A New Colonial Era for Africa?

Posted November 20th, 2008

by Annie Shattuck

Land grabs in Africa are on the rise as foreign companies consolidate territory for both agrofuels development and export-oriented agriculture. Nations with a lack of arable land are turning to land investment in Africa to supply agricultural goods. Angola has offered farmland to foreign companies to stimulate investment, and Ethiopia's prime minister has said he is eager to see foreign companies take a stake in the nation's agriculture. Recent examples include:

• The BBC reports that as many as 750,000 Chinese farmers have started farming in Africa with capital support from Beijing investors.

• In Ethiopia, a British company recently acquired 3,000 hectares for a new Jatropha plantation. (Jatropha is an inedible oil seed used for biodiesel. The entire plant is toxic to livestock.) The plantation is going in an area where 39% of the population is currently dependent on international food aid.

• The South Korean Corporation Daewoo just announced a 99-year lease on one million hectares in Madagascar (an area half the size of Belgium) for monoculture corn plantations. The company already grows oil palm on 300,000 acres in Madagascar. Hunger and malnutrition are common in the country, where small farmers make up 80% of the population, and three of every four people live on less than $1 a day.

Agriculture, like mining, oil, gas, and timber is inherently extractive. In this case, the soil is “mined,” stripped of nutrients and topsoil, while local communities lose control of productive resources. In addition rents on production not only leave local economies, they leave the country for value-added processing and use elsewhere. This model of development is akin to the extraction of mineral wealth that Africa has suffered since colonial times.

Food sovereignty proposes the polar opposite model. Instead of a linear system where soil fertility and wealth are extracted and exported from local communities, food sovereignty is cyclical—linking soil health, economic prosperity, and production in a self-sustaining loop. Alternative food systems already exist in Africa—systems based on food sovereignty and agroecology. As international agribusiness descends on Africa's farmland, supporting these grassroots alternatives is more important than ever.