Acquiring farmland in African, other regions: Is it a new form of colonialism?

China, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, South Korea, Egypt, Libya and India are purchasing hundreds of thousands of arable lands mainly in Africa and in so many other parts of the world with the intention to grow staple food crops with a view to managing domestic needs.
In the land rush, Saudi Arabia, China and South Korea are leading and the rest are their followers but potential competitors in near future. It has to be seen whether these deals are new forms of colonialism, agro-imperialism, modern piracy and international land grabbing scams. The topic is plainly controversial, so no sweeping judgement can be offered instantly. Data suggest that it is having contours of all. If the deals are deeply smooth, supremely transparent and beneficial to the local farmers then these are sheer business transactions, normally treated under demand and supply rationale. If the other way round, then these are simply inexcusable.
Practically, all deals so far happen close to the second hypothesis; primarily all is happening in the absence of international code of business ethics. The United Nations' FAO is responsible to evolve some internationally accepted codes of conduct in order to assign some legal robe to such arrangements which are mostly dubious. So far, it has failed to come up with required guidelines and legal charters whereas the quantum of deals is unabated, causing a severe setback to UN efforts aimed at reducing the number of hungry people around the world.
The current shopping spree in relation to Africa's' farmlands mainly emerged after the 2007-08 international financial meltdown which soared fuel and food prices alike. Resultantly, riots on food shortage among some 30 countries were witnessed right from India to Haiti. Purchasing or leasing of foreign lands was the policy decision to feed millions of hungry people (Pagano 2009). Traditional food exporting countries like Russia, India, Egypt and Saudi Arabia imposed duties on food exports to consume and preserve the stocks to meet domestic needs. Currently, 20 million hectares of agricultural land has been purchased by these governments and private companies having the support from their governments (banks and private investment groups).
The International Food Policy Research Institute estimates that the deals are worth in the region of $20-30 billion (Leahy 2009). Under this arrangement, since 2006 the farmland so far purchased or leased is equivalent to the 25% of the farmland in Europe and twice the size of Germany's croplands. Saudi Arabia which had attained self sufficiency in wheat production in 2008 decided in the same year to reduce its wheat production purposefully to preserve its very expensive and scarce water reserves. They planned to purchase arable lands from Africa to grow wheat, maize and rice for catering domestic needs. The Saudi delegations also visited Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and a number of other countries and finally struck a deal with Tanzania on 500,000 hectares of fertile land on a 99-year lease.
China acquired leased land in Mexico and Cuba in 1999 for food production. It has also large swathes of farmland in DR Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Tanzania. China has also successfully settled thousands of Chinese farmers there as well. In the African region, Sudan tops the list of states that have leased out their farmlands. The buyers are, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Gulf states.
South Korean giant Daewoo made a deal with Madagascar government in 2008 and once leaked it invited the public ire. Succumbing to huge agitation's, the president had to relinquish presidency. The outgoing president had agreed to sell to a Korean firm a one-third of its arable land for $6 billion. Paradoxically, half of the Madagascaran population is suffering from food shortages. South Korea has already grabbed 960,000 hectares of land in Sudan.
Nigeria has 71.2 million hectares of agricultural land whereas it is using less than half of it. It has put the rest on sale. Sources privy to the government claim they expect $10,000 for one hectare of land for a 40-yea lease (Elombah 2010). This trend has also inspired neighbouring Ethiopia which plans to lease out 3.5 million acres of its land (NY Times 2009).
Qatar also has agricultural lands in Indonesia, the Philippines, Bahrain, Kuwait and Burma. India is a new entrant in the land grabbing festivities. The Indian government has facilitated some 80 private companies to acquire lands in Ethiopia, Kenya and Mozambique. India is no longer solely reliant on Punjab, Haryana and Chandigargh, these states' joint capital, the traditional grain basket of the country. According to The Telegraph (2009) only in Ethiopia, Indian private companies have invested $1.3 billion.
Diminishing water reserves, hugely growing population and growing conversion of agricultural land into housing colonies are some of the factors that have compelled India to explore some other destinations for domestic food supplies. African governments, their advisers and buyers advance arguments on the premise that these contracts will help eliminate food shortages with more capital intensive technology, improved cropping patterns and high yielding varieties besides providing employment to thousands of locals. But will this happen?
Economists and food experts like Paul Collier and Tom Philpot at least quote two cases when foreign cultivators not only caused massive displacements of local farmers but also kept millions without basic food. Brazil, which has already leased out large swathes of lands to US agriculturists, has attained crop bonanza but one quarter of its population is still living below the poverty line of $1.06 a day (FAO 2009).
In the case of subcontinent, during its "late Victorian holocausts" millions of Indians starved whereas food supplies were generously shipped to the "mother England" before 1947.The NY Times Magazine has quoted Robert Zeilger, an eminent botanist at IRRI "the idea that one country would go to the other country... and lease some lands, and expect that the rice produced there would be made available to them if there is a food crisis in that host country, is ludicrous".
For international dealers African land offers the best bet. It is awash with cheap available labour, fertile lands, cheap rates for purchase or lease, silence of international law and cap it all, willingness of the host governments to earn foreign exchange in exchange of arable lands. But the problem is that Africa has already been blighted by acute food shortages and famines.
Menizen-Dick and FAO's Hallam are critical on such deals which are question marks on the sovereignty of land by the locals. They predict the danger that host countries will lose control on food security, land rights and future food supplies at a time when they themselves need it most. Nomdaic tribes of Africa are one of the main victims who normally don't have land titles and are feared to lose huge tracts of lands.
Besides farmers, the land grabbing actions have also cause a setback to UN efforts of reducing the number of hungry people world-wide. FOA estimates that owing to price hike in food items, the number of chronically hungry will jump to 100 million in addition to 1.4 billion people already struggling to survive while living on poverty line (The Independent 2009).
Without developing an internally accepted law not only protecting poor farmers, food security and environmental sensitivities, the continuous land grabbing endeavours will be a form of neo colonialism. Such a law can only be produced by the UNO. FAO is proactive and realises the matter but it needs the support of the international community. Such support seems a distant dream instantly. Why? Because the victims are world's most hapless people: poor African farmers - stimulating no interest in the case. Devinder Sharma labels these dealers as food pirates and compares them with English companies that shipped food from Ireland during the 19th century Potato Famine. Isn't it a mild but modern form of neo-colonialism?
(The writer is a member of the Civil Service of Pakistan. Currently he is working as a researcher with the Potsdam Centre for Policy and Management of the University of Potsdam, Germany) ([email protected])