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Nigerian farmers face destitution from 300 sq.km land grab backed by UK aid Updated for 2026

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    Farmers in Nigeria’s north eastern state of Taraba are being forced off lands they have farmed for generations to make way for US company Dominion Farms to establish a 300 square kilometre rice plantation.

    The Dominion Farms project forms part of the UK-backed New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa and the Nigerian government’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda.

    Both initiatives are ostensibly intended to enhance food security and livelihoods for small farmers in Nigeria. But a new report published today ‘The Dominion Farms land grab in Nigeria‘, finds that the Dominion Farms project is having the opposite effect.

    In fact, the lands provided to Dominion Farms are part of a public irrigation scheme that 45,000 people depend on for their food needs and livelihoods.

    Diane Abbott MP has written to the Development Secretary Justine Greening to ask questions about the involvement of the New Alliance in the Dominion land grab, and is awiting her reply.

    “Aid money should be spent supporting communities to develop sustainable agriculture rather than supporting initiatives which are enabling companies to evict those communities”, commented Heidi Chow, food sovereignty campaigner from Global Justice Now.

    “Initiatives like the New Alliance seem to be more about providing opportunities for agribusiness to carve up the resources of African countries rather than trying to address poverty or hunger.”

    Farmers are unanimous – this is our land!

    “The local people are united in their opposition to the Dominion Farms project”, says Raymond Enoch, an author of the report and director of the Center for Environmental Education and Development in Nigeria. “They want their lands back so that they can continue to produce food for their families and the people of Nigeria.”

    The local people were never consulted about the Dominion Farms project and, although the company has already started to occupy the lands, they are still completely in the dark about any plans for compensation or resettlement.

    “The only story we hear is that our land is taken away and will be given out”, said Rebecca Sule, one of the affected women farmers from the Gassol community in Taraba State.

    “We were not involved at any level. For the sake of the future and our children, we are requesting governmental authorities to ask Dominion Farms to stay away from our land.”

    Mallam Danladi K Jallo, another local farmer from Gassol, added: “Our land is very rich and good. We produce a lot of different crops here, and we farm fish and rear goats, sheep and cattle.

    “But since the Dominion Farms people arrived with their machine and some of their working equipment, we were asked to stop our farm work and even leave our lands as the land is completely given to the Dominion Farms project.”

    The global land grab comes to Taraba

    The Nigerian government’s Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Federal Ministry of Investment are seeking to increase foreign direct investment in agriculture as a strategy to raise national food production.

    Under the policy, vast tracts of agricultural lands have been identified by the government for large scale projects by foreign companies – including 380 sq.km controlled by Taraba State’s Upper Benue River Basin Development Authority (UBRBDA) – a government agency established in 1978 to support local farmers with irrigation schemes, flood defences, roads, stores and warehouses.

    The UBRBDA lands and the Gassol Community lie on the north-eastern shoreline of the Taraba River. Some 10,000 farmers depend on these lands for their livelihoods, of which 3,000 hold land titles inherited from their ancestors who first settled there. In all some 45,000 people are sustained by the fertile farmland.

    Along one side of the lands runs an 8 km long embankment that was built by UBRBDA to protect the farmlands from the river’s overflow. The lands provide major ecological and hydrological functions and are a major source of livelihoods for the farmers of Gassol and other neighbouring communities.

    In 2010, Dominion Farms first made its appearance in Gassol seeking the allocation of lands, water resources, fishing ponds and grazing areas used by the community for the construction of a large scale rice farm.

    Two years later the company achieved its objective when it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Taraba State government and the Nigerian government for a 300 sq.km concession on the UBRBDA lands for the creation of a large scale rice farm.

    “The MOU was signed without public knowledge and the details of its contents remain unknown to the local community of Gassol and organisations that have been following the deal”, states the report.

    As well as seizing the land from local farmers, it adds, the project “will also affect the pastoralists of the area by disrupting the spaces they use for livestock grazing and pastoralist routes.”

