Land Grabs and the Sovereign Food System: Case of Mali

Dismembered from the land, from power, and from memory, the result is destruction of the base from which the people launch themselves into the world (Ngugi wa 2009: 28). Neo-liberalism calls on African countries to see the ¿market¿ as the centre of the economy, by privatizing and transferring land from thousands of peasants to a hand full of investors. But we have data to expose the limitations of Neo-liberalism: the dangers of reducing peasants to economic agents with little political franchise. Capitalism wants to empower the market by expropriating the principal agents of production, and at the same time, hopes that there will be peace and order in the land (Falola 2005: 507).