AgriSol Energy LLC

DES MOINES — Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement plans to counter what it calls a “corporate” ag summit scheduled for early next month.

Instead of the Iowa Ag Summit, planned for March 7 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, Iowa CCI will hold its own Food & Ag Justice Summit March 6 and 7 at the group’s headwquarters in Des Moines.

On September 27, 2001, Dan Rather Reports aired an episode called Trouble on the Land, which examined the AgriSol land deal in Tanzania and the parties involved.

Recorded on 8/28/12 on AgriSol with Anuradha Mittal of Oakland Institute and Tim Schwab of Food & Water Watch.

Watch the video

On Aug. 23, the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board decided to drop an ethics complaint filed by the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI) against Iowa Board of Regents member BruceRastetter.

The meeting room at Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement was packed Tuesday evening, as a guest from California told a crowd of farmers, mothers, academics, retirees and others that Tanzanians were looking to Iowa to see if they can trust democracy. “I never thought mobilization in Iowa would happen,” said an emotional Anuradha Mittal.

DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa Board of Regents member Bruce Rastetter has filed an amended financial disclosure statement with the state ethics board just days before the board considers whether he violated ethics rules.

An agriculture company with Iowa ties should back out of a Tanzanian land deal if it can’t promise enough local jobs and won’t demand better government compensation for refugees who could be displaced to make room for large-scale farming, said the author of several reports critical of the deal.

Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute, said Agrisol Energy LLC has negotiated a “sweetheart” deal that could harm an estimated 162,000 refugees, some of whom have had their homes and crops burned by government security officials.

Watch video of CCI response