Land concentration and green grabs in Italy:the case of Furtovoltaico in SardiniaAntonio Onorati and Chiara Pierfederici*Plan of solar greenhouse plantMeeting of the ‘S’Arrieddu for Narbolia’ Committee, 14 October 2012
1. Introduction – Green grabbing: the case of NarboliaThe intertwining of climate change, environmental and economic crises and food price volatility andspikes raises serious concerns about the widespread model of agricultural production widespread inthe North. It suggests the urgent need for a more sustainable, decentralised and locally based farmingsystem that is capable of addressing current risks and challenges. This means a focus on reducingcarbon emissions, shortening food miles, enhancing local food-production systems and improvingaccess to land and the right of existing and future small-scale farmers and family farms to cultivate it.The value of agricultural land is changing in Europe, in particular in Italy, leading to increased land concentrationas ever more agricultural land is coming under the control of a small number of large-scalefarms or companies. The value of agricultural land is becoming de-linked from its actual agriculturaluse: financial capital is speculating on land for business purposes, mainly to grab the value of agriculturalrent, but also its environmental value (through carbon sequestration mechanisms, as well asthe production of ‘renewable energy’) and the value of natural resources associated with the land, inparticular water and biodiversity.In such a process, land use is shifting further towards an extractive model, and away from the familyfarms that could provide the basis for more sustainable and localised agrarian systems. Extractiveagriculture relies on the exploitation of resources, regardless of their need to regenerate themselves,on monoculture and high levels of energy consumption. It alienates people from the countryside andconcentrates wealth outside the area through practices that oscillate between the free market andprotectionism, which are an inherent part of how the dominant economic model functions.The trend towards land concentration exposes the crucial limitations of various mainstream policies,in particular:• Agricultural policy that favours larger farms or corporate units and an extractive model of agriculturerather than small-scale producers and agro-ecological methods. Both European and nationallegislation in Italy have supported the capitalisation and industrialisation of agricultural productionprocesses, thus encouraging capital-intensive, large-scale agro-industry.• Land policy that prioritises the ‘right of possession’ over the ‘right to produce’ and the ‘right to cultivate’.Access to land for young people and smallholders does not necessarily have to be securedthrough ownership: the sale and purchase of land can co-exist with a set of regulations aimed atpromoting and protecting the agricultural use of land rather than its possession.• Energy policy, with incentives for the ‘agri-production of renewable energy’ is reinforcing thetwo main trends in agricultural and land policies, both at the European and at the national level.These combined policies form the main means for obtaining control over the right to produce, not theinescapable decline of the agricultural sector. In addition to fostering the impoverishment of naturalresources and the land, this process is having a dramatic impact on the whole food-production system.To illustrate these concerns, this chapter presents a case of land grabbing in the name of environmentalprotection via the promotion of ‘renewable energy’ in the Italian region of Sardinia.The case concerns an Enervitabio Ltd project in the municipality of Narbolia in Oristano province. Asolar greenhouse plant for agricultural production was built, with an energy production target of 27megawatts (MW). The plant is a relevant example of a trend whereby hundreds of hectares of primefarmland are being used for solar greenhouse projects that have various negative impacts: not onlyare they undermining the rights of local communities to produce food and secure access to land, but also they are skirting the law and eroding the capacity of small farmers to contribute to resolving thecrisis affecting Italy. Moreover, such projects have been capturing financial resources intended for theagricultural sector.While there has been significant attention devoted to land grabbing in the South, the same phenomenonis also affecting small farmers in the North. There is a need to maintain a vigorous commitment andengagement in resisting this process. This is not about making occasional complaints or conducting anisolated campaign. This chapter will stress the urgent need to support the long-term processes neededto return the land those who work it.Defending land for agricultural use is the basis of solidarity, since land is a vital resource for all humanlife and provides the means through which present and future generations can access water and enjoya safe, prosperous and biodiverse natural environment. For this reason, we should react to every portionof land that is captured, wherever it might be, as if it was robbing something from everyone: this isnot about romantic ruralism or altruism, but about self-interest. Everyone is entitled to a future that isworth living, which cannot be surrendered. The destructive use of the land denies everyone this future.The reduction of cultivated land, involving millions of hectares being used for an array of non-agriculturaluses (such as residential, industrial, military, commercial and tourism activities, infrastructureand the production of renewable energy) must be a priority issue for each and every person. Solutionsare within reach as long as everyone accepts the responsibility to question, understand and engage.This chapter focuses first on various levels of land and agricultural policies, and the resulting land-grabbingpractices. The first section constitutes an overview of the global land-grabbing phenomenon andthe trends towards the shifting value and use of land, and the dynamics of shrinking access to landand land concentration. The second section explores the Italian dimensions of such trends, highlightingthat those who lose out from the concentration and capitalisation of agriculture are those who, despitepolicy constraints, most contribute to addressing major crises, providing food sovereignty and ruralemployment and also reducing carbon emissions. Finally, the paper turns to the regional level, focusingon patterns of land property and the agricultural situation, including in relation to the global food system,and the promotion of a ‘renewable energy’ project in Sardinia by both the central and local government.The next section examines the case study of the Municipality of Narbolia, the location of a mega-solargreenhouse development being undertaken by Enervitabio Ltd, and the local community’s opposition tothe project, its struggles and resistance.The concluding section summarises insights from the Narbolia experience, draws out lessons in relationto the broader trends and concerns identified in the introduction, and presents various policy recommendationsneeded to shape the necessary changes.
