Published on Monday, April 20, 2009 by Inter Press Service
The Second Scramble for Africa Starts
by Julio Godoy
BERLIN - Sub-Saharan African countries have of late become the target of a new form of investment that is strongly reminiscent of colonialism: investors from both industrialised and emerging economies buy or lease large tracts of farm land across the continent, either to guarantee their own food provisions or simply as yet another business.
A Zimbabwean collects a harvest of maize at Domboshawa in April 2008. (AFP/File/Alexander Joe)In doing so, investors even deal with warlords who claim property rights, as in Sudan.
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and activists in Europe are denouncing this land grab in Egypt, Sudan, Cameroon, Senegal, Mozambique and elsewhere in Africa as a new form of colonialism.
Uwe Hoering, a German researcher on development policy for several European NGOs, including the news letter Weltwirtschaft und Entwicklung (World Economy and Development), called these investments ‘‘a new form of agrarian colonialism''.
In an interview with IPS, Hoering said that the land grab in Africa became evident in 2008 as a consequence of the recent run to so-called bio fuels and the price inflation and scarcity of food.
Although the investments are also targeting fertile land in other areas of the world, sub-Saharan Africa appears to be these investors' main destination. The reasons are multiple.
On the one hand, ‘‘Africa possesses enormous land reserves,'' Hoering stated. ‘‘According to the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organisation, only about 14 percent of the suited land in the continent is presently cultivated.''
In addition, he said, many African governments are willing to allow this land grab to happen in their territories.
A list of the land grab investments of 2008 have been put together by the Barcelona-based NGO GRAIN, based on corporate reports.
It confirms that several industrialised countries, like Japan and Sweden, rapidly growing developing nations, like China and India, and oil-rich countries, especially from the Arab Gulf, and even Libya, are buying large estates in Africa.
SOURCE:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/04/20-3
The Second Scramble for Africa Starts
by Julio Godoy
BERLIN - Sub-Saharan African countries have of late become the target of a new form of investment that is strongly reminiscent of colonialism: investors from both industrialised and emerging economies buy or lease large tracts of farm land across the continent, either to guarantee their own food provisions or simply as yet another business.
A Zimbabwean collects a harvest of maize at Domboshawa in April 2008. (AFP/File/Alexander Joe)In doing so, investors even deal with warlords who claim property rights, as in Sudan.
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and activists in Europe are denouncing this land grab in Egypt, Sudan, Cameroon, Senegal, Mozambique and elsewhere in Africa as a new form of colonialism.
Uwe Hoering, a German researcher on development policy for several European NGOs, including the news letter Weltwirtschaft und Entwicklung (World Economy and Development), called these investments ‘‘a new form of agrarian colonialism''.
In an interview with IPS, Hoering said that the land grab in Africa became evident in 2008 as a consequence of the recent run to so-called bio fuels and the price inflation and scarcity of food.
Although the investments are also targeting fertile land in other areas of the world, sub-Saharan Africa appears to be these investors' main destination. The reasons are multiple.
On the one hand, ‘‘Africa possesses enormous land reserves,'' Hoering stated. ‘‘According to the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organisation, only about 14 percent of the suited land in the continent is presently cultivated.''
In addition, he said, many African governments are willing to allow this land grab to happen in their territories.
A list of the land grab investments of 2008 have been put together by the Barcelona-based NGO GRAIN, based on corporate reports.
It confirms that several industrialised countries, like Japan and Sweden, rapidly growing developing nations, like China and India, and oil-rich countries, especially from the Arab Gulf, and even Libya, are buying large estates in Africa.
SOURCE:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/04/20-3
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