Access to land and the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil in Colombia

In the wake of the 2008 triple crisis (finance, food, environment), large-scale land investments raised concerns about their negative impacts on local populations. To counter risks to agribusiness’ reputation, sustainability certifications legitimize investments fulfilling certain production criteria. But do such certifications ensure local populations’ land access? This paper investigates the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and argues that its definition of sustainability fails to ensure such land access for two reasons: (1) It refers to land rights instead of recognizing the human right to land (2) It promotes contract farming as win-win. By focusing on local contexts and practices in Colombia, field research provides evidence that to ensure local populations’ land access, the RSPO should opt for a human rights approach. For the Colombian peace process, this result means that the RSPO’s current definition of sustainability is not in line with the integral rural reform planned in the peace agreement.