GRAIN Media Advisory | 20 April 2012

Farmers demand the World Bank and Wall Street stop grabbing their lands, at opening of the Bank’s annual conference in Washington, DC.

The World Bank is playing a leading role in a global land grab, say farmers’ movements and international allies. The World Bank’s policies for land privatization and concentration, have paved the way for corporations from Wall Street to Singapore to take upwards of 80 million hectares of land from rural communities across the world in the past few years, they say in a collective statement that they will release at the opening of the World Bank’s Conference on Land and Poverty in Washington DC, on April 23, 2012.

The global land grab was denounced at over 250 worldwide protest actions on April 17th, the International Day of Peasant’s Struggle.

On April 24th, another major farmland investor conference in New York City, involving the World Bank and large money managers like the Canadian Pension Fund, TIAA-CREF and PensionDanmark, will be targeted for protests by Occupy Wall Street and others.

The National Family Farm Coalition and international allies will hold a media teleconference from Washington, DC on Monday, April 23rd at 11:00 am EDT.

Participants at the press conference are:
-Rafael Alegria, La Via Campesina (Honduras)
-Bob St. Peter, National Family Farm Coalition (USA)
-Giulia Franchi, Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale (Italy)
-Devlin Kuyek, GRAIN (Canada)

**To Participate by Phone: Call-in information: 1-866-305-2467; code is 260454# or if calling from outside the US, please contact Kathy Ozer at (202) 421-4544 or by email at [email protected] for call-in information

**To participate in person, please join us at 110 Maryland Ave., NE, Suite 108; Washington, DC 20002, National Council of Churches Conference Room