Chinese companies are lining up to invest in African agriculture, but governments like Senegal must do more to limit the risks for investors, a veteran Chinese investor said.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are worldwide leaders in buying farmland in third-party countries, followed by China and Japan, says the World Bank.
Wealthy countries short of fertile land are gazing hungrily at Canada's prairies
"Since 2005, the Burmese Government has encouraged investors from China, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Kuwait to invest in contract farms," reports the US mission in Rangoon
Some Laotian farmers are losing their ancestral lands or being forced to become wage workers on what were once their fields
The reported land deal between Kenya and Qatar is not unique. The Philippines Department of Agrarian Reform said in 2007 it was looking at large tracts of land for agribusiness development under a MoU signed with China. The memo calls for the development of land to grow hybrid corn, rice and sorghum.
Walden Bello said that many of the deals were struck in dysfunctional and corruption-ridden nations, and rejected claims the land being signed away is of poor quality, and that the projects will bring jobs and improve infrastructure. “What we’re talking about is private parties using state contracts to enrich themselves,” he said. “It’s an intersection of corrupt governments and land-hungry nations.”
Ouyang Riping, investisseur privé chinois, finance au Sénégal la production de 150 000 tonnes de sésame sur 60 000 ha d'emblavures d'ici 2013, à raison de 30 000 tonnes chaque année, à partir de 2008.
Pour la République populaire, il est un héros du programme Go Abroad. Sa mission, hautement stratégique : investir les terres africaines pour y cultiver la petite graine magique
Le Cambodge a annoncé qu’il devrait avoir signé d’ici à mi- 2009 et que les accords concerneraient 2,5 millions d’hectares (l’équivalent de la Bretagne). Notons que le pays continue de recevoir une aide d’urgence du Programme alimentaire mondial, ce qui permet de douter de sa capacité à nourrir à la fois sa population et celle du Golfe…
Land acquisitions abroad are the only viable response, Mohammed Raouf, program manager of environment research at the Gulf Research Center, and others say.
Recent unconfirmed media reports suggest that these countries are seeking as much as 20 million acres on which to grow crops that can be shipped back home for domestic consumption.
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Italy supports sustainable agriculture projects in Ghana
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