Judith Robertson: Developing world is facing new Clearances

Some people left their homes in search of better lives overseas but many others were forcibly evicted to make way for sheep farming.

Today the Highlands and Islands remain one of the least populated areas of Europe.

But while the Clearances are part of Scotland’s past, a new form of clearance – dubbed “land grabs” – are part of the present for too many of the world’s poorest people.

In fact, land 26 times the size of Scotland was sold off globally in the past decade.

In some cases, families who relied on the land to produce their food have been forcibly evicted.

Oxfam’s campaign to end land grabs has already attracted star support, including actor Peter Capaldi of Thick Of It fame.

According to a our new report Our Land, Our Lives, the land sold off between 2000 and 2010 could have grown food for one billion people – equivalent to the number who go hungry in the world every day.

Rising food prices are a key cause with land seen as an ever more profitable investment.

The cruel irony is that more than 60 per cent of investments in agricultural land by foreign investors took place in developing countries with serious hunger problems. Two thirds of those investors plan to export everything the land produces.

In addition, nearly 60 per cent of the land deals have been for crops for biofuels – diverting food from people to petrol tanks.

We cannot stand back and let these new Clearances hit some of the world’s poorest people.

Oxfam is today calling for the World Bank – one of the leading standard-setters and a big investor itself – to place a freeze on its own land investments pending a full review of its policy and practice. Investment should be good for developing countries not lead to greater poverty, hunger and hardship.

Too often the world fails to learn the lessons from history.

Scotland must ensure the Highland Clearances are one lesson no-one forgets.

• Judith Robertson is head of Oxfam Scotland.