How long was the last lease you signed? Twenty pages? Ten? The last lease I signed was to sublet a room in a student digs and at five pages it was the barest of legal agreements. So it makes me a little queasy to read that national governments and private enterprises are signing three-page documents to hand over millions of hectares of agricultural land in the poorest countries of Asia and Africa.
This phenomenon is relatively recent, taking place on a massive scale and is completely unregulated. It has been termed both agro-imperialism and crucial agricultural investor-led development. The headline actors are the governments of states trying to secure control over increasingly insecure food imports in a volatile market, private enterprises turning a profit from high-intensity agriculture and often unrepresentative governments of weak states prepared to sell off their nation’s land.
My interest in this issue was sparked by a New York Times article that generated a lot of interest in November last year. As noted in that piece, not much is known about the true extent of land acquisitions of this nature and many of them are still being negotiated. Yet it is a phenomenon which could have huge implications for food security, political stability, state sovereignty, poverty in Africa and it is certainly deserving of scrutiny.
The basic situation is this. Many nations import food in order to feed their populations. The food crises of 2008 caused world food prices to spike and created widespread fears about future food security. In a situation where land in certain countries is incredibly cheap and food prices incredibly high, agricultural land became a highly profitable investment. Since then many states with the power and pockets to secure land outside their borders began to pursue this as a strategy to secure stable food sources.
The states involved acquiring land include China, India, South Korea, Japan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia in partnership with private enterprises who will carry out the farming and construction of the attenuating infrastructure. The land which is being prospected lies in countries including Madagascar, Indonesia, Ethiopia and the DRC. In return for access to land investors promise to build roads and irrigation systems and maybe also schools and hospitals. The farming methods they will use will replace (mostly) small-scale or subsistence agriculture with intensive techniques which have led to “green revolutions” in other parts of the globe.
It may seem like a great idea that could lead to sorely needed rural infrastructure and radically high crop yields in countries that have battled famine — until you realise that these crops have a one-way ticket to foreign destinations and no one is off-setting their carbon (or social) footprint. As it is unfolding such transactions seemed to be underpinned — or explained — by several dubious assumptions:
- That the headline actors above are all the only interest groups that need to be considered. The land that is being transferred for development is not empty — it is home to a range of groups such as small-scale and subsistence farmers who are not being consulted by their governments or directly engaged with by the media. Consequently little is known about how these people are affected by these transactions — though if events in Madagascar in March 2009 are anything to go by, this process isn’t popular. In a worse-case scenario these transactions could lead to widespread dispossession, loss of livelihoods and, to add insult to injury, hunger.
- That there is indeed real, inevitable food scarcity behind the rise in world food prices. The price hikes in 2008 have numerous causes — speculation and the conversion of land to grow biofuels being two of them.
- That this land can easily be made more productive. “Intensity” part of high-intensity agriculture doesn’t relate to the amount of crops grown, it relates to the inputs involved. These include fertilisers, machinery and a lot of irrigation. It is a method of agriculture that is of dubious sustainability in other parts of the world and Africa is a continent with both current and increasing water scarcity.
There is a lot more that is worrying about this and even more that is not known. A number of NGOs, think-tanks and international organisations have taken up this issue and some of their reports can be found here, here and here.
These projects are undoubtedly diverse. The media get immediate attention by headlining articles with sensational and emotive titles (like mine, * blushes *). When agreements are negotiated in ways which account for the interests of landless and subsistence farmers and ensure that farming is practised in a way that is sustainable for the local environment there may indeed be cases where poor countries can stand to gain. But scepticism is required.
Oh, and did I mention South Africans own ten million hectares in the DRC?
Thanks to Youjin Chung, Mario Pallua and Venkat Ramunujam for the research and discussion that this blog is based on.
Thanks Simone. Great article and extremely important topic. Colonialism and imperialism continue unabated. The rich get richer and the poor poorer. Time for capitalism to head into the grave alongside to its alter-ego, communism.
Scepticism indeed. Excellent article. Another excuse these big businesses often use to gain popularity is “job creation”. Ya right! You buy the land from 200 farmers and turn the farmers into 200 wage slaves that now have to pay a much higher price for the same food to subsidise those in the cities who do not produce food at all.
“Oh, and did I mention South Africans own ten million hectares in the DRC?”
This fact should make those guilty of xenophobic attacks against DRC / Brazaville refugees hang their heads in shame. Any theories as to who stirred the trouble between the Hutus and Tutis?
I find it improbable that it is naturally only in the countries in African with oil and diamonds that cohabiting tribes hate each other so much. Rural tribes have very little use for either.
And all of this is compounded by Monsanto’s GMO seed which has to be bought every season to plant new crops. No longer can the farmer conserve his own seed for the next year’s planting. We are selling food security for a “temporary” mess of potage.
