Water Scarcity, Food Security Concerns Prompt Global Land Grab
Last August Hassad Food, a year-old agricultural finance company owned
by the government of Qatar, announced that the tiny Middle East
emirate's primary food security investment group would change its
funding strategy. Instead of securing its food supply principally by
purchasing tens of thousands of acres of arable land in Africa, Asia,
and Europe - a global trend that has stirred international concern and
a grassroots backlash in some of the planet's poorest agricultural
regions - Hassad Food would invest in food and farm companies.
"In many cases these deals are not win-win situations," Nasser Mohamed
Al Hajri, the company's chairman, told reporters. "We don't want to be
in a situation where the rich are taking away food and land of the
poor."
But late last month Hassad Foods changed course again. The company
signed a roughly $1 billion agreement to develop farmland in Sudan, a
north African nation emerging from civil war and with millions of acres
of arable land that is being eyed for food production by water- and
resource-scarce nations on other continents.
"This is just the beginning on which I hope we can build on to secure
food for Qatar, Sudan as well as the world," Al-Hajri said in comments
published by Gulf Times last month.
More than 250,000 acres of Sudan farmland is involved in the agreement,
the latest in a concerted global land buying spree by nations facing
limits on land, water, and manpower to ensure their food security.
Qatar and other nations are quietly purchasing or leasing vast tracts
of farmland in land-rich nations that need new capital, technology, and
markets to thrive.
Just in the last few weeks, according to news accounts, a joint venture between Pharos Financial Group, a fund management firm based in Dubai, and London-based Miro Holdings International, which specializes in agriculture assets management, announced plans to spend $350 million to buy farmland in Africa and Romania.
South Korea announced it will spend nearly $26 million to buy land in Paraguay and Uruguay. South Korean investment companies have rented 94,000 hectares in Mindoro in the Philippines to produce corn. And Gaeunpam, a South Korean agricultural corporation, is planning to develop 52,000 acres of farmland for Korean farmers to use in the Bulgan province of Mongolia, according to news reports.
Contact information | n/a |
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News type | Inbrief |
File link |
http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2009/world/water-scarcity-food-security-concerns-prompt-global-land-grab/ |
Source of information | Circle of Blue Waternews |
Keyword(s) | Water Scarcity, Food Security |
Subject(s) | AGRICULTURE , ANALYSIS AND TESTS , DRINKING WATER , DRINKING WATER AND SANITATION : COMMON PROCESSES OF PURIFICATION AND TREATMENT , FINANCE-ECONOMY , INFORMATION - COMPUTER SCIENCES , INFRASTRUCTURES , METHTODOLOGY - STATISTICS - DECISION AID , NATURAL MEDIUM , POLICY-WATER POLICY AND WATER MANAGEMENT , RISKS AND CLIMATOLOGY , SANITATION -STRICT PURIFICATION PROCESSES , WATER DEMAND , WATER QUALITY |
Relation | http://www.emwis.net/topics/WaterScarcity |
Geographical coverage | International |
News date | 18/12/2009 |
Working language(s) | ENGLISH |