Land grabbing

Romanians confront land grab ‘scout’ 17th January 2013, Markthalle Neun, Berlin  As much as 10% of Romanian farmland could be in the hands of multinational businesses, but there are no official statistics to establish the full extent of the corporate takeover. Speaking at a Green Day event in Berlin, organised by ARC2020 just a couple of days before the January 19 demonstration, Romanian peasant leader Willy Schuster and ARC2020 correspondent for Romania Attila Szocs demolished the corporate platitudes of Germanagrar co-founder Simon Wolk, who suggested that two hectares was not a big enough holding to be profitable. “What we have is worth more than just money,” Schuster snapped at Wolk, who made heavy weather of a heated round table discussion. During the debate, he admitted that Germanagrar had this year paid contracting peasants just EUR 140/hectare or 600kg of wheat per hectare for the use of their land under the terms of poorly-explained and often murky contracts covering ten years or more. “They are strangling us” Schuster added. Since Romanian law forbids foreign nationals to buy […]