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The New Land Rush
http://www.utne.com/print-article.aspx?id=2147492306
Saudi Arabia had a ringside seat as the Arab Spring spread across the region. The House of Saud understood that its security rests on its ability to buy the quiescence, if not the loyalty, of its citizens with affordable food and social welfare programs…
The sheiks had been watching the writing in the sand since the 1970s, when, after the Arab oil-export embargo, they realized their vulnerability: Just as the West was dependent on them for oil, they were dependent on others for food. The prospect of being forced to bend the stiff royal knee to Western-imposed economic pressures inspired the Saudis to apply their oil technology to drilling deep for water. Using heavy irrigation, the country soon became self-sufficient in wheat. But unlike underground water supplies that are replenished by precipitation, fossil aquifers can rapidly be drained dry—and that is what is happening under the Arabian Peninsula.
Within a few decades, the prehistoric aquifer was almost exhausted, and by 2007, when food riots were roiling the region, the Saudi wheat harvest had dropped precipitously. The Saudi Ministry of Agriculture predicts that by 2016 the country will have to import 100 percent of the wheat it needs to feed its nearly 26 million people.
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Despite water woes, Sudan welcomes investors. “It’s the first country that gives us land without complicated procedures,” Mohammed Rasheed al-Balawi, a former manager of the Saudi firm Hadco, told the Financial Times. “The area is big, the people are friendly, [and] they gave us the land almost free.”
That characterization of terms is hotly disputed. Although both investors and host countries often refer to acquired land as underdeveloped or empty, the deals typically displace herders and small farmers, who are not consulted and, in any case, lack legal deeds. The World Bank estimates that between 2 and 10 percent of Africa’s land is held under formal land tenure, and most of that is in urban areas.
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That may be difficult to achieve. While the United States has almost 3 acres of farmland per person, China has only .23. And 5,000 years of intensive farming has depleted China’s soil, industrialization has poisoned much of its water, and development and urbanization have depleted rivers and land so that even as population and per capita consumption increase, the country has lost more than 20 million acres of arable land—just since the mid-1990s.
In addition to its interest in Africa, China is investing in diverse cropland in Australia and New Zealand and looking to Indonesia for biofuels and to South America for soy for livestock production to feed its increasingly affluent population’s taste for meat and dairy. China’s South American interests are so extensive that some Brazilians, while crediting Chinese investment for their booming economy, fear for their autonomy.
“They are moving in,” Carlo Lovatelli, president of the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries, told the New York Times, “looking for land and reliable partners. But what they would like to do is run the show alone.”
“Some experts,” the Times noted, “say the partnership has devolved into a classic neocolonial relationship in which China has the upper hand.”
http://www.utne.com/print-article.aspx?id=2147492306
Saudi Arabia had a ringside seat as the Arab Spring spread across the region. The House of Saud understood that its security rests on its ability to buy the quiescence, if not the loyalty, of its citizens with affordable food and social welfare programs…
The sheiks had been watching the writing in the sand since the 1970s, when, after the Arab oil-export embargo, they realized their vulnerability: Just as the West was dependent on them for oil, they were dependent on others for food. The prospect of being forced to bend the stiff royal knee to Western-imposed economic pressures inspired the Saudis to apply their oil technology to drilling deep for water. Using heavy irrigation, the country soon became self-sufficient in wheat. But unlike underground water supplies that are replenished by precipitation, fossil aquifers can rapidly be drained dry—and that is what is happening under the Arabian Peninsula.
Within a few decades, the prehistoric aquifer was almost exhausted, and by 2007, when food riots were roiling the region, the Saudi wheat harvest had dropped precipitously. The Saudi Ministry of Agriculture predicts that by 2016 the country will have to import 100 percent of the wheat it needs to feed its nearly 26 million people.
Snip…
Despite water woes, Sudan welcomes investors. “It’s the first country that gives us land without complicated procedures,” Mohammed Rasheed al-Balawi, a former manager of the Saudi firm Hadco, told the Financial Times. “The area is big, the people are friendly, [and] they gave us the land almost free.”
That characterization of terms is hotly disputed. Although both investors and host countries often refer to acquired land as underdeveloped or empty, the deals typically displace herders and small farmers, who are not consulted and, in any case, lack legal deeds. The World Bank estimates that between 2 and 10 percent of Africa’s land is held under formal land tenure, and most of that is in urban areas.
Snip
That may be difficult to achieve. While the United States has almost 3 acres of farmland per person, China has only .23. And 5,000 years of intensive farming has depleted China’s soil, industrialization has poisoned much of its water, and development and urbanization have depleted rivers and land so that even as population and per capita consumption increase, the country has lost more than 20 million acres of arable land—just since the mid-1990s.
In addition to its interest in Africa, China is investing in diverse cropland in Australia and New Zealand and looking to Indonesia for biofuels and to South America for soy for livestock production to feed its increasingly affluent population’s taste for meat and dairy. China’s South American interests are so extensive that some Brazilians, while crediting Chinese investment for their booming economy, fear for their autonomy.
“They are moving in,” Carlo Lovatelli, president of the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries, told the New York Times, “looking for land and reliable partners. But what they would like to do is run the show alone.”
“Some experts,” the Times noted, “say the partnership has devolved into a classic neocolonial relationship in which China has the upper hand.”
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