    ‘Severe irregularities’

    Two Nigerian NGOs, Environmental Rights Action (ERA) / Friends of the Earth Nigeria (FOEN) and Center for Environmental Education and Development (CEED) visited the area in June 2014 to find out how local Gassol farmers were affected by the Dominion Farms project.

    “Consultations with the affected farmers in Gassol community revealed severe irregularities”, they found. “The farmers interviewed indicated that only the local elites and government agents were consulted, some of whom had personally endorsed the project in their community in spite of apparent widespread opposition amongst the members of the community.

    “It further revealed that consultations did not deal with the question of whether or not the local communities accept the project and under what terms they would do so”

    Some affected farmers said that a range of promises – about adequate compensation for their lands, about the building of schools, roads, hospitals and a farm training centre, and about the employment of local people – had been made when Dominion Farms and government agencies initially visited the area. However “none of these promises have been kept.”

    The MOU between the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Taraba State Government and Dominion Farms Ltd was signed “without proper consultations with the affected communities”, the investigators found.

    “Those consultations that did take place involved mainly government officials. The information that local people received about the project was insufficient and was presented in a partial manner in favour of the project.

    “Local farmers were never asked if they agreed to the project or under what terms they would accept the project, and were thus kept out of a decision that has major impacts on their lives.”

    Farmers forced off their lands

    The agreement was also signed without a social and environmental impact assessment, and did not include any resettlement plan for the farmers that would be evicted from their farms.

    “Pledges that were made during the process of allocating lands to Dominion Farms to improve the livelihood of the local farmers of Gassol have so far not transpired”, the report adds. “No roads have been constructed, no hospitals, training centres or schools have been built, and locals have not been hired by the company.

    “Families who have been farming and living for generations on the lands acquired by Dominion Farms are upset and disillusioned. They say the project will breach their right to adequate food and livelihoods, and their right to access the lands.

    “They consider it a forced eviction without proper consultation and compensation. Several farmers said that Dominion Farms is putting undue pressure on them to leave the plots of land that they have been farming.”

    Dominion Farms has already filled in ponds and water canals that local people depend on for fishing and has stationed security agents in the area to prevent farmers from accessing their lands. People have also been forced to stop grazing their goats and cows on the lands occupied by Dominion Farms.

    Local peoples are also concerned that Dominion Farms is not providing the service and technical support to farmers that was formerly provided by UBRBDA and they worry that the facilities will erode if they are not properly maintained.

    “They have complained to the authorities”, states the report, “but, as of yet, no action has been taken by either local, state or federal authorities.”

    Dominion Farms: registered in Kenya, based in the US, controlled from Canada

    Dominion Farms Limited is a company registered in Kenya, with headquarters in Oklahoma, US, that is majority owned by US-Canadian businessman Calvin Burgess as part of his ‘Dominion Group of Companies’.

    The company operates a controversial rice farm operation in the Yala Swamp area of Western Kenya that local farmers say has resulted in the loss of their lands and livelihoods, and grave social, environmental and health impacts on the affected communities.

    Dominion’s activities in Nigeria and Taraba State are relatively new. In 2012, the company began a process to establish a large rice farm project in the Northern Nigerian state of Taraba. The company signed a MOU with the Federal Government of Nigeria represented by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) and the Taraba State Government.

    The Dominion Farms project in Taraba is part of the co-operation framework agreement of the G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa. Dominion Farms has signed a letter of intent between the Government of Nigeria and the G8 aid donor countries.

    The letter details a $40 million investment in “growing and processing rice on 30,000 ha of land”, a 3,000 ha “nucleus farm owned by Dominion”, a rice mill and the training of Nigerian youth at Dominion’s Kenyan operations.

    “In spite of the New Alliance rhetoric on tackling food security, on the ground the Dominion Farms investment has resulted in land grabbing, reducing the ability and resilience of local farmers to feed themselves and their communities”, says the report. “Ultimately, it exposes the problems of the G8’s push for corporate-driven agriculture.”

    Nigeria is already suffering from violent conflicts and insecurity, especially in the North. Land grabs for agribusiness projects will only make the situation worse.

