Middle East’s land grabs and food security in Nigeria
11 April 2011 | By SIAKA MOMOH (Business Day Online)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SIAKA MOMOH writes that the current Middle East countries’
aggressive drive for land in poor countries, Nigeria inclusive,
should reawaken the nation’s interest to the important issue of
food security and the security of our fresh water deposit
by some powerful Nigerians to draw Nigeria into the race. Enbong
Jimie Idiong, chief executive of Global Corp Ltd, was quoted by
Reuters to have said "Nigeria has the terrain to provide 100 percent
of the Gulf's food needs”. Nigeria has around 71.2 million hectares
of farmland, of which less that 50 percent is being used, according
to data from Global Corp Ltd.
"We need investment to fully utilize this land and we will allow the
investors to export back 100 percent of the crop and this will create
employment opportunities for people in Nigeria. The land could be
leased for up to 30 to 40 years at a cost of around $10,000 per
hectare for that period,” Idiong said.
Informed industry sources reveal that during the late Umaru Musa
Yar’Adua regime, former Minister of Agriculture, Abba Ruma and
former Nigeria’s Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Michael
Aondoakaa, discussed the issue of leasing farmlands to Gulf States.
However, the discussion was inconclusive as a result of the demise
of Yar’Adua.
There is also unconfirmed report that First Trustee, an arm of First
bank Plc is involved in a $1.8 billion farmland lease deal between
Nigeria and United Arab Emirates.
These industry stakeholders have raised their voices against what
some now call ‘Arabs land grabs’. Writing on ‘Re-Colonization of
Africa through Buying Agricultural Land: Wealthy Nations and their
Multinationals on the Rampage’, Akinyi Princess of K’Orinda-
Yimbo said: “Africans are being colonised again and this time not
with the power of weapons but through Africans themselves selling
their continent willingly.
The 99- and 999-year lease – a remnant of colonialists – surely
cannot fool anybody. This is equivalent to a full century and/or full
millennium which translates into three and a half to thirty-four
consecutive generations of Africans”.
For him, “Africans are selling the one natural resource they can’t
afford to sell – their land. Especially arable land... The new
colonialism is vast in Africa, with the buyers being wealthy countries
unable to grow their own food. The Arabs are back fleeing their
barren sands to turn Africa into their granary like they did one and a
half millennia ago (in Egypt at the time).”
But Muda Yusuf, director-general, Lagos Chamber of Commerce
and Industry (LCCI) thinks differently. He argued: “Currently, there
is serious underinvestment in the agricultural sector. Over 80
percent of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country is in Oil &
Gas and the Telecoms sectors. There is virtually no FDI in the
agricultural sector. The country has abundant arable land most of
which is lying idle. We need all the investment we can get in
agriculture.
“The sector has huge potentials for job creation and poverty
alleviation. Such investment would also benefit the country through
technology transfer and accelerate the development of mechanized
farming. Of course, there would be guidelines to ensure that the
country benefits maximally from such investments,” Yusuf stated.
Oladele Afolabi, former executive director argued: “Does it make
sense to repeat the oil madness with land too when the farm
products will end up being sold to us like petroleum products? They
have land and money why not make theirs fertile like the Israeli
people did? What most people miss is that it's not only about land;
it’s also about water. With a population of nearly 160 million
growing annually at 1.6 percent, where do you want to get the land
and water to support your own people? Why can't we grow the
food on our properly owned land and sell food to them! The water
and land shortage elsewhere that makes African soil and water
become the next to be grabbed or sold by those who don't
understand that money and value are different things.”
For Obiora Madu, chief of Multimix Academy, a frontline
import/export training institute who endorsed the Arab project said
that “I do not have any problem with this situation. What is the
percentage of arable land in Nigeria currently being cultivated?
Agriculture stands as the only way out of the mass unemployment
situation. The Arabs will not bring all the workers from their country
neither will they take the land when they are going. I am sure that
the multiplier effect of their activity will have positive impact on the
GDP as well as employment.
“Contract farming is happening everywhere else in the world but oil
has become a stumbling block to Agriculture in Nigeria. I do not
agree with the term land grabs. We met this land and we will leave it
when we are going. If the Arabs are going to improve our lives by
utilizing a resource we abandoned, so be it. When the Zimbabwean
farmers were coming to Kwara state people said the same thing but
now the state is the better for it,” Madu disclosed.