The government of many of these countries are so corrupted that they will sell anything to get money to ride around in luxury cars and live high.
X Cepting: Having travelled extensively in the DRC, Burundi and Rwanda where waTutsi and waHutu live, I would say that the biggest factor influencing those tensions is the fact that there were simply too many people. It’s hectically overpopulated, cultivated over the hillsides and in spite of it being a super-fertile (and picturesque) area there’s just a limit to how many people it can hold. Jared Diamond’s book “Collapse” takes a look at this issue in a purely Hutu part of Rwanda, pre-genocide, and reports that caring community customs to do with land were being practiced less simply because of the lack of land. The wealthier waHutu in that area were victims of the genocide just like the waTutsi and moderate waHutu elsewhere in Rwanda.These countries have also not been through much of an industrial revolution. Towns and cities are few and the economy runs mainly on subsistence agriculture, which needs more land than is available. In short, the privilege of enjoying life-saving medicines must go alongside the responsibility of birth control. That didn’t happen in the Great Lakes region, nor has it happened in much of the developing world. It must start happening YESTERDAY. Failing that there will just be more poverty, violence and misery. That said, the survivors of the genocide are Africa’s hope. I have more confidence in them than any other community in Africa. But their countries must curb population growth to avoid a repeat of the nastiness.
I pose that the problem stems from our need to grow our economies – it is a basic tenant of capitalism and communism – we must make people feel like they a improving their lot in life. We don’t accept stagnation / standing still.
To grow an economy one needs a bigger market, to get a bigger marker one needs more people. More people need more food. So a nation is forced to expand at someone else’s expense.
As little as 70 years ago Germany went to war to expand its capablities. Whereas England signed a 99 lease for Hong Kong.
Countries can no longer easily go to war to expand and in so doing, reduce populations. So they have to lease large regions of foreign soil and starve the other out. A new kind of war perhaps? A reverse war of attrition.
My basic solution – change economic policy to have a 10,000 years sustainable vision that encourages a limited population size best suited to the country / region. Incentives directed at women to have less children is one possible policy not the child grant system that SA has at present. The grant system encourages population growth.
The world cannot sustain 9 billion people continuously for 10,000 years, yet we get there in – what, the next 100 years?.
Hard times ahead for our grandchilren.
Very important point Judith. This land is largely going to be used for argo-fuels for first world countries. It will be planted with genetically modified seed (GM) and doused with chemical herbicides, sold by Monsanto.
Thousands of small scale farmers and peasants have already been displaced in South America to make way for Monsanto’s GM soya, harmful to both human health and the environment.
No wonder Monsanto recienved the ‘Angry Mermaid’ award at the Copenhagen Climate Change talks.
Thanks for an informative article.
If these are indeed new waves of agro-imperialism, then it seems extremely tenuous, since most of these leases are not worth the paper its written on if they turn out to be one-sided i.e. these “landowners” will face the natural consequences. So I won’t worry too much, about this new “agro-imperialism” since the days of fooling indigenous people with shiny trinkets are over – it never lasts anyway.
Unlike the centuries of colonialism and imperialism of the west where Africa was pillaged and plundered in every conceivable way, the new states like China, India etc. are trying to build win-win relationships with impoverished African states to give them a hand-up instead of the usual hand-out. This could quite possibly be a beginning of a new path of collaboration between the rising economic powerhouses of the east and Africa – more of a symbiotic relationship rather than the parasitic transgressions of imperialism.
Part 2
U.S. Feeds One Quarter of its Grain to Cars While Hunger is on the Rise
http://www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/press_room/C68/2010_datarelease6
New Report: More Than 49 Million Americans At Risk Of Hunger
http://feedingamerica.org/newsroom/press-release-archive/49-million-at-risk.aspx
Imagine the impact of these landgrabs for agro-fuels in Africa if the Americans cannot feed their own population.
Great article, which highlights the greed of the wealthy/powerful nations such as China and Saudi Arabia. The sad thing is that the governments in the nations being robbed, seem to be thinking only of themselves and not their people.
Anyone actually been to these “poor” areas inhabited by “200 farmers” that are about to be turned into wage slaves. I have not so can’t comment but love the neo liberal city dwellers (wage slaves) that know so much about their struggling country cousins.
Suggest get out of the city and live for at least 6 months with the “200 glamerous farmers” and then come back and enlighten us about what THEY want and what is good for THEM.
Brent
@ “The states…acquiring land include China, India, South Korea, Japan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia in partnership with private enterprises…”
Unless my knowledge of geography has fallen into the nether latitudes of Alzheimerland, NONE of the countries named above is… well, WESTERN.
