"Land is the means for livelihood. It's power: it's status; it's security. It's the most powerful asset people have" (Moore, p.p 26). Land grabbing, and the outsourcing of food and industries are not uncommon. Throughout history, land grabbing occurred when Europeans stole, and grabbed plots of "free" land as they were expanding their empire to the Americas. Cash crops in the colonies have helped "advance" the conquers. You may remember a few years ago, Bush met with the Brazilian president to secure land in Brazil for bio-fuel needs in the United States. Land grabbing is a practice that is on the increase. Currently, land grabbing is occurring where powerful, rich nations are buying cheep land mainly in South America and Africa. This blog will focus on land grabbing taking place throughout Africa.
According to Hanes (2010), land grabbing is going on where private investors and foreign governments like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, South Korea, and China are snacking up land to produce food or bio-fuels for their own countries. Saudi Arabia has property in Ethiopia, China's in Mozambique, and South Korea is in Tanzania. These countries are leasing arable land for 50-99 years at the expense of small farmers and traditional land rights. High tensions are created when governments are agreeing to these foreign leases, when the people living and working the land do not agree.
Moore (2010) describes more about the tensions of land disputes in Africa. The author explains how land disputes are at the heart of many of the conflicts throughout Africa: from the Rwandan genocide, Sierra Leone and Liberia "Blood Diamonds", Kenya-post 2007 election, genocide in Darfur, the pirates of Somalia-to list a few. Baxter (2010) explained a deal between the South Korean company, Daewoo, who was trying to make a deal with the government of Madagascar that would have gave the company about half of the countries arable land, which contributed to the overthrow of President Ravalomanana. The deal was canceled.
Moore (2010) reported "that roughly 90 percent of rural Africa- 500 million people-have access to their land because of their ancestors did" (p.p 27). It seems that it is no longer a valid way to hold land, especially with governments encroaching on small farmers, elders and chiefs who used to control their land. Colonial rule brought about the notion of private property and documents, which began the down slide of traditional land rights. Moore (2010) focuses a large part of the article on the case of Liberia. Liberia's national deed registry is filled with books that hold information on land. Often the documents have mistakes and contradiction on who owns what land. It is not uncommon to have the same land sold to multiple parties. In the post-war time, documents have gone missing and people are not always residing on there land. Tensions raise as people try to secure their land.
Baxter (2001) writes for GRAIN, which is "a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems." GRAIN established a blog called www.farmlandgrab.org that updates daily news reports on the global land grab.
Jeanne Zoundjihekpon from GRAIN reports that, "Land is a fundamental part of life in Africa, if farmers sell their land, traditional values will disappear with them and the society as a whole will suffer from it" (Aissa, 2009, p. 1).
Shouldn't this really be called neo-colonialism? Land grabbing is another extraction and control of vital African resources, at the expense of African families, communities, small farmers and society as a whole.
Aissa, M. (2009). Land up for Grabs: Win-win or neo-colonialism? Beyhond Business. Posted by GRAIN. Recieved from http://www.farmlandgrab.org/
Baxter, J. (2010). Africa's land and family farms-up for grabs? GRAIN. Received from http://www.grain.org/front/
Hanes, S. (2010). Is Africa the world's next breadbasket? The Christian Science Monitor. Vol 102, issues 5-6, p.p 21 and 27.
Moore, J. (2010). Africa's Continental Divide. The Christian Science Monitor. Vol 102, issue 9, p.p 26-31.
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