Corroborating their views, Lanre Talabi of Talon (Nigeria) Limited,
an agribusiness research, development and consultancy company,
disclosed that “If Arabs do not use the land who will? Our investors
are agro investment shy and we are short of agribusiness managers
and funds are difficult to secure in the banks. We in Talon Agro
know what to do in terms of project management in agriculture. Let
the Arabs come o.”
The Gulf States are said to be in the lead in this new investment.
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar, controlling about
45 percent of the world’s oil, are buying up agricultural land in
Egypt, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Zambia, and Uganda as well as in
Cambodia, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia.
Even South Korea is reported to have grabbed a staggering
960,000 hectares in Sudan, the largest country in Africa, where at
least six other rich countries are said to have secured large land-
holding – and precisely where the local population is among the
hungriest and least secure in the world.
The Saudis too are reported to be negotiating 500,000 hectares in
Tanzania. Companies for the United Arab Emirates have snapped
up 324,000 hectares in Pakistan. Highly populated countries like
China, South Korea and India have acquired swathes of African
farmland to produce food for export.
India too, is said to have recently lowered tariffs for Ethiopian
commodities that could enter India after the Indian government lent
money to 80 Indian companies to buy 350,000 hectares of farmland
in Africa, particularly huge tracts in Kenya, Mozambique and
Ethiopia.
Philippe Heilberg, a US businessman, has laid claim to 4,000 square
kilometre of fertile territory in a deal with the family of a notorious
warlord in south Sudan where land is not in short supply.
Heilberg, a former Wall Street banker is reported to be buying up
huge tracts of land in Sudan. Analysts argue European Union would
soon cut off the unsustainable farm subsidies and that President
Barack Obama also proposes to cut off massive funding to
unsustainable subsidies to American farmers.
The result, according to them, would be a huge demand for
foodstuff in the future. They argue the Sudanese, Nigerians and
other poor countries think they make wise investments today by
mortgaging their farmlands would quickly realise that they have
short-changed themselves. They would simply discover that a God-
given resource that would constitute a strong bargaining chip has
been taken out of their hands of forever.
The grabbed hectares of land are used mostly to grow staples or
biofuels—wheat, maize, rice, jatropha. The Egyptian and South
Korean projects in Sudan are both for wheat. Libya has leased
100,000 hectares of Mali for rice. By contrast, in the past, farming
ventures was for cash crops (coffee, tea, sugar or bananas).
Until now, foreign farming investment was usually private: private
investors bought land from private owners. That process has
continued, particularly the snapping up of privatised land in the
former Soviet Union.
Reports have it that the majority of the new deals have been
government-to-government. The acquirers are foreign regimes or
companies closely tied to them, such as sovereign-wealth funds. The
sellers are host governments dispensing land they nominally own.
Buying off land means buying off limited fresh water deposit. This
invariably means the seller mortgaging its scarce fresh water deposit.
Only a few know this. In fact, water scarcity was largely responsible
for Saudi Arabia and a number of Arab countries moving out to
grab land for farming.
In 2008, Saudi Arabia abandoned its food self-sufficiency
programme when it discovered that farmers were burning their way
through water—which comes from a non-replenishable aquifer
below the Arabian sands. Other Gulf States followed suit. The same
can be said of China and South Korea who followed suit; countries
not usually associated with water shortages but where agricultural
expansion has been draining dry breadbasket areas like the North
China Plain.
It is noteworthy to state that 97.5 percent of water globally is salt
water, covering 1.365 billion kilometres cubic feet whilst 2.5
percent is fresh water covering 35 million kilometres cubic feet.
Also, 70 per cent of world fresh water goes to agriculture, 20 per
cent to industry, and 10 per cent for human consumption.
Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, the chairman of Nestlé, claims: “The
purchases weren’t about land, but water. For with the land comes
the right to withdraw the water linked to it, in most countries
essentially a freebie that increasingly could be the most valuable part
of the deal.” He calls it “the great water grab.
