Africa land grab not the answer to food security
In the past two years, various non-African countries - China, India, South Korea, Britain and the Arab Gulf states lead the pack - have been taking over huge tracts of farmland in Africa by lease or purchase, to produce food or biofuels for their own use. Critics call them 'neo-colonialists', but they will not be as successful as the old ones.
The scale of the land grab is truly impressive. In Sudan, South Korea has acquired 690,000 hectares to grow wheat. The United Arab Emirates, which already has 30,000 hectares in Sudan, is investing in another 378,000 hectares to grow corn, alfalfa, wheat, potatoes and beans. In Tanzania, Saudi Arabia is seeking 500,000 hectares.
Even bigger chunks of land are being leased to produce biofuels. China has acquired 2.8 million hectares in the Democratic Republic of Congo to create the world's largest oil-palm plantation, and is negotiating for 2 million hectares in Zambia to grow jatropha.
Why Africa? Because that's the last place where there are large areas of good agricultural land that aren't already completely occupied by local farmers.
For the foreigners, the lure is profit, or food security, or both. For those who are investing in biofuels, there are real profits to be made, at least in the short term. But, for those seeking food security, the new African food resources will probably become unavailable just when they are needed most.
It was the surge in grain prices in 2007-2008 that drove many countries that depend heavily on imported food to start acquiring African farmland. Since 1945, the world's population has tripled, and so has its food production, growing at an average of about 3 per cent annually since the 1950s and during most of the 1990s. But, for most of the past decade, grain production has essentially flatlined, while the global population has gone on growing.
So wouldn't it be great if you could rely instead on your own food supply, even if it isn't located in your own country? That's why it's mostly countries that depend heavily on food imports that are involved in the current land-rush in Africa - but they are forgetting two very important things.
The first is that sovereignty trumps contractual obligations every time. If the African countries that are leasing their land fall into difficulties in feeding their own populations, as they are likely to do if world grain prices rise sharply, the first resource they will turn to is the foreign plantations on their territory. Governments that cannot feed their populations face overthrow, and will break contracts without the slightest hesitation.
The second is that, when things really get tough - when climate change starts to bite, grain yields are falling in most places, and what remains of the international grain market cannot meet demand at any price - Africa is not the place to be sourcing your emergency supply of grain. Almost the entire continent lies in the tropics or the subtropics, which is where food production will be hit worst.
Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries
