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Rich Arab States buying up Africa
NAIROBI, Kenya, April 29 (UPI) -- Rich Arab states such as Saudi
Arabia have bought huge tracts of land across Africa in recent
years in a bid to combat global food shortages, water scarcity
and desertification and feed their burgeoning populations.
But now 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.
China has leased 6.91 million acres in the Democratic Republic
of Congo for the world's largest oil palm plantation.
South Korea's Daewoo conglomerate planned to buy 2.9 million
acres of
Madagascar until the deal collapsed when rioters toppled the
Indian Ocean island's government.
"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.
"Foreign direct investment in agriculture is the boardroom
euphemism for the new land grab and those promoting the grab
spin it as a win-win situation."
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."
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.
Ethiopia alone has approved 815 foreign-financed agricultural
projects
since 2007.
As African leaders, many out to line their own pockets, sign
away their
people's land to foreigners, 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.
In the end, critics say, with African farmland in foreign hands,
the
continent faces widespread conflict over resources in the
not-too-distant future.
"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."
Climate change is accelerating the decline in food production
through water shortages, desertification, coastal flooding and
changing weather patterns.
As populations expand while the amount of farmland and water
supply
shrinks, 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.
As the foreign purchases of African land multiply unchecked, the
United Nations and the World Bank are seeking to bring the
land-grabbing under some sort of control.
In November, they started drawing up a code of conduct to
regulate overseas investment in farmland, the first effort to
put the brakes on the runaway land acquisitions by wealthy
states such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and South
Korea.
But critics view this as too little, too late.
The regulations aren't expected to be ready until late this
year. Officials acknowledge the delay gives land-grabbers time
to snap up more farmland before the code comes into force.
But even then, it will lack teeth because the regulations will
be
non-binding: the United Nations doesn't want to inhibit direct
foreign
investment in agriculture, which it believes can offer
development
opportunities.
The land-buying spree by the Arab states is likely to continue
as
desertification worsens.
Wadid Erian, a soil expert with the Arab Center for the Study of
Arid Zones and Dry Land in Cairo, said that desertification is
advancing swiftly "and our response needs to match the pace …
"The question we need to be asking is whether using (African)
land is a
sustainable, long-term solution … We expect that if climate
change and
desertification continue at this pace, in the next five years we
won't have enough food to supply demand."
Continuing to amass Africa's arable land without ensuring that
local
populations in the world's hungriest continent reap any benefit,
is not the sole long-term answer," Erian said.
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