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TechnoratiRich Countries Launch Great Land Grab to Safeguard Food Supply
• States and companies target developing nations • Small farmers at risk from industrial-scale deals
![[]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/Daewoo.gif "Daewoo.gif")
Rich governments and corporations are triggering alarm for the poor as they buy up the rights to millions of hectares of agricultural land in developing countries in an effort to secure their own long-term food supplies.
The head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Jacques Diouf, has warned that the controversial rise in land deals could create a form of "neo-colonialism", with poor states producing food for the rich at the expense of their own hungry people.
Rising food prices have already set off a second "scramble for Africa". This week, the South Korean firm Daewoo Logistics announced plans to buy a 99-year lease on a million hectares in Madagascar. Its aim is to grow 5m tonnes of corn a year by 2023, and produce palm oil from a further lease of 120,000 hectares (296,000 acres), relying on a largely South African workforce. Production would be mainly earmarked for South Korea, which wants to lessen dependence on imports.
"These deals can be purely commercial ventures on one level, but sitting behind it is often a food security imperative backed by a government," said Carl Atkin, a consultant at Bidwells Agribusiness, a Cambridge firm helping to arrange some of the big international land deals.
Madagascar's government said that an environmental impact assessment would have to be carried out before the Daewoo deal could be approved, but it welcomed the investment. The massive lease is the largest so far in an accelerating number of land deals that have been arranged since the surge in food prices late last year.
"In the context of arable land sales, this is unprecedented," Atkin said. "We're used to seeing 100,000-hectare sales. This is more than 10 times as much."
At a food security summit in Rome, in June, there was agreement to channel more investment and development aid to African farmers to help them respond to higher prices by producing more. But governments and corporations in some cash-rich but land-poor states, mostly in the Middle East, have opted not to wait for world markets to respond and are trying to guarantee their own long-term access to food by buying up land in poorer countries.
According to diplomats, the Saudi Binladin Group is planning an investment in Indonesia to grow basmati rice, while tens of thousands of hectares in Pakistan have been sold to Abu Dhabi investors.
Arab investors, including the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, have also bought direct stakes in Sudanese agriculture. The president of the UEA, Khalifa bin Zayed, has said his country was considering large-scale agricultural projects in Kazakhstan to ensure a stable food supply.
Even China, which has plenty of land but is now getting short of water as it pursues breakneck industrialization, has begun to explore land deals in south-east Asia. Laos, meanwhile, has signed away between 2m-3m hectares, or 15% of its viable farmland. Libya has secured 250,000 hectares of Ukrainian farmland, and Egypt is believed to want similar access. Kuwait and Qatar have been chasing deals for prime tracts of Cambodia rice fields.
Eager buyers generally have been welcomed by sellers in developing world governments desperate for capital in a recession. Madagascar's land reform minister said revenue would go to infrastructure and development in flood-prone areas.
Sudan is trying to attract investors for almost 900,000 hectares of its land, and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, has been courting would-be Saudi investors.
"If this was a negotiation between equals, it could be a good thing. It could bring investment, stable prices and predictability to the market," said Duncan Green, Oxfam's head of research. "But the problem is, [in] this scramble for soil I don't see any place for the small farmers."
Alex Evans, at the Center on International Cooperation, at New York University, said: "The small farmers are losing out already. People without solid title are likely to be turfed off the land."
Details of land deals have been kept secret so it is unknown whether they have built-in safeguards for local populations.
Steve Wiggins, a rural development expert at the 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."
20 Comments so far
Show Allhttp://www.wiredispatch.com/news/?id=463166
While having what might be on the surface little to do with this story, i found this very interesting.
Why would three members of The BND (Germany Secret police) bomb a EU bulding in Kosovo?
It seems to me a whole lot of these "events" in the developing world, are manufactured in order to create the need to deploy Miltary forces of given power blocks.
Watch for a whole lot of this if countries refuse to turn over their lands to the wealthy countries to ensure those same countries have secure food supplies.
