitor fair: GUE/NGL


Parliamentary questions
19 October 2011 E-009398/2011

Question for written answer
to the Commission
Rule 117
Marisa Matias (GUE/NGL)

Subject: Large-scale land grabbing in developing countries

Oxfam's report on Land and power: The growing scandal surrounding the new wave of investments in land has identified 227 million hectares of arable land in developing countries that have been sold or leased since 2001, mostly to international investors. The majority of these deals have occurred in the last two years, and amount to an area approximately 6.4 times the size of Germany; many of them are for crops intended for export or the biofuels market. The report depicts these deals as veritable land grabs as they violate human rights, and the right to free, prior and informed consent of the people that make use of the land in particular. Transparent contracts are avoided, and the social, economic and environmental impact is ignored along with the right of women to equality.
The report shows that the acquisition of land in Uganda, Guatemala and Honduras is due primarily to the expansion of sugar cane and palm oil cultivation for use in biofuels, which leads to the eviction of thousands of citizens; in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal and Tanzania the land is used to grow products for export, including flowers and biofuels.
With regard to this report, the UN's special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, says that commercial land use is growing rapidly. Biofuels, large-scale infrastructures, carbon-credit mechanisms and speculation lead to rapid changes in land rights, creating new threats for owners of vulnerable land.
1. European funds in particular pension funds play a large part in the completion of these deals without free, prior and informed consent of the native peoples who make use of the land, and who are evicted from their own property. International standards for good land governance and natural-resource management are necessary. What steps will the Commission take to avoid these abuses by companies and European funds? What measures will it take regarding the importation of the crops in question?
2. The above economically and socially predatory behaviour is closely related to biofuels production. Is the Commission prepared to revise and repeal its ambitious target for incorporating biofuels into the European energy mix, and to revise authorisation for carbon-capture mechanisms?