
Background
Greed for land
For some years, a new phenomenon has threatened the food security of millions of people: the sale and leasing of huge swathes of land to foreign countries and investors. Though particularly widespread in Africa and Asia, land grabbing is also on the rise in Europe.
Addax/Sunbird: A land deal with serious consequences
The owners change, grievances remain (Monitoring report: Sunbird Bioenergy Mabilafu Project (formerly Addax)), Bread for all & SiLNoRF, 11/2020
The Weakest Should not Bear the Risk (Report), Bread for all & Bread for the World, 09/2016
Monitoring Report on the operations of Addax/Sunbird Bioenergy Mabilafu Project, Sierra Leone (Period July 2016 – August 2017), Bread for all & SiLNoRF
Monitoring Report on the operations and the scale down of Addax Bioenergy in Makeni, Sierra Leone (period July 2014 – June 2016), Bread for all & SiLNoRF
Rubber plantations in Liberia and the responsibility of Swiss companies
The Liberian Socfin plantation SRC opts out of conflict resolution process (03.06.2020)
“Struggle for Life and Land” – Socfin’s Rubber Plantations in Liberia and the Responsibility of Swiss Companies (Report), Bread for all 2019
Summary of the report “Struggle for Life an Land”
Palm oil in Cameroon : the Bolloré group sued by NGOs in an unprecedented legal action (27.05.2019)

What Bread for all does
- Commitment on multiple levels:
Land grabbing destroys the livelihoods of millions of people. For this reason, Bread for all and its partner organisations in the South are committed to fighting the takeover of large-scale parcels of land driven by industrial agriculture. - Promotes networking to fight land grabbing:
Bread for all supports partner organisations in East and West Africa and Indonesia that counter land grabbing so that impacted populations can secure their access to land. Bread for all funds initiatives and workshops that promote networking, strengthen advocacy and facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experience. - Supports pioneering work against land grabbing:
At the international level, Bread for all cooperates with the non-governmental organisation (NGO), Grain, which coined the term “land grabbing,” and first publicised the phenomenon. In addition to carrying out analyses and collaborating with farmers’ organisations, Grain runs a website, farmlandgrab.org, which assembles all available information on land grabbing around the world. In 2011, the NGO was awarded The Right Livelihood Award, the “alternative Nobel prize,” for its unfaltering commitment against the phenomenon of land grabbing. - Strengthens rural agriculture:
Bread for all advocates for a paradigm shift away from the predominant industrial agricultural model. The production of agricultural raw materials on large land tracts require intensive use of pesticides and fertilisers which is largely responsible for the phenomenon of land grabbing. - Highlights the issue of land grabbing:
Bread for all was the first organisation in Switzerland to raise awareness of land grabbing and introduce it into public discourse both in the media and the general public. We also co-organised the first expert seminar on the topic in Geneva in 2009. - Cash flow for land grabbing projects:
Bread for all examines the financial holdings of Swiss banks and the public sector in land grabbing projects. It exerts pressure to stop the flow of Swiss public funds into land grabbing projects.
Further information
Policy document: Palm oil and free trade agreements with Malaysia and Indonesia (08/2018)
FERN Report: EDFI and land grabs 2017 – The need for further independent scrutiny (09/2017)
Feronia-Report: Land conflicts and shady finances (11/2016)
Study: The Weakest Should not Bear the Risk – The case of Addax Bioethanol in Sierra Leone (09/2016)
Swiss banks and institutional investors financing landgrabbing companies (11/2014)