New form of Colonialism ?
This is interesting.. Is it good or bad for the ordinary person ??
Across Africa and the developing world, a new global land rush is gobbling up large expanses of arable land. Despite their ageless traditions, stunned villagers are discovering that African governments typically own their land and have been leasing it, often at bargain prices, to private investors and foreign governments for decades to come.
Organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank say the practice, if done equitably, could help feed the growing global population by introducing large-scale commercial farming to places without it.
But others condemn the deals as neocolonial land grabs that destroy villages, uproot tens of thousands of farmers and create a volatile mass of landless poor. Making matters worse, they contend, much of the food is bound for wealthier nations.
A World Bank study released in September tallied farmland deals covering at least 110 million acres — the size of California and West Virginia combined — announced during the first 11 months of 2009 alone. More than 70 percent of those deals were for land in Africa, with Sudan, Mozambique and Ethiopia among those nations transferring millions of acres to investors.
The breathtaking scope of some deals galvanizes opponents. In Madagascar, a deal that would have handed over almost half the country’s arable land to a South Korean conglomerate helped crystallize opposition to an already unpopular president and contributed to his overthrow in 2009.
People have been pushed off land in countries like Ethiopia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and Zambia. It is not even uncommon for investors to arrive on land that was supposedly empty. In Mozambique, one investment company discovered an entire village with its own post office on what had been described as vacant land, said Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations food rapporteur.
Source; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/world/africa/22mali.html?_r=1&ref=world
One of the main issue which human kind is going to face in the coming century will be scarcity of food grains and the Multi-National Companies are aware of the situation. They are investing their money on empty lands of African continent which is arable and they will be able to make trillions out of it in the future.
to my ashtonishment(while in vacation in India), I met one guy/company who purchased acres of land (obviously dirt cheap) in some african countries and planning to set up large scale farming.......I bet he's a bright future!
India and China dominates the sales. since 2006 Indian tycoons have baught 4 billion worth assets in the continent, which includes oil refineries and mines to rose gardens in SA.
Uganda has found oil rserve too, 800 million barrel.
economic war in africa is already on......all major players are eyeing (already eyed and setting up bases)those countries for oil, arable lands, minerals, new growth markets......and so on.
Since when African leaders have cared about their nationals ?
The locals are being displaced. Many are then moving to the cities and unable to find work.
Is this viable for the nations ?
The Chinese are comming :)
so what?
Kenya has leased their land for Qatar too for agriculture. Africa has virgin lands, tons of pulses and cashew are being sourced by many countries.
Tanzania alone has 110000 tons of cashew crop a year. Mombasa, Kenya is the second largest tea auction centre in the world.
it is bad for those who are forcefully pushed off their land and not adequately compensated for it :-(