"Details of land deals have been kept secret so it is unknown whether they have built-in safeguards for local populations."
Buit-in safeguards for local populations? That's a joke!
Do you remember after Hurricaine Katrina hit, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that private property could be taken by "eminent domain" and sold-off to private business interests? The rationale for this abuse of power?: Business' create jobs.
You can just imagine the lack of safeguards in third-world countries when in this alleged democracy, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of corporate money.
This is the ultimate tragedy in making! It is not just about social injustice and bullying by the haves of those who don't have. Let's don't overlook the tragedy of agricultural land destruction. It looks as 120% guarantee that this remote for owners lands will be farmed industrially, in the most exploitive ways, extracting as much as possible and neglected long term effects. But that will also drastically reduce chances of the poor (mostly farmers) from the poor countries to rebuild their traditional sustainable agricultures on which our hopes hinge.
Grabbing the land at distant locations with the power of greed money is the sign of our incoming ultimate global collapse. Until now it was just mostly about energy or other underground resources. Now it is about the very foundation of our lives. Tragic and very scary.
Want a secure food supply? Get off the meat-centered diet. Especially the Corporate meat diet. Its a huge waste of resources, including land that could be in wilderness or diverse family farms.
And support policies that empower women, which leads to reduced population growth in many ways.
And then we have neo-Malthusians who blame the population numbers as the culprit when it is the bad policies that are at fault. Whether the population is 1 billion or 10 billion, this kind of land grabbing by the elites is the real culprit that must be stopped. Don't expect the neo-Malthusians to lift a finger on this issue.
You're in the minority. The majority of Americans are "neo-Malthusians":
A Survey Of American Attitudes About Population Size:
Towards A Smaller U.S. Population
Policy Makers Alert:
New Poll Reveals Clear Attitudes Regarding U.S. Population Size and Growth
To determine American public opinion with regard to U.S. population size and growth, NPG commissioned a Roper Starch survey. The survey, conducted in December 1995, was carried out with face-to-face interviews in the homes of about 2,000 nationally representative adults. It showed that a majority of Americans now recognize that population growth is a threat to the quality of their lives.
The Results Are Clear:
Halt Population Growth, and Reduce Immigration Drastically
Most Americans Believe The U.S. Is Overpopulated And Favor Efforts To Halt Population Growth
Most Americans believe the U.S. is overpopulated and favor non-coercive efforts to curtail or reduce population growth. A large majority of Americans want no further growth in the nation's population and many would like to see it reduced. According to Roper, "a recent ROPER REPORTS survey found that 72 percent of Americans worry that overpopulation will be a serious problem in the next 25 to 50 years, up from 65 percent who worried about it in 1991."
Most See Reducing Immigration Is The Easiest, Most Desirable Means Of Slowing Population Pressures
Unlike support for a variety of policy options that would promote fertility reduction, there is no hesitation whatsoever in supporting a reduction in the level of immigration.. According to Roper, "most Americans say they would like only about one-tenth the present number of immigrants per year. Indeed, 20 percent say they would like to have no immigration at all permitted into the United States... A total of 83 percent favor a number lower than the he present estimated 1 million new immigrants per year. Merely 2 percent favor an increase in the number of immigrants each year."
Most Americans Believe Our Present Size
of 265 Million Or Smaller Is Optimum For The United States
A majority of Americans consider overpopulation to be a major problem that should be addressed immediately. An overwhelming majority (74%) favor tough measures to identify and deport illegal immigrants. Over half of all Americans (59%) said that the U.S. population today is too big, including 24 percent who said we have "far too many" people and 30 percent who answered "somewhat too many" people. An overwhelming majority (70%) of Americans think that immigration levels are excessive and should be reduced by nearly two-thirds (to less than 300,000 new immigrants a year).