If our SA-can ‘revolutionaries’ are correct, it is impossible for countries that are still (nominally) Communist (China–that’s a leftist country, Julius!), Occupied by the US following war (South Korea and Japan), or de-colonised (Egypt and India) or run on the principle of Ubuntu (Saudi Arabia, at least if you’re a member of the million strong family Saud) to exploit another country. All of these countries with possible exception of Saudi were, like Africa, the exploited ‘victims’ of history. How could they possibly turn ‘Imperialist’ and make Africa into one vast farm? In the time honoured way: bribe the governments.
Ask yourself, apart from being NON-western , what do they have in common? Insufficient land arable land and/or absurdly large populations that they cannot support right now, never mind in the parched-planet future.
Neither ‘Communism’ nor ‘Ubuntu’ is an anti-dote to human greed–or stupidity. Each of these countries has other choices. Limiting family size–not by abortion as in China and the former ‘Eastern bloc’–but by making FREE contraception (all forms including surgical) both a RIGHT and an OBLIGATION, much of the pressure on resources could be radically curbed in one generation. Any takers?
No guts, no future…
Interesting point of view.
In my opinion, the targeted countries are mainly found in the 3rd world which has consistently failed to raise its game and be part of globalisation.
I think it is only normal that they will be targetted by resource-hungry countries with money, know how and power. If the 3rd world does not accept a commercial transaction, they will probably face some form of occupation – colonialism indeed.
But I ascribe that rather to the 3rd world’s failure; they have rich resources but lack the desire to exploit these properly for themselves. and whose to be blamed for that?
@Al
‘curb population growth’
No curb overconsumption – “The wealthiest 20% are consuming 82.49% of all of the riches on Earth while the poorest 20% are living on a tiny 1.6%. Humanity is consuming today a 30% above the regenerating capacity.” Leonardo Boff, Brazilian theologian
Curb the real culprits, the wealthiest 20% of the population?
@Al – I bow to superior first hand knowledge of the country in question. My speculation came about after speaking to some of the refugees from both sides who without fail, interestingly enough, pointed to the greed of the two opposing leaders as the reason they were forced off their land and became refugees. It simply became too dangerous to live there. Most of these people have lost at least 1 member of their family due to war and a lack of modern medicine. Their families does not sound that large either. All of the refugees I know come from families with 3 children or less.
I obviously therefore came to the conclusion that, (other than what I was taught by popular “specialist” opinion), to be able to sell the land to foreigners the leaders first had to get rid of the rightful owners. They became superfluous in the equation. To get the idea to sell the land, they must have been made an offer by foreign buyers. It is a known geographical fact that cities in first world countries are ever expanding. It is a rather callous argument but how do you feed these civilised 1st world people when they run out of agri land? fuel? One take it from those third world Africans, obviously. What really upsets me is that it is always justified by saying “they do not use the land for anything but subsistence farming any way”; “They breed like bunnies”; etc.
Superiority excusing atrocity at its best.
@Judith – Quite agreed. Monsanto is a prime example and should be fought wherever found.
@Al again – this does not mean I do not agree with you about overpopulation. I just think the ones in the cities with the easy, safe lifes, especially the lower middle class in 1st world countries contribute more than anyone else to overpopulation.
I travelled those countries on public transport, by bicycle and on foot. All you see is children, children, children. I would go to sleep at night on my travels with the shrieks of “mzungu, mzungu” ringing through my ears. Don’t get me wrong, I warmed to the people and I wish them well. But the presence of so many little ones all over the place stays entrenched in my memories. It has simply got to be an issue. And if you want to see a place where it’s an even better issue, try Madagascar.
oops … And if you want to see a place where it’s an even better issue, try Madagascar. Should be ..an even BIGGER issue .
Great article on an issue that I am certainly going to read more about. Hope to see loads more
For the record: population growth in the US is highest amongst Hispanics and Latino Americans who account for about 50% of new births annually in the US. This population is overwhelmingly Catholic. Thank the Pope.
The US has the highest immigration rate in the world which tends the skew the population stats. When the non-immigrant and non-’minority’ birth rates are measured separately, the population growth rate is below replacement levels and has been since the 1960s as is true of Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
China and India are not philanthropies; they are political entities with out- of-control population sizes that need food but have run out of land to grow it on. The Chinese “win-win” politically correct propaganda is just that. Ask the miners and former farm-workers in Zim whose jobs went to the Chinese when China bought mines and land. The Chinese EXPORT workers to Africa to set up and run their ‘enterprises’ and African workers are let go as well as being dispossessed of their land by collusion between corrupt leaders and the Chinese.
I can her Dave Harris now so I’ll respond now. The Chinese promise ‘training’, ‘partnerships’, and arms-deal type ‘offsets’. Then they produce cost over-runs and claim they can’t afford the ‘offsets’ to benefit the local population. Check the Chinese track record in Sudan, DRC, and especially in Tibet for evidence of how the Chinese treat ‘indigenous’ populations.
Wake up!