By Gwynne Dyer
In the past two years, various non-African countries – China, India, South Korea, Britain and the Arab Gulf states lead the pack – have been taking over huge tracts of farmland in Africa by lease or purchase, to produce food or biofuels for their own use.
Critics call them “neo-colonialists”, but they will not be as successful as the old ones.
The scale of the land grab is truly impressive. In Sudan, South Korea has acquired 690,000ha of land to grow wheat. The United Arab Emirates, which already has 30,000ha in Sudan, is investing in another 378,000ha to grow corn, alfalfa, wheat, potatoes and beans.
In Tanzania, Saudi Arabia is seeking 500,000ha.
Even bigger chunks of land are being leased to produce biofuels.
China has acquired 2.8 million hectares in the Democratic Republic of Congo to create the world’s largest oil-palm plantation (replacing all that messy rainforest and useless wildlife with tidy lines of palm trees), and is negotiating for 2 million hectares in Zambia to grow jatropha. British firms have secured big tracts of land in Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tanzania.
Only rarely is there protest from local people. One striking exception is Madagascar, where the announcement of a 99-year contract to lease 1.3 million hectares to South Korea’s Daewoo Corporation to grow corn helped to trigger the recent revolution. “Madagascar’s land is neither for sale nor for rent,” said the new leader, Andry Rajoelina, who cancelled the deal.
After the revolution, it turned out another 465,000ha of land in Madagascar had been leased to an Indian company, Varun International, to grow rice for consumption in India. That deal is also being cancelled by the new Government – but elsewhere, the acquisition of huge tracts of African land by Asian and European Governments and companies goes ahead almost unopposed.
Why Africa? Because that’s the last place where there are large areas of good agricultural land that aren’t already completely occupied by local farmers. There are usually some peasants scratching a living from the land, but they are few and poor, and they can easily be bought or driven out.
For the foreigners, the lure is profit, or food security, or both.
New Zealand Herald for more