Land Grab
Posted: Sun 08 Nov 2009, 00:16:58
Front page has a story about rich countries buying up 100's of thousands of acres in Africa to plant rice because the prices have skyrocketed in recent years. I guess they never thought about their overpopulated sand deserts not being able to produce enough food
What do you guys think? Is this a trend? Will Africa become a big rice field/paddy? Where the heck will the water come from? Who is doing the farming? Does Africa have lot of ground water? Not many places left on the planet to grab huge undeveloped tracts of land...
I wonder if they'll send military if the African locals decide they want a piece of the pie?
One other thing... Someone (rich politicians?) is getting a lot of money from these funds...what will they do with it? weapons? infrastructure (not)?
i highlighted the key problem in all of this
interesting map
http://www.globaldashboard.org/wp-conte ... d_grab.jpg
What do you guys think? Is this a trend? Will Africa become a big rice field/paddy? Where the heck will the water come from? Who is doing the farming? Does Africa have lot of ground water? Not many places left on the planet to grab huge undeveloped tracts of land...
I wonder if they'll send military if the African locals decide they want a piece of the pie?
Aggressive moves by China, South Korea and Gulf states to buy vast tracts of agricultural land in sub-Saharan Africa could soon be limited by a new global international protocol.
A scramble for African farmland has in recent years seen the equivalent of Italy's entire arable land hoovered up by businesses from emerging economies
Earlier this year, legendary hedge fund speculator George Soros highlighted a new farmland buying frenzy caused by growing population, scarce water supplies and climate change. South Korea bought huge areas of Madagascar recently while Chinese interests bought up large swathes of Senegal to supply it with sesame.
He said: "I'm convinced that farmland is going to be one of the best investments of our time. Eventually, of course, food prices will get high enough that the market probably will be flooded with supply through development of new land or technology or both, and the bull market will end. But that's a long ways away yet."
One other thing... Someone (rich politicians?) is getting a lot of money from these funds...what will they do with it? weapons? infrastructure (not)?
i highlighted the key problem in all of this
interesting map
http://www.globaldashboard.org/wp-conte ... d_grab.jpg