     

     

    The report: ‘The Dominion Farms land grab in Nigeria‘.

    Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

     




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Investors falter as fossil fuels face ‘perfect storm’ Updated for 2026

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The world’s investors – both big and small – think primarily in terms of making good returns on their money. And, over the years, investing in the fossil fuel industry has been considered a safe bet.

Yet maybe, just maybe, attitudes are changing – and fairly profoundly – as financial analysts warn that the industry faces a ‘perfect storm’ in 2015.

The Carbon Tracker Initiative (CTI), a London-based financial thinktank, analyses the energy industry and lobbies to limit emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases.

On one side, CTI says, the industry is being buffeted by a crash in oil prices and a drop in demand. On the other, there’s the threat of increasing regulation aimed at cutting GHG emissions and a worldwide growth in renewable forms of energy.

Cool reception

Anthony Hobley, CTI’s chief executive, says investors are realising that the energy world is changing.

“At one stage, when we talked to investment firms about the risks of investing in fossil fuels we were given a cool reception”, Hobley told Climate News Network.

“Now we are being invited to brief the big investment funds. Investors have an enormous amount of power – they are weighing up the risks of investing in fossil fuels and wondering just how safe their money is.”

The CTI has long warned of the dangers of a ‘carbon bubble’, with investments in fossil fuels becoming ‘stranded assets’ due to the imposition of stricter regulatory controls on emissions and the widespread adoption of renewable energy.

“The carbon bubble is not going to burst in 2015”, Hobley says. “The transition from fossil fuels to other forms of energy is going to take place over several decades.

“But a combination of more regulations, new technologies, the falling price of renewable energy, and the need for a more efficient use of resources, is making investors rethink their investment strategies.”

Energy companies are also reconsidering their plans. EON, Germany’s largest power utility, announced earlier this month that it would be reorganising its structure in order to focus on the development of renewables.

Concern in boardrooms

A worldwide campaign calling for divestment in fossil fuels is another factor causing some concern in the boardrooms of the big fossil fuel companies.

The industry is powerful and, despite the problems it’s facing, it is unlikely to collapse anytime soon. But it has been severely damaged by recent events.

Goldman Sachs, the global investment bank, says a trillion dollars of investments in various oil and gas projects around the world are at risk – or stranded – due to the fall in oil prices.

A rapid rise in production from US shale deposits in recent years has caused a glut on the global oil market.

Analysts say a significant slowdown in the rate of economic growth in China is also a major factor behind the present fall-off in oil prices, and in the big declines in coal prices on the world market.

 

 

Kieran Cooke writes for Climate News Network.

 

 




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India: tiger reserve tribes face illegal eviction Updated for 2026

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Tribespeople living inside a tiger reserve in India face imminent eviction from their ancestral land.

Three of an original six indigenous villages are holding on in the Similipal Tiger Reserve in Odisha state, following a round of evictions in December 2013 in which 32 families of the Khadia tribe were expelled to the Asan Kudar resettlement village outside the forest.

They have not been provided with sufficient land, animals or essential services. They had to live through the heat of April and the deluge of the monsoon under plastic sheets, and have received only a fraction of the Rs 10 lakh they were promised.

Sheltering under plastic shelters on a tiny patch of land, the Khadia tribe members are now entirely dependent on government handouts for their survival (see photo).

Now Kol and Munda tribe members in Jamunagarh village are in the firing line. They have told Survival International that they were “threatened” and “cheated” into signing an eviction document drawn up by India’s forest department.

Telenga Hassa said: “We would rather die than leave the village. The forest department is pressurising us to go – they are giving a lot of threats to us, saying things like, ‘If you try to stay we will lodge many police cases against you, we will say that you are Maoists and we’ll arrest you.'”

“All of us have had the same threats. We are threatened, so please tell us, how can our rights be protected? How can we be safe from these false cases?”

Another added: “They threaten us to relocate or to face dire consequences.”

