“Malawi investigates land grab report by multinationals”

President Peter Mutharika ordered investigations into reports that big name multinationals are grabbing land from poor smallholder farmers to diversify from tobacco farming. Mutharika ordered investigations after reports issued by land rights organisations…this year indicated that Malawi had entered into an agreement through the G8 New Alliance Initiative to release 200 000 hectares of large-scale commercial agriculture land by 2015. The organisations have said the initiative, which Malawi signed up for, was against the backdrop of proven research that 11 percent of the country’s population has no access to land for subsistence farming…

The Malawi leader questioned the credibility of the LandNet Malawi organisation which BBC journalist Zeinab Badawi quoted. “Grabbed by multinationals? Who is grabbing? Well, I just don’t think that’s true. Some of these civil society organisations [CSOs] should be questioned on how they analyse issues,” said Mutharika. “There is a law on how land is going to be alienated. No foreigner can acquire land except in cases where they are going to industrialise for a certain amount of time,” he added.