Invasion of the Land Grabbers: U.S.-based multinationals are buying up massive chunks of Africa

[marmar]

from In These Times:



Invasion of the Land Grabbers
U.S.-based multinational corporations are buying up massive chunks of Africa.

By Joice Biazoto


Suppose that, one day, a foreign investor decided to buy a vast tract of fertile land in the United States. Suppose all that is grown or produced on that land, and all profits made, would be shipped directly overseas. Worse, imagine that those Americans who had been living off that land for decades, maybe centuries, would be forced to move and given little to no compensation.

Such an event would undoubtedly spark public outrage, yet this scenario is not far from reality—only the roles are reversed. American companies have recently been investing heavily in foreign land, and many involved in the worldwide struggle against hunger believe that is a cause for concern. What investors call “agricultural development” is described by critics as “land grabbing,” which they say undermines food security in developing countries.

Land grabbing is nothing new, according to Flavio Valente, secretary general of Food First Information and Action Network (FIAN) International, a nonprofit that advocates for the right to food. “But recently, the practice of land grabbing has been intensifying and affecting the most vulnerable—peasants, farmers and indigenous people,” Valente says.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates more than 75,000 square miles have been acquired by foreign interests in Africa alone. A 2010 field study conducted by FIAN in Ethiopia found that the equivalent of up to 20 percent of the country’s arable land has been bought by or made available to foreign investors. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/6647/invasion_of_the_land_grabbers

[Starry Messenger]

1. Enclosures.

"Capitalism: Doing the same fucking thing for over and over for 400 years and getting away with calling it innovative"©

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

2. Get ready for the multinational corporate wars.

[doc03]

3. Wages are getting too high in China, Africa is going to be

the next target to exploit for cheap labor.

[Warren DeMontague]

4. Good. We'll have somewhere to go when China owns all of America.

I kid, I kid.

Sort of.

[kestrel91316]

5. When outsourcing to Asia ceases to be profitable, it will be moved to Africa.

A couple of decades of "development" to get the industrialized export agriculture system up and running, and they will be ripe for exploitation.

[OlympicBrian]

6. Actually, it's been the Chinese up to this point...

Jan 28 (2009) (Reuters) - Chinese businessmen are taking a long-term view and pursuing strategic expansion in Africa even though China's multiplying investments on the continent have lost some lustre in the global downturn.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLM43673820090128

They want resources and farm land.

[OlympicBrian]

7. The Next Empire

All across Africa, new tracks are being laid, highways built,ports deepened, commercial contracts signed—all on an unprecedented scale, and led by China, whose appetite for commodities seems insatiable. Do China’s grand designs promise the transformation,at last, of a star-crossed continent? Or merely its exploitation? The author travels deep into the heart of Africa, searching for answers.
...
“Do you see all the tall buildings coming up over there?” the foreman asked, a hint of envy in his voice as his arm described an arc along the waterfront that shimmered in the distance. “That’s the new Dar es Salaam, and most of it is Chinese-built.”

I counted nearly a dozen large cranes looming over construction sites along the beachfront Msasani Peninsula, a sprawl of resorts and restaurants catering mostly to Western tourists. Near them, sheltered coyly behind high walls, lie upscale brothels worked by Chinese prostitutes. In the foreground, to the northwest, sits Kariakoo, a crowded slum where Chinese merchants flog refrigerators, air conditioners, mobile phones, and other cheap gadgets from narrow storefronts. To the south lies Tanzania’s new, state-of-the-art, 60,000-seat national sports stadium, funded by China and opened in February 2009 by President Hu Jintao.

“Statistics are hard to come by, but China is probably the biggest single investor in Africa,” said Martyn Davies, the director of the China Africa Network at the University of Pretoria. “They are the biggest builders of infrastructure. They are the biggest lenders to Africa, and China-Africa trade has just pushed past $100 billion annually.”
...

Full:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/05/the-next-empire/8018/

[Better Believe It]

8. Sounds like "modern" 21st century colonialism.

[1776Forever]

9. Not just Africa - Friend in Barbados told me the Chinese are into everything there & South America

too.

Chinese investment in Brazil has ballooned to more than $25 billion this year
By Solana Pyne
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil —

http://www.minnpost.com/globalpost/2010/11/23/23608/chinese_investment_in_brazil_has_ballooned_to_more_than_25_billion_this_year

They’ve snapped up iron mines in the south, bought into oil fields off the coast, and they may be trolling for 850,000 acres of farmland, too.

While Chinese investors spent the last decade buying up natural resources across Africa, this year they’ve begun an unprecedented shopping spree in Brazil. In less than 12 months, Chinese investment has jumped by orders of magnitude — from a registered $82 million in 2009 to more than $25 billion in planned projects reported so far this year.

“It’s the first year where big, big investments — tens of billions of dollars — have been announced,” said Kevin Tang, a director at the Brazil-China Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “This decade will be one where we see an investment boom between China and Brazil.”

[applegrove]

10. Where the local people often don't have a deed to their own land.