boilingspot: Selling off Africa's resources isn't 'development'. It's greed

Governments rich and poor have failed to support smallholder farmers in the developing world

The Observer in guardian.co.uk | 14 March 2010

Sovereign African governments are complicit in the new scramble for Africa ("How food and water drive a new foreign land grab in Africa", News). The result will be recently disenfranchised farmers working for wages. Oil supplies are being depleted and soon the major land grab in Africa will be to grow sugar cane and palm oil to keep the gas guzzlers running. The African governments may call it development but the fact is they are selling off their resources to line their own pockets – just as the chiefs once sold off their human resource.

Vali Jamal - Nairobi, Kenya

One billion people live with hunger and there are more than 100 million hungry people today than there were 18 months ago. This is in stark contrast to the global promise to halve world hunger by 2015.

Governments rich and poor have failed to support smallholder farmers in the developing world. Between 1980 and 2006, aid to agriculture was cut almost in half with disastrous effects. Some 50m hectares of fertile land in developing countries have now been acquired or are being negotiated to grow food crops and biofuels, most of which will be exported to richer nations. To put that into perspective, ActionAid estimates that 50m hectares could be the equivalent of some 75-100m tonnes of maize if grown in East Africa. This would be enough to feed the 1 billion hungry people for about four months of every year. The right kind of investment can end hunger, but these landgrabs will only make things worse.

Meredith Alexander, Head of Trade & Corporates, ActionAid - London N19

What is wrong with turning Africa into the "food basket" for parts of the world that do not have sufficient land to feed their people? When farms in the UK sold out to the Dutch farmers, were we being "colonised" by the Dutch? Most of these African countries do not have the finance or technical knowledge to carry out development. The statement that hundreds of people lose their jobs is not quite accurate, as, although the farmer whose land has been "grabbed" may not till his subsistence farm, he is employed in the packing areas, tractor driving, irrigation etc, so all is not bad.

Peter Heal - Clare, Suffolk

Unlike in the past, African nations are not being compelled at gunpoint to cede their land to foreign invaders. The socio-political context of some African countries such as Ghana or Mali is propitious enough for civil society groups to ensure that before deals are signed, the locals' interests are safeguarded.

In Ethiopia, Sudan and other repressive African countries, the presence of foreign investors is not the problem. The problem lies in the existence of dictatorial governments. They know that they do not need the support or approval of their people to perpetuate themselves in power, as they rely on foreign aid, funds and support to do so. As a result, they do not hesitate to subordinate their people's interests and needs to those of foreigners.

Sylvie Aboa-Bradwell, Executive director, African Peoples Advocacy - Gillingham, Kent

The key to a land grab is its title. Who owns the land? Actually, nobody, and everybody. Customarily, land in Africa is not held in title by any single person, but by its population's consensual usage of it. The country's government might think it "owns" the land, but it certainly does not. What it does "own" is the power to arbitrarily decree to itself title to land previously untitled, and the power to enforce that title, to the great detriment of the people who are living on it, and who won't be living on it (and off it) for very much longer.

Then, where do they go, and what do they do? Lorenzo Cotula says: "Lack of transparency... opens the door to corruption." Get real, pal. The door's already wide open.