SPECIAL REPORT-Is Africa selling out its farmers?
- Reuters
- 12 November 2009
Many small Ethopian farmers do not share their leaders' enthusiasm for leasing off farmland to foreign investors
Many small Ethopian farmers do not share their leaders' enthusiasm for leasing off farmland to foreign investors
The planned expansion of plantations in the Papuan provinces of Indonesia should be immediately suspended and reviewed amid concerns over massive deforestation and widespread exploitation of local communities, environmentalists warned today.
“Governments are sitting on a box of dynamite,” Namanga Ngoni, president of AGRA, initiated by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, told the media.
"Agriculture companies from Germany and the United States have also shown interest in developing a project in Iraq, but nothing is final yet," said Sami R Al Araji, the chairman of Iraq's National Investment Commission
Los capitalistas conquistan los recursos de la naturaleza mundial mediante la guerra o la compra.
Paul Conway, senior vice-president at Cargill, calls food self-sufficiency "a nonsense" and warns that overseas food production through land grabs will likely run into export bans by host countries
The Ethiopian government says concerns about foreign investors exporting food are outweighed by the plantations’ capacity to bring the country foreign exchange and technology, as well as creating employment.
Issue paper by FAO for the World Summit on Food Security, Rome, 16-18 November 2009
Buenos Aires-based Cresud plans to acquire more land to add to the 484,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) it owns and the 90,410 hectares it leases in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia
ENI plans to develop 70,000 ha of palm oil in Congo
Earlier this year, delegates to the annual session of China’s parliament debated a proposal to seek employment for up to 100 million Chinese in various African countries to solve two of China’s greatest challenges—food security and unemployment.