Official promises betrayed

On 19th September 2014, Jamunagarh residents met with Odisha Forest Department officials. They were told that the meeting was to confirm their Community Forest Rights, which they had applied for under the Forest Rights Act 2006.

But after receiving documents confirming their rights they were asked to sign a further document that would grant them each five acres of cultivable land. But as they cannot read or write in Oriya, they did not know what the document contained.

One man told Survival: “Unknowingly I gave my signature, I didn’t know what was in the paper, other people near me signed so I signed it too. I cannot read or write but can only sign my name.”

Another said: “We signed the document with the belief that it’s about the Palli Sabha (village meeting). Later we knew that it was the resolution in agreement for relocation.”

Another witness explained: “Really, most people signed out of fear, but people have been threatened and harassed and they agreed to go to escape from this trauma. They don’t know what life will be like there. They agreed to sign because they were frightened.”

Only after signing the document were they told that the document committed them to leave their village – and that they would not even receive the five acres of land they had been promised, as there was no land available.

A Munda man told Survival: “We were cheated and are now very afraid of the consequences.”

Tribal people face eviction across India

The evictions are planned in the name of tiger conservation – even though there is no evidence that the indigenous tribes harm the wildlife, and they desperately want to stay on their land.

A Munda elder from Jamunagarh has said: “We should be rehabilitated in the same village where we are now. We will protect the wildlife and get benefit of all government programs. We should stay there and protect – we promise.

“Don’t displace us! Rehabilitate us in the same place we are now … We have been there [to Asan Kudar]. Seeing their condition made my heart cry. Please don’t displace us. Please rehabilitate us in the same village where we are now.”

According to Survival, “Tribal peoples are better at looking after their environments than anyone else.” Also India’s Forest Rights Act recognizes their right to live in and from the forests, and to manage and protect them.

But across India, tribal peoples are being illegally evicted from their ancestral homelands in the name of conservation, particularly for tiger reserves.

In addition to threats and harassment, they’re promised land, housing and money as compensation, but often receive little or nothing. Without access to the forest’s produce, and no adequate housing, they are forced to live in miserable conditions.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Many of the forests where tigers survive in India have been cared for by tribal people, who are better at looking after their environment than anyone else.

“But now the government is using threats and tricks to force the tribespeople out in the name of conservation, and leaving them in squalor.

“What’s worse, the tribes’ forests are opened up to thousands of tourists each year, and poaching and illegal logging are rampant. It’s time the conservation industry spoke out against this injustice.”

Official complaint ignored

In May 2014, Survival submitted a complaint to the Odisha Human Rights Commission. They did not respond, so Survival sent another urgent and updated complaint on 9th October.

In the document Survival argues: “The Families have not been advised of their legal rights to remain in the core of the STR if they wish to do so, or of the legal procedures which have to be followed before they can be moved, or of what will await them if and when they are moved.

“The Families cannot therefore have given their free, prior or informed consent to their relocation. As things stand, their removal from the core will constitute an illegal eviction.

“As members of Scheduled Tribes whose traditional land is central to their way of life, culture and identity, this will have a profound effect on the Families.

“It was in recognition of their unique attachment to the land that Parliament decided to protect them against relocation unless and until it can be shown both that this is genuinely necessary and that they have truly consented to be moved.”

“The unlawful removal of the Families will infringe their rights to internal self-determination under Article 1(1) of the Civil and Political Rights Covenant; not to be deprived of their own means of subsistence under Article 1(2); not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with their homes under Article 17(1); to freedom of religion under Article 18(1); and to enjoy their own culture in community with other members of their group under Article 27.”

 

 

 

 

Source: Survival International.

 




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Show your face for a GM Free UK Updated for 2026

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I believe in people power.

It’s a belief that rarely lets me down. An informed and motivated populace is one of our best defences defence against corporate lies, political corruption and media laziness.

And frankly doing things together is more effective and fun than trying to change the world all on your own!

I’ve seen people power work in my own career. My Behind the Label series for The Ecologist is a good example. Armed with the facts about all the toxic ingredients that get put into everyday products such as food and cosmetics, it gave consumers the confidence to make better choices.

