Sugar fuels land grabs, Oxfam claims

Oxfam has taken aim at some of the biggest names in the food and beverage industry - including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo - for their lack of action on land grabs and conflicts throughout their supply chains.

An Oxfam report, entitled ‘Nothing sweet about it: How sugar fuels land grabs’, highlights examples of land grabs and disputes linked to companies that supply sugar for Coca-Cola and PepsiCo products, and allegations of land disputes among suppliers of Associated British Foods - whose brands include Twinings and Ovaltine.

While our increasing appetite for sugar has health advocates ringing alarm bells, Oxfam Australia’s acting public policy manager Kelly Dent says it has largely gone unnoticed that the global sugar trade is also helping to fuel the problem of land grabs and disputes.

Dent said 31 million hectares, an area bigger than Victoria, was already being used to grow the world’s sugar, much of it in poor countries. Last year, the world produced 176 million tonnes of sugar, with the food and drinks industry accounting for more than half of that. Sugar production was expected to rise by 25% by 2020.

“Sugar is not only bad for our health, it’s bad for the communities around the world that have been forcibly removed from their land without their consent or compensation,” Dent said.

“Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Associated British Foods are the world’s biggest producers and buyers of sugar, but they are doing little to ensure the sugar in their products is not grown on land grabbed from poor communities.

“The people who love their products expect better. We are calling on them to join us in demanding that Coke, Pepsi and Associated British Foods act now to stamp out land grabs. These three companies have a huge amount of power and influence. If they act, they could transform the industry.”

Oxfam says it has evidence of land grabs and conflicts in Cambodia and Brazil, including a Brazilian fishing community that was violently evicted from its fishing grounds and land to make way for a sugar mill in 1998. The mill reportedly provides sugar to Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.

Dent says Oxfam is calling on Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Associated British Foods to commit to zero tolerance of land grabs throughout their networks of suppliers.

Dent called on the companies to publicly disclose who and where they source their commodities from, publish assessments about how the sugar they purchase affects local communities’ land rights and use their power to encourage governments and the wider food industry to respect land rights.