. Courtesy
11 April 2011 | By SIAKA MOMOH (Business Day Online)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SIAKA MOMOH writes that the current Middle East countries’
aggressive drive for land in poor countries, Nigeria inclusive,
should reawaken the nation’s interest to the important issue of
food security and the security of our fresh water deposit
- The Middle East countries, otherwise
known as the Gulf States, that are
seeking food security have moved into
some Sub-Saharan African countries to
lease lands to grow food crops for their
population.
- Though no concrete contract has been
by some powerful Nigerians to draw Nigeria into the race. Enbong
Jimie Idiong, chief executive of Global Corp Ltd, was quoted by
Reuters to have said "Nigeria has the terrain to provide 100 percent
of the Gulf's food needs”. Nigeria has around 71.2 million hectares
of farmland, of which less that 50 percent is being used, according
to data from Global Corp Ltd.
"We need investment to fully utilize this land and we will allow the
investors to export back 100 percent of the crop and this will create
employment opportunities for people in Nigeria. The land could be
leased for up to 30 to 40 years at a cost of around $10,000 per
hectare for that period,” Idiong said.
Informed industry sources reveal that during the late Umaru Musa
Yar’Adua regime, former Minister of Agriculture, Abba Ruma and
former Nigeria’s Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Michael
Aondoakaa, discussed the issue of leasing farmlands to Gulf States.
However, the discussion was inconclusive as a result of the demise
of Yar’Adua.
There is also unconfirmed report that First Trustee, an arm of First
bank Plc is involved in a $1.8 billion farmland lease deal between
Nigeria and United Arab Emirates.
These industry stakeholders have raised their voices against what
some now call ‘Arabs land grabs’. Writing on ‘Re-Colonization of
Africa through Buying Agricultural Land: Wealthy Nations and their
Multinationals on the Rampage’, Akinyi Princess of K’Orinda-
Yimbo said: “Africans are being colonised again and this time not
with the power of weapons but through Africans themselves selling
their continent willingly.
The 99- and 999-year lease – a remnant of colonialists – surely
cannot fool anybody. This is equivalent to a full century and/or full
millennium which translates into three and a half to thirty-four
consecutive generations of Africans”.
For him, “Africans are selling the one natural resource they can’t
afford to sell – their land. Especially arable land... The new
colonialism is vast in Africa, with the buyers being wealthy countries
unable to grow their own food. The Arabs are back fleeing their
barren sands to turn Africa into their granary like they did one and a
half millennia ago (in Egypt at the time).”
But Muda Yusuf, director-general, Lagos Chamber of Commerce
and Industry (LCCI) thinks differently. He argued: “Currently, there
is serious underinvestment in the agricultural sector. Over 80
percent of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country is in Oil &
Gas and the Telecoms sectors. There is virtually no FDI in the
agricultural sector. The country has abundant arable land most of
which is lying idle. We need all the investment we can get in
agriculture.
“The sector has huge potentials for job creation and poverty
alleviation. Such investment would also benefit the country through
technology transfer and accelerate the development of mechanized
farming. Of course, there would be guidelines to ensure that the
country benefits maximally from such investments,” Yusuf stated.
Oladele Afolabi, former executive director argued: “Does it make
sense to repeat the oil madness with land too when the farm
products will end up being sold to us like petroleum products? They
have land and money why not make theirs fertile like the Israeli
people did? What most people miss is that it's not only about land;
it’s also about water. With a population of nearly 160 million
growing annually at 1.6 percent, where do you want to get the land
and water to support your own people? Why can't we grow the
food on our properly owned land and sell food to them! The water
and land shortage elsewhere that makes African soil and water
become the next to be grabbed or sold by those who don't
understand that money and value are different things.”
For Obiora Madu, chief of Multimix Academy, a frontline
import/export training institute who endorsed the Arab project said
that “I do not have any problem with this situation. What is the
percentage of arable land in Nigeria currently being cultivated?
Agriculture stands as the only way out of the mass unemployment
situation. The Arabs will not bring all the workers from their country
neither will they take the land when they are going. I am sure that
the multiplier effect of their activity will have positive impact on the
GDP as well as employment.
