industryterm:agribusiness interests

Land-grabbing behind India’s new caste wars | Landportal
▻https://www.landportal.info/news/2016/03/land-grabbing-behind-indias-new-caste-wars?platform=hootsuite

He cites a study by India’s National Sample Survey (PDF), finding that the average land holding in India has been reduced from 2.63 acres in 1960-61 to 1.06 acres in 2003-4—or about 60% in four decades. This has been due to fragmentation of peasant lands, and their expropriation by corporate interests.

Although it failed to make global headlines the way the Jat action did, last month also saw angry protests by members of the Gujjar peasant caste in Jammu & Kashmir state. At least one was killed in clashes with police who were sent in to evict Gujjars from state lands they had “encroached” upon. (Indian Express, Feb. 23; Indian Express, Feb. 22)

Of course, the peasants are only “encroaching” on state lands because their own lands have been “encroached” upon by private interests. In addition to agribusiness interests seizing untitled traditional lands from the peasantry, the government is also expropriating lands for energy and resource projects.

#Inde #agriculture #terres #industrialisation #castes

Brazilian indigenous leader murdered
▻http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/22883

A Brazilian indigenous leader who spent decades campaigning for his tribe’s right to live on their ancestral land was murdered on Sunday night, Survival International said Tuesday.

The human rights organization said that Ambrósio Vilhalva was reportedly stabbed at the entrance to his community, known as Guyra Roká, in Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul state, and was found dead in his hut, with multiple knife wounds.

Ambrósio had been reported being repeatedly threatened in recent months.

Bloody land conflicts are common in Brazil, which is struggling to reconcile the demands of a growing economy and powerful agribusiness interests with the need to preserve the culture of indigenous populations, as well as the forests and savannahs in which they live. Another member of the Guarani, Celso Rodrigues, 42, was shot dead in June while walking in an area disputed between the tribe and cattle ranchers.
Just days ago, Brazil said it was sending a military task force to areas disputed by a different indigenous group, the Terena, and farmers in the western part of Mato Grosso do Sul state. A Terena man was killed in as a result of clashes with the police in May.

Last year, murders over land and environmental disputes increased by more than ten percent, to a total of 32 deaths, according to land rights watchdog the Pastoral Land Commission. From 2000 to 2012, 458 people were murdered in violent land disputes throughout the country.

#peuples_indigènes #agrobusiness #assassinat #Brésil