Overpopulation Represents A Threat To The "Resource Base" Of The United States
General comment: Half of all Americans now see the overpopulation trends as a threat of the "resource base" of the United States.
General observation: Half of all Americans now observe the impact of population growth on crowded roads, schooling, infrastructure, farmland, parks and their own communities, there is a new, fundamental awakening to the fact that endless development is not a panacea for a nation's challenges. Lost is the "American way of life," that intangible sense that low population density and abundant physical space are essential to American's liberty and sense of freedom.
An Emerging Sense That Further Population
Growth Means A Continued Loss In The American Quality Of Life
The arguments in favor of population growth are losing favor among the general public.
The usual arguments one hears in support of a larger U.S. population are:
* This country needs population growth in order to have economic growth.
* We need continued growth to avoid a labor shortage.
* Unless the U.S. population continues growing, we will cease being a world power.
During the 19th Century and throughout the industrial revolution, the above comments were part of the American lore and an important part of the nation's development. Yet times are changing. In all cases, only a small minority of Americans agrees with these statements today. According to Roper: "Relatively few people hold opinions which support an expanding population."
On the other hand, all of the following are supporting by a majority of Americans:
* Although the issue of population growth does not require immediate attention, we should start thinking of ways to control it now. (59%)
* Overpopulation is a major national problem that needs to be addressed now. (55%)
* Continued population growth is a threat to America's resource base. (50%)
According to Roper: "General public attitudes are consistent with the view that the population is too big. Over half of Americans (59%) advocate that the United States begin considering ways to ‘control it's population' [growth]." As a measure of how attitudes have changed, says Roper, "1 in 3 now thinks the U.S. needs to reduce its population in order to maintain a sound economy and environment over the long term."
Groups Concerned About
Population Growth Move Across The Political Spectrum
The Roper survey found that the groups who most believe overpopulation is a "major problem" requiring immediate attention include:
* English-speaking Hispanics (67%)
* Westerners (66%)
* Middle-income earners ($15-30,000 a year) (63%)
* High school graduates (60%)
* Blue-collar workers (59%)
Whether their concern is rooted in congestion, job competition, resource shortage, environmental degradation or scarcity of public services, there is a clear new consensus that continued population growth is reducing , not increasing, America's quality of life.
Conclusion:
* Congress should listen to the people and adopt policies that would halt, and eventually reverse, U.S. population growth.
* Congress should cut immigration to 100,000 a year of less, encourage small families through small family goals and incentives.
http://www.npg.org/roper/exec_summary.htm
Consider the obverse consequence of this global land grab: slums.
2008 marks the year that humanity has become majority urban. The poor find they can no longer survive on the land, and so humanity is creating "A Planet of Slums".
The poor are being pushed off the land because, as in Madagascar, it is too valuable to not be coveted by the South Korean chaebol.
Here's a snippet from the review of Mike Davis's book:
“In this trenchantly argued book, Mike Davis quantifies the nightmarish mass production of slums that marks the contemporary city. With cool indignation, Davis argues that the exponential growth of slums is no accident but the result of a perfect storm of corrupt leadership, institutional failure, and IMF-imposed Structural Adjustment Programs leading to a massive transfer of wealth from poor to rich...."
Soon we will be fighting over water, not oil !
END MOUNTAIN TOP REMOVAL ! Appalachia, Virginia is third world America thanks to Presidebt Bush and THE COAL INDUSTRY !
http://www.wisecountyissues.com
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/timmullins
Here's the logical conclusion of this horrible "globalization" atrocity. Corporations can wander the planet grabbing whatever they want everywhere with impunity as if borders didn't exist.
Corporations and their right-wing propagandists (politicians and think tanks) kept telling us globalization was all about making everybody as rich as the people of Western nations. Yeah, sure.
And brain-dead leftoids and trendoids, with their incredible naivety and gullibility, all bought into it as if all globalization meant was that the globe was more and more connected electronically--internet, and all its compenents like email, chats, Facebook, etc., and we were all going to be able to chat with anybody anywhere, and ....wasn't it wonderful! The electronic connections are great, although they bring lots of nasty side-effects.
