Africa
Rich nations buying huge tracts of land in Africa to grow crops
File photo of Jacques Diouf, Director-General, FAO. According to him, a number of the western governments and corporations are buying up the rights to millions of hectares of agricultural land in developing countries in an effort to secure their own long-term food supplies.
Posted Sunday, November 23 2008 at 14:00
Details of land deals have generally been kept secret so it is unknown whether they have built-in safeguards for local populations.
Steve Wiggins, a rural development expert at the UK-based Overseas Development Institute, said: “There are very few economies of scale in most agriculture above the level of family farm because managing [the] labour is extremely difficult.”
Investors might also have to contend with hostility. “If I was a political-risk adviser to [investors] I’d say 'you are taking a very big risk’. Land is an extremely sensitive thing. This could go horribly wrong if you don’t learn the lessons of history.”
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Submitted by jackyPosted November 24, 2008 08:21 PM
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Submitted by maches19
What nonsense! first colonialism then this? Are our African leaders so shortsighted that they are willing to sell their people short rather than see an opportunity for its people to make an honest living? Land is the next gold for Africa why cant we see this opportunity and make use of it? The power is in our hands people lets make use of our gift of agriculture to mint the gold that we so pursue.
Posted November 24, 2008 04:49 PM -
Submitted by annenzioki
Why can't these governments find capital to provide to the citizens of their countries to grow the food under projects for export on that same land? I continuously fail to understand the short-sightedness and obvious selfish nature of leaders in governments of developing nations.
Posted November 24, 2008 02:14 PM -
Submitted by kizmax
Read Ngugi's new novel Wizard of the Crow. Ngugi says that with this craze for private capital from abroad in the form of FDIs (foreign direct investment), Africa will grow like never before. But who will be the beneficiary from such growth? You got it....the so called investors! An Africa crisscrossed with sky crapers and superhighways, mega-farms and multibillion share firms owned by individuals in Beijing, London, Delhi or Chicago and benefit neither that Kenyan in lamu, lokitaung, loreto, londiani, lurambi run by a local elite... Neocolonialism is the bane of Africa in the 21st century.
Posted November 24, 2008 02:07 PM -
Submitted by wuod_aketch
This is another form of racism. This cynism from Asians should end immediately. Change has come to America where the down trodden can now stand up and say "YES WE DID". It is now time for Africans to stand up and say non to those cynics. With confidence and hard work we will cultivate our own maize to fill plates on our tables and sell the rest at a good price to the highest bidders on the 5 continents.
Posted November 24, 2008 12:36 AM
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Our gold is gone, our diamonds are gone, our oil and minerals are gone, the dignity of our beautiful continent has been tanished...and now this???......i beleive theres something terrible going on in us Africans, we complain but we never take action, i think Africa seriously needs a revolution