Flora IP’s Dr Titilayo Adebola made important contributions to the UNIDROIT-IFAD Legal Guide on Agricultural Land Investment Contracts (ALIC Legal Guide). We are pleased to share her presentation at the launch event held on 24 September 2021 as a side-event to the 100th Session of the UNIDROIT Governing Council.
The ALIC Legal Guide is the second international instrument adopted in relation to private law and agricultural development (the first was the Legal Guide on Contract Farming). Jointly produced by UNIDROIT and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the ALIC Legal Guide provides guidance to improve agricultural land investment contracts by drawing from international principles and standards for the promotion of responsible investment, such as the United Nations Guiding Principles on Human Rights, the Committee on World Food Security Responsible Investments in Agriculture (RAI) Principles and the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT).
Titilayo Adebola
I was involved in consultations for the ALIC Legal Guide in three ways. (I) By contributing an essay to the Afronomicslaw.org online symposium (II) By participating in the African regional consultation (III) By submitting recommendations to the online public consultation.
Afronomicslaw.org Online Symposium
Afronomicslaw.org hosted a successful online Symposium convened by Professor James Thuo Gathii on the UNDROIT/FAO/IFAD Draft Legal Guide on Agricultural Land Investment Contracts (ALIC) from 29 September 2019 to 12 October 2019. The symposium presented brilliant contributions from nine experts including myself (Michael Fakhri, Tomaso Ferrando, Chidi Oguamanam, Nicolas Perrone, Sam Szoke-Burke, Philip Seufert, Sara L Seck and Adebayo Majekolagbe). We covered topics ranging from human rights, foreign investment, climate change, environmental impacts, land deals to intellectual property rights.
While experts discussed other complexities of agricultural legal investment contracts, I dedicated my contribution in the Symposium to access to food and intellectual property rights. First, on access to food, I underscored the need for human rights impact assessments on the right to food to ensure that investments cater to the production of domestic staple food crops to serve local markets and improve local food sovereignty and food security. In other words, the production of crops should respond to local needs. I further emphasised that the Guide should provide a firm structure for the distribution of food products by prioritising domestic consumption demands over export market demands.
On intellectual property rights, I highlighted the need to include potential impacts of intellectual property rights (IPRs) on investments, as the existence of intellectual property rights systems for seeds/plant varieties such as patents and plant breeders rights play a significant role in attracting investments but may limit small-scale farmers and farming community rights.
African Regional Consultation
I was invited to contribute to the 3rd regional consultation workshop – focused on Africa – which was held in Kenya, at the Strathmore Law School in Nairobi on 23 October 2019. The thought-provoking African regional consultation brought together stakeholders in Africa including government officials, intergovernmental organisations, non-governmental organisations, private sector representatives, legal practitioners and academics. The workshop offered the opportunity to discuss the possible implications of agricultural land investment contracts on the rights and obligations of stakeholders/ parties in Africa. There, I explicated the positions proffered above.
Online Public Consultation
I submitted my recommendations during the online public consultation via UNIDROIT’s website on 29 October 2019.
Conclusion
Overall, I am pleased that the consultations were undertaken and that some of my recommendations were adopted and incorporated in Chapter 3 of the final ALIC Guide as set out next.
3.44 A holistic, integrated, and participatory approach to impact assessment: through the inclusion of intellectual property rights (Pages 62 and 212).
3.62 Access to food: through the inclusion of farmers rights, especially smallholder farmers interests (Pages 69 to 70).
3.63 Right to Food Impact Assessment: through the prioritisation of domestic needs (Page 70).
3.64 Impact of Intellectual Property Rights: through consideration of the impacts of intellectual property rights such as patents and plant breeders’ rights on land/farmers/local communities’ rights, technologies, innovation systems and practices (Page 70).