It often provoked an indignant response from companies. But over the years, as the momentum grew and public calls for safer products got louder, many manufacturers began to take some of the worst chemicals out of their products.

And now, people power is just what we need

In the UK we need people power again if we are going to stop the juggernaut of GMOs.

The US experience is showing what people power can do in this regard. People who never really thought of themselves as ‘activists’ has been motivated to take a stand over issues like GM labelling.

Local groups have been formed, money raised, PR organised and a big noise made – often from somebody’s back room or kitchen table – on behalf of a better food future for all. When Vermont became the first US state to vote mandatory labelling of GMO products into law that was people power in action.

But in the UK public engagement with GMOs has slipped somewhat due, I believe, to a very effective PR campaigning by biotech companies to make people feel they are too stupid to join in a discussion that is best left to scientists.

As a result GM campaigning in the UK has become a scientific and academic ‘battle of the papers’ with each side claiming that the 250 references in their paper are better than the 250 references in the other side’s paper. It’s not exactly the stuff that fuels headline news.

Worse many of the pro-GM scientists aren’t scientists at all but simply corporate lobbyists who plot with politicians behind closed doors. They’re hired guns whose job is to shoot first and not ask any questions. Ever.

We need good scientific discourse. We need good scientists on our side to show up show the multiple holes in the pro-GM argument. But GM is not just a scientific issue and scientists by their very nature are not activists and academic papers are not campaigns.

Raising the volume

What we need is a Big Noise. We need public engagement and it can’t come soon enough.

GMOs have been with us for nearly 20 years. In the early 90s a very visible public and media campaign helped keep them out of our fields and off our plates.

Because of the way that the public discussion has petered out in the UK and in many parts of the EU, people could be forgiven for believing that we are ‘safe’ from GMOs. But the issue has never gone away.

In reality the GM debate has, for some time, been at a stand-off, with consumers and NGOs largely refusing to accept GM and corporations, politicians and regulators trying to push it into farming and food.

This stand-off has allowed the issue to slip beneath the public radar, leaving many unaware of the latest developments or how these might affect them.

But things are changing rapidly. The biggest change is that the EU coalition that has blocked planting of GM crops has broken up. It is likely that before the end of 2014 the European Parliament will allow Member States to make their own decisions on the planting of GM crops.

This may sound like a good idea, but it creates more problems than it solves. GMOs don’t respect geographical borders and yet there is no solid provision for what might happen if GM crops in one country cross-pollinate with those in another.

Likewise, guidelines for opting out are very narrow and even require Member States to seek the consent of biotech companies before opting out. For these and other reasons, oversight at EU level is considered crucial to maintain tight control over the planting of GM crops.

If this proposed change in legislation goes ahead, the UK will likely push ahead with planting without any post-marketing monitoring or co-existence measures (necessary to protect organic and non-GMO farmers) in place.

Declare yourself GM Free Me

Now is the time to speak out. Let’s not wait for the horror headlines to appear before we get ourselves organised.

The GM Free Me initiative is one way you can begin. It’s a visual petition. Not just another selfish selfie, the campaign ask is simple.

Upload a photo of yourself holding the printable GM Free Me card, or if your are so inclined the e-card for tablets and ipads, and join this lively ‘national portrait gallery’ of real people of all ages and backgrounds who are tired of politicians, regulators, pro-industry researchers and media pushing genetic engineering technology into our farming and food system and ignoring the concerns and opposition of average people.

Once your photo is uploaded it goes onto a map of the UK divided into political constituencies. The more of us in each area, the more power we have and the more pressure we can all bring to bear locally and nationally.

So why not get your family, friends and colleagues involved too. Then share it on social media (and send it to your MP – there’s a button for that onsite!) and encourage others to join in so we can really make a noise.

Does it take longer than posting yet another angry tweet about GM? Yes. But not much longer.

And by adding your face to the gallery you are showing that people power is alive and well and determined to stop the UK becoming a GM nation.

