Eight times more than the United Kingdom, the volume of hectares sold between 2005 and 2010 in dealings between states and multinationals. Over 200 million hectares of peasants who have plundered for centuries, large companies that want to produce food and biofuels in an industrial way. The International Land Coalition has released these data in a report published in December of this year.

78% of these captured lands are used by multinationals to produce biofuels. That is why the miracles promised by the propagandists of the Green Revolution for the whole world, which could satisfy the hungry, have not been fulfilled, and food prices continue to rise.

For industrial production in these fields, local farmers have been dismantled from the most fertile lands, the closest to infrastructure, the best supplied water.

The big foreign companies, the poor states, not always so poor, remember Argentina or Brazil, give up their tax revenue by offering huge tax benefits, while the elites who are in charge of these states get rich because they act as intermediaries of the multinationals.

The new neocolonialism, named Farm Land Grabbing – peasant land theft – is a profound transformation of local ecosystems, but the most severe damage affects local farmers.

As new industrial agriculture does not create enough jobs for everyone, many have leaned and migrated to the slums of big cities. But there are also those who face theft. Vía Campesina has tried to analyze and agree strategies in a congress organized by Vía Campesina with other organizations and movements in the Malian town of Nyeleni in November.

Philippe Revelli explained in a live interview what is happening in Mali, which can also be visited, as on his website, in Le Monde Diplomatique: Ruée sur les terres agricoles à Mali, which in Basque freely could give rise to the “Terrible theft of farmland of Mali”. On the shore of the Niger River there is talk of rich and irrigated land.

Although Mali is in large part very dry, on the banks of the great river that crosses the country, public works carried out since 1947 are well flooded about 90,000 hectares. These are orchards and crops in which some 50,000 families work, producing 60% of the rice consumed by Mali. On the margins of these lands managed by Office du Niger are other families of both agriculture and livestock.

However, in recent years, the authorities in Mali have signed agreements with large companies to sell or rent hundreds of thousands of hectares of the best lands. They must be watered with water from the Niger River.

What you've seen in Nyeleni

The Malibya project, with Libyan capital, has acquired some 100,000 hectares to export rice, vegetables and livestock to Libya. To do so, one of the channels had to be opened and a new route has been set up in the vicinity of the town. According to journalist Djande Tamara, "all those who took us because of Malibya are angry." We have been living here for tens of years and our homes have been torn down. They have given us very low compensation.”

Despite the fact that the project is now standing still, the opening of the canal has made the neighbours feel that the water has been reduced. Thanks to the agreement signed with the Government of Bamako, Malibya will always have priority in accessing Niger waters during the drought and will not respond to the damage suffered by people.

The Malian group Tomota has acquired another 100,000 hectares for the production of crops for biofuels. So far the rape has been sown in about a thousand hectares, but they have already driven the baserritars out of the expropriated lands so that Tomota can introduce his own machines.

The sugar company Markala brings together private capital from South Africa and the Government of Mali, Europe Press reported. It has been done with 14,000 hectares to produce sugar cane for biofuels. It has captured land from 30 villages, causing the indignation of the inhabitants of the area. “If you’ve been taken from the house, where to go?” says a citizen in the video. “The reed leads us to destruction. The Segou region is the barn of Mali, but sowing millet, fonio, sorghum and broad beans, not making sugar.”

Alatona Millenium Challenge Account is a project of the U.S. organization USAID. It has been granted 22,000 hectares for the creation of new industrial farming companies. To this end, people from 33 different towns have been displaced. They have gathered in the new villages of concrete houses, giving each family ownership of a small land, and they seem to be happy.

Tiedokan Diallo, leader of the Association des Organisations Professionales Paysannes: “The real objective of this project is the privatization of communal lands managed by Office du Niger.”

Moulins Modernes du Mali Modibo Keita is a rich Malian. It has been done with 5,600 hectares, with capacity for barley, up to 20,000... It has taken over many of the lands of the old town of Sanamandougou. In the midst of people’s protests, Keita has called for the assistance of the Army to prevent the disaster. They smashed their homes with buldozer, imprisoned their bosses, beat old and female. Three people have been killed, according to the Basque Department of Security.

Those of Sadamandougou were among the two hundred who had approached the conference against the theft of land in Nyeleni in November. Mali's agricultural coordinator, Ibrahin Coulibaly, states: “These investments will have an extraordinary impact on citizens. Most of them bring people to a smaller land on the shores. People will not be able to support their families.”

The congress was attended by Shalmali Guttal, of Indian origin, a member of the organization Focus on the Global South. “Plundering of land is plundering the entire ecosystem. They are captured with land water, forest, biodiversity, fauna, flora. Investors and governments lie when they say they create development and jobs. We will create development and employment if we listen to farmers.”

As Henk Hobbelink of the GRAIN organisation explained, this is an offensive against farmers around the world. Those who have fed humanity for thousands of years, those who feed it today, are told that they are lagging behind, that they are ineffective, that they are burdened by the development of the world. In a word, it's better for them to disappear.