"The Future of Uganda is in Danger: Stop Land Grabbing!"

An increase in land grabbing in Uganda has pushed Slow Food to launch a campaign against it...Slow Food has officially launched the campaign “Our Future is in Danger: Stop Land Grabbing!” The campaign aims to raise awareness about land grabbing* and its consequences among the population and stimulate political debate at all levels, from civil society to local authorities and Parliament. The campaign will run for several weeks in the first quarter of 2018...

Due to land grabbing, native forests and local biodiversity are being lost, people are being evicted from their homes and forced to give up their lands, along with all the other problems linked to the large-scale use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers...Uganda has been affected by land grabbing for more than a decade. All the affected areas in Uganda are known for their rich biodiversity, important cultural legacy, and as food baskets. It takes place with different purposes, such as:

• Agribusiness: the primary reason, whereby big pieces of land are grabbed to grow profitable crops like sugarcane, palm oil, rice, sunflowers, or to be used for intensive animal farming.
• Carbon market: where extensive plantations of exotic trees like pine or eucalyptus are established in exchange for carbon credits for large foreign firms. (Under the Kyoto Protocol, developed countries can offset their carbon emissions by buying carbon credits from projects in the developing world through the so-called Clean Development Mechanism (CDM))