[streMunford]

If the land is being put to use more efficiently, then the local people will benefit, even if those benefits aren't immediately apparent. Tomatoes exported pay for potatoes imported. If this is not using the land more efficiently, then it could certainly be a problem.

[DrazAdwamoi]

Don't see a problem with this. I would like to see our government here reduce public land ownership to 25 percent down from 95 percent.

[avitalporatova]

Exactly. If the investment is getting to your average joe, great. If it's being hoarded by fat cats who own vast mechanised farms that employ minimal staff, not so good.

[xqdrocherz]

Now some more awkward questions-

1- Why can't foreign aid be used to provide wells, equipment, extra livestock, training and improved crops to the people already on the land?

2- If the aim is to feed Africa, how will turning over its land to produce biofuels and coffee help?

3- "The farmers do not like it because they get displaced, but they can find land elsewhere and, besides, they get compensation, equivalent to about 10 years' crop yield"

Is that compensation enough, given that the farmers have to relocate, re-plant and feed themselves for up to a year afterwards- meaning that it's only from the remaining funds that they can buy land?

[!!!maryann!!!]

Now some more awkward questions-

1- Why can't foreign aid be used to provide wells, equipment, extra livestock, training and improved crops to the people already on the land?

2- If the aim is to feed Africa, how will turning over its land to produce biofuels and coffee help?

3- "The farmers do not like it because they get displaced, but they can find land elsewhere and, besides, they get compensation, equivalent to about 10 years' crop yield"

Is that compensation enough, given that the farmers have to relocate, re-plant and feed themselves for up to a year afterwards- meaning that it's only from the remaining funds that they can buy land?

1. The reality is tiny subsistence plot farms are not economically viable and won't result in new jobs and likely aren't productive enough to support even one family.

2. The goal here is to grow what makes the most value added and thus the most profit. If that's coffee and biofuels then great as the profits can then be used to buy other things off the world market. Or do you think Japan shouldn't convert farm land to car factories because it should be 100% food self sufficient? The truth is using the land for what ever purpose makes the most money is economically speaking the best move.

3. That was a quote from the Ethiopian government which supposedly does pay fair compensation though I don't see how this is different from any other use of imminent domain by governments.

[forumsfavoriteall]

True, though one would hope that economic development would lead to better governance. It has in Asia and Latin America.

[NanoGordeno]

1. The reality is tiny subsistence plot farms are not economically viable and won't result in new jobs and likely aren't productive enough to support even one family.

We're talking about communities who managed to sustain themselves for centuries before international aid came along. People who will have to survive even after the land is sold.

2. The goal here is to grow what makes the most value added and thus the most profit. If that's coffee and biofuels then great as the profits can then be used to buy other things off the world market. Or do you think Japan shouldn't convert farm land to car factories because it should be 100% food self sufficient? The truth is using the land for what ever purpose makes the most money is economically speaking the best move. Japan isn't Africa. The modern Japanese government isn't noted for its willingness to watch ethnic minorities starve- unlike Ethiopia and Sudan, who feature in the article you criticise.

What's good for the governments of these nations isn't necessarily good for the people.

3. That was a quote from the Ethiopian government which supposedly does pay fair compensation though I don't see how this is different from any other use of imminent domain by governments.
If it really was a good price, why opt for neo-Marxist land grabs? Let the market work.

[spamkillerj]

Part of the problem is that they have to want to learn.

It's for precisely that reason that I'm going to ignore your interjections.

[MondayBlues]

It's for precisely that reason that I'm going to ignore your interjections. Why? Do you not like discussing how things went down in England? I think the point is valid. England never has had a good track of respecting property rights especially for this sort of thing.

[boltondd]

Africa needs educated and financially secure people who will make the problem of poverty their own - you know, live in it... work towards fixing it... real commitment (The Neo-Exodus [tm]).

Money and synthetic agriculture is just a bandaid and sometimes does as much long term harm as short term good.

[LarryRda]

OK fixed

No, I just think he's quite aware that discussing anything with you is a waste of time

[oxixernibioge]

Africa needs a different agricultural revolution that includes social and political revolution. Not another so-called "green" revolution. The circumstances are not the same as industrial developed countries of the early-mid 1900s, and the risks are now well known.

Fortunately, organic agriculture in Africa is a resistance movement not a revolutionary one. The revolution lies beyond organic.

[Cengaeas]

Volunteers. NGOs. Expatriates. I call it The Neo-Exodus. The point is, we need boots on the ground not checks in the mail. Until we truly make the problems our own, we are just making ourselves feel better - we're not really fixing anything.

Of course, foreign investment can feed into this but we need to re-evaluate trade injustices. I would say ethical foreign investment is better than foreign aid payments or food shipments. We should also note that anti-foreign-meddling or over-the-top ethical trade rhetoric can be taken too far, as in the case of Chavez - which brings us to the commie-guardian article in the OP.

For an excellent example of foreign-investment and trade gone horribly wrong, look at the cut-flower industry in S. America (for the US) and Africa (for Europe). For an excellent example of aid gone horribly wrong, witness the destruction of local and regional markets at the hand of subsidized "aid" grain from the US (which largely functions only to stabilize our domestic prices).

[Zebrabitch]

Foreign investment is not the same thing as handouts.

Take those green houses in the OP. The government got money for the lease, I bet you most of the constuction is being done via local labor (even if the technical stuff isn't) and they added 1,000 steady jobs to the local economy not to mention any taxes on the buisness. That is investment.

Dropping off bags or rice so that the poor can cling on to life for another year with nothing to show for it is entirely different.

[limpoporanique]

The main problem in Africa is poor governance and lack of free market economic principles to generate growth higher then the birth rate.

As for your idea of using volunteers to create real lasting economic development... The closest thing anyone has ever tried to do that is Mao's Great Leap Forward which utilized hundreds of millions of people for over a decade doing the kind of volunteer work you want and the Great Leap Forward is universally accepted to have been a total failure even by the Chinese Communist Party.

[gogFloark]

That's nice and all but it won't create the massive change and massive increases in output and wealth which are needed to pull billions of people out of poverty. For that you're going to need lots of private investment.

[BrandandGeneric]

by helping them support a growing population through pragmatic and sustainable local improvements that won't involve human rights abuses en route? What do you mean by sustainable?

[clorkergo]

Wow, that was informative.

It tells me that sustainability has no correlation with prosperity and may in fact be inversely related.

[SasV7ReJ]

we know that it is all about producing enough food so that
all the people in your cities do not have to be farmers

Step 1
build granary
Step 2
build market place

[saturninus.ribb]

Step 1
Get a good start.
Step 2
Regenerate map, see step 1.