But the real problem is the removal of economic, legal borders so that the whole planet becomes one big huge playground for corporations, allowing them to roam around with impunity grabbing and plundering whatever they want.
Free trade is promoted as a boon for everyone because there was supposed to be so much more trade and the spin-off effect would make everybody richer. Not.
Free trade is really about removing borders and making corporations free of any national restrictions and allowing them to roam around like pirates on the high seas: accountable to nobody.
Amazing, isn't it? Ten thousand years of history and we're still thinking that competing Nation States, with the stronger ones exploiting the weaker ones, is the way to go.
Why, the Village Idiot leading the rapidly disintegrating American Empire has just told APEC that free markets and trade (capitalism) and little government regulation is the way to go. This is in the face of the current global economic and financial crisis! Yeah, George, and Santa will come down the chimney next Xmas too!
How backward we humans are. How stupid we are. How savage we are. Why, we've even made a $100,000 push bike! You don't believe it? Check:
www.dangerouscreation.com
There will always be brutal greedy people. To expect them to disappear because it's so yesterday, is not realistic.
The rest of us--the vast majority--must stop assuming that voting every few years is all that is required from the citizenry. We must be much more active in controlling our neighbourhoods, schools, communities, country, and thereby, the whole world.
Given the impunity to act for their own interest, greedy impersonal corporations led by greedy ass....s will trample the rest of us without thinking twice... 50,000 years ago, 10,000, yesterday, tomorrow, and 10,000 years from now...it'll never change. Greedy ass....s are a part of nature like great people and everything in between. They must be controlled. WE must control them. And we're not doing that.
Paul Siemering
for the last 500 years rich countries have been preying upon, victimizing and abusing the Global South and have never stopped.
all this colonial activity must be stopped in its tracks right now.
It is sad that South Korea is now following the well worn tracks of the imperial powers, but that does not make it ok.
capital exploitation of the Global South always has been and always will be criminal
Did we emerge from feudalism just to sink back to it?
It is impossible to separate long-term, the land and the resourses on it ethically.
Good observation. I'd say that's exactly what it is: modern feudalism. Highly centralized ownership of the land, and the vast majority having only the right to work for bad wages.
The huge advantage of medieval feudalism over the modern version is that then, at least, you could live on the land, raise a family, and try to improve your lot by improving yield, etc. (And hiding some of your harvest from your Lord and Master.)
These charlatans who call themselves leaders are not allowed to sell the peoples lands and their assets, it is treasonable and they should be tried and Hanged by the peoples of the respective countries
These are the seeds of very dangerous stuff ahead
Here is where the poorer countries have an edge to produce food for the rich at fair market value with reciprocity.
Dumb!! Dummy!!! Dangerous!!! Depressing!!!
Where the leaders have no vision the people perish.
Correction the leaders do have vision but only for their emendate families
These leaders do not even have the vision to see where efforts would be short term , at best 2 to 3 generations while living in their Host’s country, if you get my subliminal drift.
Short term gain for long term pain!!!
"This could go horribly wrong if you don't learn the lessons of history."
Worth repeating.
This sort of thing happened under the old Imperialist powers as well with countries like the United Kingdom shipping food out of India and ireland as the peoples in those countries starved.
If this pursued it will lead to ever more Militarism as the Corporations that claim to "own" this land lobby their home countries governmnet or hire private security firms to protect their assets.
No doubt in so doing , they will label the poor of the various countries who protest such activities as "terrorists" and threats to world peace as they either turn them into wage slaves or gund them down in the name of world peace.
The Corporation is the enemy of Humanity. It is the beast that will devour all in the name of profits.
PK
We the People:
Incorporate
before
it's
too
late.
Incorporate!?
ORGANIZE!!!!
Incorporating We the People is organizing.