A/HRC/43/44 fisherfolk. However, as the Special Rapporteur discussed in her report on the Sustainable Development Goals, States are not on track to achieve the Goals by 2030 (see A/74/164). 16. The Committee on World Food Security has developed important policy guidelines that support the Sustainable Development Goals, including voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests; voluntary guidelines for securing sustainable small-scale fisheries in the context of food security and poverty eradication; and policies on investing in smallholder agriculture for food security and nutrition; connecting smallholders to markets; and sustainable agricultural development for food security and nutrition. 17. In 2017, in resolution 72/239 the General Assembly proclaimed 2019–2028 the United Nations Decade of Family Farming. In 2019, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) launched a joint global action plan to enable a better policy environment for family farmers, support youth and generational sustainability, promote gender equality, improve socioeconomic inclusion and safeguard biodiversity, the environment and culture. While these are laudable goals, implementation requires greater inclusivity, as global policy has favoured multinational agribusinesses and investment frameworks that undermine family farming. C. Rush to land 18. Over 3.1 billion people worldwide rely on land use for their livelihoods, the majority of whom live in developing countries without official ownership. In the global South, natural resources such as water, forests, savannas and farming and grazing lands are often managed communally under customary laws. As market control has become increasingly consolidated, these lands have become subject to agricultural investment, as part of a “global land grab”. 12 This concept refers to the acquisition of large tracts of land by companies for investment purposes, often without the consent of or consultation with local communities. Between 2000 and 2016, foreign buyers acquired 42.2 million hectares of land, with Africa accounting for 42 per cent of all deals.13 Land-grabbing has also increased across Europe, where 2.7 per cent of farms over 100 hectares control over half of all arable land.14 19. Proponents of large-scale land acquisition frame these policies as beneficial for local employment and economic infrastructure. The World Bank claims that its project on enabling the business of agriculture protects land rights and promotes equitable access to land. In practice, the project has cast land as a marketable commodity sold to the highest bidder. Most acquisitions do not advance poverty reduction or development targets; instead such policies encourage export markets, increase the risk of price shocks and create a market for land rights with potentially destructive effects on the local livelihoods of family farmers, pastoralists and those without formal land grants.15 New developments 20. While land-grabbing persists, there have been gradual efforts by States to establish procedural rules to protect the tenure rights of local populations. In 2015, Poland adopted a land transaction law just after the Special Rapporteur had conducted a country visit (see A/HRC/34/48/Add.1). The law was intended to protect agricultural land from large foreign or domestic investors who would establish agribusinesses to the detriment of family farming. It also set out procedures that allowed individuals to appeal against administrative proceedings in the event that they were wrongly denied their right to purchase farmland. 12 13 14 15 6 See Transnational Institute, “The global land grab: a primer” (2012). Kerstin Nolte, Wytske Chamberlain and Markus Giger, “International land deals for agriculture. Fresh insights from the land matrix: analytical report II” (2016). See European Coordination Via Campesina, “Toolkit on land grabbing and access to land in Europe” (April 2017). See Olivier De Schutter, “How not to think of land-grabbing: three critiques of large-scale investments in farmland”, Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 38, No. 2 (2011).