“Contract farming is happening everywhere else in the world but oil
has become a stumbling block to Agriculture in Nigeria. I do not
agree with the term land grabs. We met this land and we will leave it
when we are going. If the Arabs are going to improve our lives by
utilizing a resource we abandoned, so be it. When the Zimbabwean
farmers were coming to Kwara state people said the same thing but
now the state is the better for it,” Madu disclosed.
Corroborating their views, Lanre Talabi of Talon (Nigeria) Limited,
an agribusiness research, development and consultancy company,
disclosed that “If Arabs do not use the land who will? Our investors
are agro investment shy and we are short of agribusiness managers
and funds are difficult to secure in the banks. We in Talon Agro
know what to do in terms of project management in agriculture. Let
the Arabs come o.”
The Gulf States are said to be in the lead in this new investment.
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar, controlling about
45 percent of the world’s oil, are buying up agricultural land in
Egypt, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Zambia, and Uganda as well as in
Cambodia, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia.
Even South Korea is reported to have grabbed a staggering
960,000 hectares in Sudan, the largest country in Africa, where at
least six other rich countries are said to have secured large land-
holding – and precisely where the local population is among the
hungriest and least secure in the world.
The Saudis too are reported to be negotiating 500,000 hectares in
Tanzania. Companies for the United Arab Emirates have snapped
up 324,000 hectares in Pakistan. Highly populated countries like
China, South Korea and India have acquired swathes of African
farmland to produce food for export.
India too, is said to have recently lowered tariffs for Ethiopian
commodities that could enter India after the Indian government lent
money to 80 Indian companies to buy 350,000 hectares of farmland
in Africa, particularly huge tracts in Kenya, Mozambique and
Ethiopia.
Philippe Heilberg, a US businessman, has laid claim to 4,000 square
kilometre of fertile territory in a deal with the family of a notorious
warlord in south Sudan where land is not in short supply.
Heilberg, a former Wall Street banker is reported to be buying up
huge tracts of land in Sudan. Analysts argue European Union would
soon cut off the unsustainable farm subsidies and that President
Barack Obama also proposes to cut off massive funding to
unsustainable subsidies to American farmers.
The result, according to them, would be a huge demand for
foodstuff in the future. They argue the Sudanese, Nigerians and
other poor countries think they make wise investments today by
mortgaging their farmlands would quickly realise that they have
short-changed themselves. They would simply discover that a God-
given resource that would constitute a strong bargaining chip has
been taken out of their hands of forever.
The grabbed hectares of land are used mostly to grow staples or
biofuels—wheat, maize, rice, jatropha. The Egyptian and South
Korean projects in Sudan are both for wheat. Libya has leased
100,000 hectares of Mali for rice. By contrast, in the past, farming
ventures was for cash crops (coffee, tea, sugar or bananas).
Until now, foreign farming investment was usually private: private
investors bought land from private owners. That process has
continued, particularly the snapping up of privatised land in the
former Soviet Union.
Reports have it that the majority of the new deals have been
government-to-government. The acquirers are foreign regimes or
companies closely tied to them, such as sovereign-wealth funds. The
sellers are host governments dispensing land they nominally own.
Buying off land means buying off limited fresh water deposit. This
invariably means the seller mortgaging its scarce fresh water deposit.
Only a few know this. In fact, water scarcity was largely responsible
for Saudi Arabia and a number of Arab countries moving out to
grab land for farming.
In 2008, Saudi Arabia abandoned its food self-sufficiency
programme when it discovered that farmers were burning their way
through water—which comes from a non-replenishable aquifer
below the Arabian sands. Other Gulf States followed suit. The same
can be said of China and South Korea who followed suit; countries
not usually associated with water shortages but where agricultural
expansion has been draining dry breadbasket areas like the North
China Plain.
It is noteworthy to state that 97.5 percent of water globally is salt
water, covering 1.365 billion kilometres cubic feet whilst 2.5
percent is fresh water covering 35 million kilometres cubic feet.
Also, 70 per cent of world fresh water goes to agriculture, 20 per
cent to industry, and 10 per cent for human consumption.
Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, the chairman of Nestlé, claims: “The
purchases weren’t about land, but water. For with the land comes
the right to withdraw the water linked to it, in most countries
essentially a freebie that increasingly could be the most valuable part
of the deal.” He calls it “the great water grab.
. Courtesy
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