2. Land and agricultural policy: common trends atthe international, European and national levela. The international contextI. A global land grabThe term ‘land grabbing’ entered the international stage in the context of converging economic, financial,energy and food crises between 2007 and 2008. At the time, the media spotlight was focused primarilyon emerging and relatively new players such as Saudi Arabia and South Korea, which were becoming involved in potential large-scale land acquisitions in countries in the South, for the purpose of producingfood crops. What is now clear is that framing the issue in this way overlooked, if not neglected, keydrivers and power dynamics and relations underlying and supporting land grabs.Our understanding of what constitutes a land grab in the contemporary context is based on Borras etal. (2012), namely the three interlinked specificities of contemporary land grabs: land grabbing as controllingresources; land grabbing involving large-scale transactions, in terms of the scale of acquisitionand/or of the capital involved; and land grabbing as a response to the convergence of multiple crises– food, energy/fuel, climate change, economic and financial, as well as the growing need for resourcesby BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and middle-income countries (MICs).Land grabs therefore need to be placed ‘in the context of the power of national and transnational capitaland their desire for profit, which overrides existing meanings, uses and systems of management of theland that are rooted in local communities. The global land grab is therefore an epitome of an ongoing andaccelerating change in the meaning and use of the land and its associated resources (like water) fromsmall-scale, labour-intensive uses like subsistence agriculture, toward large-scale, capital-intensive,resource-depleting uses such as industrial monocultures, raw material extraction, and large-scalehydropower generation – integrated into a growing infrastructure that link extractive frontiers to metropolitanareas and foreign markets’ (TNI 2013).This chapter argues that agricultural land in Europe, as in many other countries across the globe,has become object of financial speculation as the value of land is moving away from its current agriculturaluse. Financial capital speculates on land, mainly to obtain the value of agricultural rent, butalso its environmental value, through allegedly sustainable practices such as carbon-sequestrationmechanisms and renewable energy production, along with the value of natural resources inherent inthe land, primarily water and biodiversity. The rapid growth in the demand for land is largely due to thelarge-scale acquisition of resources and land by mining and construction industries, and to the growingagro-industrial demand for flex-crop plantations – all of which contribute to land speculation.II. Shrinking access to land and land concentrationEvolving patterns in land use and land property highlight two concurrent trends, both at the Europeanand at the national level in Italy: shrinking access to land, especially for smallholders, and increasingland concentration, especially in the hands of businesses that are becoming more interested in obtainingagricultural land.
As shown in Table 1, in 1995 the EU-15 had 7.4 million farms, which had dropped to 5.7 million by 2007;in 2003 the new EU-27 had 15 million farms, which had dropped to 13 million in 2007. In 1995 EU-15there were 4 million farms with less than 5 ha and by 2007 there were 3 million. The EU-27 had 11million farms in 2003 and less than 10 million in 2007. In total, this implies a loss of more than 70% ofthe total number of EU farms. The EU-27 accounted for approximately 12 million farms and 170 millionha of Used Agricultural Area (UAA).In 1995 there were 585,730 farms of over 50 ha were (EU-15), and 2007 saw an increase to 616,920.When taking into consideration EU-27 data of 2003, there were 688,420 large farms, which went upto 716,490 in 2010.
There are many actors involved in such acquisitions, which can be classified under different legalcategories and business interests. Some of the main corporations involved include Allianz RCM GlobalAgricultural Trends, Baring Global Agriculture Fund (Crédit Agricole and Société Générale – France)and Robeco Agribusiness Equities D EUR (Rabobank – the Netherlands).
fonte: Transnational Institute (TNI) for European Coordination Via Campesina and Hands off the Land network