LAND GRAB: Africa loses 34 million land hectares to foreigners

Prof Manadivamba Rukuni

Adviser on Land policy to the African Union (AU) and Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Professor Manadivamba Rukuni has said, Africa may lose a golden opportunity to feed the world if steps are not taken to control the current state of land acquisition by foreigners.

He said, although the acquisition of land is not limited to Africa alone, the spate at which Africa is giving away land to foreigners threatens the security of the continent hence the need for leaders on the continent to review their land policies that would inure to the benefit of the people.

Professor ManadivambaRukuni was speaking at a two day workshop for Journalists, organised by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in Johannesburg.

He indicated that over the last 10 years, Africa has given away about 34 million hectors of land to foreigners to engage in various activities that undermine the economic and social interest of the people.

“Today we are close to 34 million hectors of land. There is another 30 or 40 million been negotiated now as we speak so some of that will also be taken away in the next 5years” he lamented.

Professor Rukuni disclosed that Analyst are predicting that in another 10 to 15 years Africa would have leased away about 120 million hectors of land which is equivalent to all land being cultivated by the European Union.

He said, under normal circumstances when investors come to Africa and they need land, Africans should have ways of ensuring that, the investment is really benefiting the people, adding that he is not against trading or leasing of land but the conditions under which the land is given out do not make sense.

He revealed that a hector of land is valued at $6 (six dollars) on the average in Africa, a situation he observed does not make sense in the world where agriculture land is going for more than $30,000 a hector in most of the industrialised nations.

“Most of the world now has lost their capacity to produce their own food, fuel etc. The rich countries are coming to Africa where land is in abundance. Some of them are getting this land to produce food for their own countries as they grow rice, bio fuel because of the fuel crises in the energy sector.”

Professor Manadivamba Rukuni who is also the Director for Barefoot Education for Afrika Trust (BEAT), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) blamed the phenomenon on the failure of African leaders to evolve effective land policies aimed at protecting the interest of the people.

He challenged journalists to take up the responsibility to expose such politicians and leaders who connived with multinational industries to release land at the expense of the interest of the masses.

Such contracts he observed, must have components where the investors bring a lot of technology, open up markets for the indigenes to supply the markets with better quality jobs for the youth.

“We need to get real value for this land rather than giving land away for 99years to people who don’t even use it for the purposes for which they acquire the land. Some of them are even underutilising it,” he noted

The land Policy adviser also cautioned that if the trend continued, Africans would lose a golden opportunity to be the bread basket of the world because in 30 years the world population will increase and Africa may not have land to cultivate to feed herself and the world.

Editorial

BY DESIGN OR ACCIDENT?

In paying tribute to Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa, Western Leaders have compared him to Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi and even to Mother Theresa.

That is fine. That is the category to which Nelson Mandela belongs and nobody can quarrel with that.

 There is another category of great states people and liberation fighters.

This category would include, Tousant Oliverture, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Dedan Kimathi, Bolivar, Marti, Patrice Lumumba , Franz Fanon and Che Guevara.

The first category is made up of remarkable leaders and historical figures who fought against oppression and exploitation from a nationalist and humanist point of view.

The second category is of leaders who saw beyond nationalist and humanist perspectives and dedicated themselves to uprooting the very system from which springs exploitation and oppression-capitalism.

When the West emphasises the need to emulate those in the first category, they are telling us not to fight against capitalism.

They want us to accept the situation in which our resources will forever be controlled by the predatory forces of capitalism.

We cannot accept this!

Genetically Modified Colonialism

By Pan-Africanist International
- a grammar of Pan-Africanism and its manners of articulation!

Of course, going GM will do nothing except ensuring what we have called "a genetically modified colonialism". It is a system designed through the intellectual property rights regime and the dominance of the seed market, to replace our natural seeds with GM seeds. This gives too much power to the giant multinational foreign corporations and amounts to a control over whether we eat or starve. A people with a history of slavery and colonialism need to think twice or more before entertaining such a vicious trap. Unfortunately for Ghana, it is being promoted from the President right down to our scientists and Parliamentarians!

"Food is a weapon". Whoever controls our food controls not only our prestige and influence, but also our sovereignty and destiny. It is a widely known fact that hungry people will do anything in order to get food. Whoever is able to control the access to the food of the people, controls the people. Anthony Gucciardi puts it nicely in How food is being used as a weapon, when he writes: “When people begin to starve instinctive primal triggers lead to a desire to do absolutely anything for food. Those with food, whether it is the government or a nearby family, will have complete power over others. Food could essentially be used as a weapon, thousands of times more powerful than money or most any other resource."

