Land grabbing: the Vietnamese case

Abstract

My thesis deals with matters related to the Land grabbing and goes into the Vietnamese specific case. During the global food crisis of 2007 2008, land, which was considered not interesting to anyone, started attracting investments by resource poor but cash rich countries. It turned out in large scale acquisitions or rent of lands in order to achieve food security. It affected the right to food, the right to self-determination, exploitation of natural resources and local communities. After that, the Vietnam case scenario will be analyze. Vietnam is one of the mayor players in farmland acquisitions of the South East Asia and it is likely to become more prominent in the future. My work is divided into two parts. Firstly, the phenomenon of the land grabbing will be explained deeply. An overview of the scale of international investment in land specifying actors and type of land, will be given. Motivations which push drivers to invest in land will be analyzed. Usually the reasons for the public sector is to achieve food security while for the private sector is to ensure the productivity of biofuel, food and to gain finance advantages. Also there are ecological matters such as the protection of natural resources, water, forestry and so on. Furthermore, impacts on the economic sector, gender and environment and limits of large scale investments will be explored. Secondly, the thesis will go into the Vietnamese case. This special case will be underline, in fact Vietnam invests in the neighboring countries but at the same time endure investments by other countries. The reasons of such investments depends on the driver: it can be private or public. Usually the public driver wants to achieve food security while the private driver wants to rich economic profit not respecting regulations, as in the case of the privately owned Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) and state-owned Vietnamese Rubber Group (VRG) which both acquired more than 200,000 hectares of land through a series of illegal deals with the Lao and Cambodian governments. Controversial issues about Vietnam will be showed: for the Economist Vietnam would failed if it maintained a small scale production, however for FAO Vietnam should promote alternative ways of small scale “smart agriculture”. In conclusion, it will become evident as the land grabbing phenomenon seems destined to expand in the long term. It will be highlighted how all the investments should be controlled not to allow to economic interests to destroy our only world and step on human rights. In fact, land grab can maximize opportunities with appropriate regulations to mitigate the negative impacts on the populations and on the land. I will base my research on different sources such as The Economist, the Diplomat and BBC which give general information about land grabbing, they represent just the peak of the iceberg. This information will be examine in depth using Land Matrix Database, FAO, GRAIN and Global Witness reports to estimate the actual state of land grabbing.