 

 

Pat Thomas is an author and campaigner, a former Editor of the Ecologist and Director of the Beyond GM / GM Free Me campaign.

 

 




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Europe’s vultures face extinction from toxic vet drug Updated for 2026

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Following recent catastrophic declines of vultures in Asia that left landscapes littered with carcasses, vultures in Europe and Africa may be set to follow, according to BirdLife International.

The warning comes following the discovery that a veterinary drug that’s lethal to vultures even at low doses is commercially available in Europe.

“Vultures play a fundamental role that no other birds do: they clean our landscapes”, said Iván Ramírez, Head of Conservation for BirdLife International in Europe and Central Asia.

And that means they are for human and animal health as they clean up the rotting remains of dead animals.

Diclofenac has already wiped out vultures in South Asia

Used to treat inflammation in livestock, diclofenac has already wiped out 99% of vultures in India, Pakistan and Nepal.

A non-steroid anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) present in many commonly used drugs that are used for treating moderate pain, diclofenac is extremely toxic to vultures in small doses. Vultures eating cattle treated with a veterinary dose of diclofenac will die in less than 2 days.

The decline of vultures in Asia was shockingly fast – quicker than any other wild bird, including the Dodo. Within a decade species such as the White-rumped Vulture fell by 99.9% as a result of diclofenac in India alone – leaving only one bird in a thousand alive.

A safe alternative drug, meloxicam, has been identified and tested on vultures and a range of other bird species. The meloxicam patent is more than 10-years old, meaning any pharmaceutical company can produce it with no royalties or licence fees to pay.

But now diclofenac has reached Europe

But despite the dangers and the availablity of alternatives, BirdLife has found that the drug is commercially available in Spain and Italy – both stronghold countries for European vulture species.

Since 1996, the EU and national governments have invested significant resources on conserving vultures, and there have been at least 67 LIFE projects related to these species. Between 2008 and 2012, nine vulture conservation projects alone received €10.7 million.

“We know what we need to do in Europe – ban veterinary diclofenac”, said Jim Lawrence, BirdLife’s Preventing Extinctions Programme Manager. “All these European conservation efforts would be useless if the use of veterinary diclofenac becomes widespread.”

Four vulture species breed in Europe: the Endangered Egyptian Vulture, the Near Threatened Cinereous Vulture, and important populations of Griffon Vulture and Bearded Vulture.

Three of the four vulture populations have been increasing steadily (except the Egyptian Vulture), partly due to the intensive conservation efforts funded by European Union budget lines.

A host of other threats in Africa

As well as the impending threat of diclofenac, a multitude of other complex threats need to be unravelled further in Africa, and investment needed to tackle them.

African vultures are facing increasing threats from poisoning (deliberate and accidental), persecution for body parts to be used in traditional medicine, habitat loss, collision with power-lines, and more.

The birds have declined in West Africa on average by 95% in three decades. Across Africa, seven of the eleven vulture species are now listed as globally threatened, with species such as Hooded Vulture recently being up-listed to Endangered in 2011.

“Three of every four old-world vulture species are already globally threatened with extinction or Near Threatened according the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species”, said Kariuki Ndanganga, BirdLife Africa’s Species Programme Manager.

“Unless threats are identified and tackled quickly and effectively, vultures in Africa and Europe could face extinction within our lifetime.”

He is now leading an effort to raise £20,000 to identify, review, prioritize and tackle the threats to vultures across the continent.

The decline is global

Of 11 vulture species found in Africa, seven (including five of the six species endemic to Africa) are globally threatened. Five of these species joined the Red List of threatened species only in the last seven years. The Hooded Vulture – a historically widespread species – was listed as Endangered in 2011.

There are 21 species of vultures in the world, five of which can be found in the American continent. The other 16 are distributed across Africa, Europe and Asia.

Of these so-called Old World vultures, 75% are globally threatened or near-threatened, with the number of threatened species expected to rise in the next conservation status assessment.

 

 

Donate to Birdlife’s ‘Stop Vulture Poisoning Now’ campaign (Just Giving).

 

 




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