The African Land Grab

SOYMB has posted about the problem previously and we again read here that the scramble for Africa is intensifying, with investment banks, hedge funds, commodity traders, sovereign wealth funds, corporations and business tycoons out to grab some of the world's cheapest land -- for profit. Foreign direct investment in agriculture is the boardroom euphemism for the new land grab.According to various assessments, up to 123.5 million acres of African land -- double the size of Britain -- has been snapped up or is being negotiated by governments or wealthy investors. African leaders, many out to line their own pockets, are signing away their people's land and the continent's people, among the poorest on the planet, face having to join the estimated 1 billion people in the world who don't have enough food. In some cases, human rights groups say many of these deals are done in secret without consulting the people on the land being sold, often dispossessing them.

Rich Arab states such as Saudi Arabia have bought huge tracts of land across Africa in recent years. "Food production in Arab countries is limited by scarce land and water resources," the World Bank said in recent report. "Arab countries are highly exposed to international food commodity price shocks … because they are heavily dependent on imported food." The land-buying spree by the Arab states is likely to continue as desertification worsens.
China has leased 6.91 million acres in the Democratic Republic of Congo for the world's largest oil palm plantation.Ethiopia has approved 815 foreign-financed agricultural projects since 2007.
Philippe Heilberg, CEO of the New York-based investment fund Jarch Capital has leased between 998,000 and 2.47 million acres in southern Sudan from the warlord Paulino Matip Le Monde Diplomatique reported.It quoted Heilberg as saying, "When food becomes scarce, the investor needs a weak state that does not force him to abide by any rules."

Some critics say with African farmland in foreign hands, the continent faces widespread conflict over resources in the not-too-distant future.Resource wars are expected to erupt across the Middle East and Africa in the years ahead."Unchecked land-grabbing carries with it the seeds of conflict, environmental disaster, political and social change, and hunger on an unprecedented scale," Le Monde Diplomatique warned.

The future looks bleak. In a capitalist world , land and food are simply commodities to be sold and traded on the stock markets,(and then, if need be, acquired by the AK-47) and not as the means to satisfy the needs of people and provide for their well-being.