The power of the patent on life has put a veritable instrument in the hands of those who wish to dominate and control access to food, unprecedented in history. Anthony Gucciardi in the article quoted above, explains that, in 1974, the idea of using food as a weapon was introduced in a 200-page report (http://wlym.com/text/NSSM200.htm) by US politician and former Secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissinger. The report, entitled National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests, stated that food aid would be withheld from developing countries in need until they submitted to birth control policies that would effectively sterilize large numbers of the population to curb growth.”

In this document, Dr. Kissinger writes:

"There is also some established precedent for taking account of family planning performance in appraisal of assistance requirements by AID [U.S. Agency for International Development] and consultative groups. Since population growth is a major determinant of increases in food demand, allocation of scarce PL 480 resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production. In these sensitive relations, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion." [emphasis mine]

Monsanto for example is a company that has understood the enormous profits that could be accrued from this form of modern day slavery. As Jeffrey M. Smith points out, “At a biotech industry conference in January 1999, a representative from Arthur Anderson, LLP explained how they had helped Monsanto design their strategic plan.

First, his team asked Monsanto executives what their ideal future looked like in 15 to 20 years. The executives described a world with 100 percent of all commercial seeds genetically modified and patented. Anderson consultants then worked backwards from that goal, and developed the strategy and tactics to achieve it. They presented Monsanto with the steps and procedures needed to obtain a place of industry dominance in a world in which natural seeds were virtually extinct.”

It is simply amazing that an issue that has been settled long ago keeps coming up. It is like refusing to believe that the earth is not flat.  You cannot  have a sustainable agriculture  by talking about our dependence on foreign multinational corporations for our sustenance rather than the time tested natural breeding and selection, and agroecological agriculture as recommended by the most extensive independent study on the question to date, the IAASTD recommended agroecological agriculture as the way forward. This is the position of over four hundred independent scientists from all over the world. Here is an interesting take on the subject by Dr. Antoniou, a molecular geneticist in a BBC interview:

"Indeed, the world has a moral obligation to feed itself. What is invariably ignored by advocates of GM crops in explaining why almost a billion of people in the world go to bed, each day, hungry, is that actually, we have more than enough food to feed everybody now. In fact, we have have doubled the amount of food to feed everybody in the world now, but people don't have access to food. And in terms of meeting future food needs, specifically in the face of climate change, then the latest United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation sponsored report clearly pointed that the future in meeting future food needs lie in applying agro-ecological methods.

They said that genetic engineering would play little or no role in meeting immediate food needs of the world and future food needs of the world. Which is why the Americans were not signatory. But 62 other nations, actually signed up, including the UK, signed up to that report. We have to take on board, the report compiled by 400 independent scientists from around the world, in all manner of expertise and discipline, which said go forward with low-input, agro-ecological, sustainable agriculture, not GM, because GM simply does not fit the bill." [See, or better still, listen to: The father of GM foods, bolivian seeds and wildebeest, Dr Roger Beachy, the father of GM foods on scientific ignorance and our moral obligations, Listen 28 minutes” http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00b2rgn. ]

It is not an accident that these companies are currently using politicians and regulators to push their agenda of world domination. In 1997, EuropaBio, the largest Biotechnology trade federation, representing 540 companies and 8 national associations, organized EuropaBio '97, European Bioindustry Congress (June 25 – 27, Amsterdam). Faced with a hostile European reception to their products and a bleak prospect for their respective businesses, they commissioned Burson Marsteller (B-M) the world's largest PR firm, operating from 60 offices in 30 different countries, to write up a strategy proposal for achieving a change in public 'perceptions'. The document was leaked to Greenpeace:

“The federation were advised to stay clear of form of public debate and particularly the industry's 'killing fields' - namely 'Public issues of environmental and human health risk'. The task of persuading consumers to embrace genetically modified products should be left to those charged with public trust – politicians and regulators. Instead, the industry should concentrate on the spread of positive stories and symbols, eliciting a message of 'hope, satisfaction, caring and self-esteem.' 'Symbols', they add, are 'central to politics because they connect to emotions and not logic'. The public, they advised, should be convinced that genetically altered products are not simply safe but 'environmentally superior to standard crop varieties'". See: [PDF] Monsanto's Failing PR Strategy - The FrankenFood Files, .

This is exactly what is going on in Ghana today. Our politicians are currently doing their best to ram it down our throats, aided and abetted by our scientists and ts and some sections of the media. Except the CPP that has clearly come out against this, all of Ghana's political class seems firmly behind this sell-out of our sovereignty. I would like to share this documentary with the reader, if you have not already seen it:
Thank you  for your kind attention.

Long Live Ghana!