India joins race for land in Africa, China way ahead

[Gabbar]

India joins race for land in Africa, China way ahead​

After years of competing for overseas oil and mines to fuel their still-growing economies, India and China are silently scouring the world for their next great need: farmland to grow food.

The destination: Africa, where economies are poor and land is cheap.

Buying farmland abroad is not new, but it has gained urgency after a worldwide spike in food prices through 2007 and 2008.

So, more than a dozen companies from India, backed by the government, invested about $2 billion (Rs 10,000 crore) in leasing land and installing plants in Ethiopia last year to produce sugar, tea and several other crops. That number is expected to double to $4 billion this year, said Gurjit Singh, India’s ambassador to Ethiopia.

While India is just warming up, China and rich Gulf states that face graver land and water shortages have been aggressively acquiring land across Africa and some parts of Asia, said a report prepared by

the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

There are others.

Last May, South Korea joined the race, buying 690,000 hectares — about five times the size of Delhi — in Sudan to grow wheat.

Land worth between $20 billion and $30 billion (Rs 100,000 crore and 150,000 crore) was bought in Africa and Asia over the past three years, said Joachim von Braun, director general of IFPRI, who authored the report.

How much land has been sold? Between 15 million and 20 million hectares, which is more than all of Germany’s farmland, said Braun.

“Many governments, either directly or through state-owned entities and public-private partnerships, are in negotiations for, or have already closed deals on, arable land leases, concessions, or purchases abroad,” said the IFPRI report titled ‘Land Grabbing by Foreign Investors in Developing Countries: Risks and Opportunities’.

Unlike earlier, when companies from the developed world bought land for profit, the new deals are driven by spiralling shortages in emerging economies such as India or China, where rising incomes are pushing up demand for food so fast that governments fear domestic production could eventually fall short.

Currently, India’s annual food grain production of 230 million tonnes is just about what the country needs. By 2020, the Planning Commission estimates the demand to grow to 240 million tonnes. There are also forecasts that put the figure as high as 250 million tons.

But economists say, unlike China, India need not look to farmland elsewhere to meet that demand, because it can fill the gap by increasing farm productivity, said Mahendra Dev, chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, a government organisation that recommends procurement prices for major farm produce.

Still, the Indian government and several companies have intensified the chase for farmland abroad. “Even farmers from Andhra Pradesh have gone and invested in land in Kenya,” said Dev.

 

[Luftwaffe]

nice..canada grows farming products despite extreme conditions there are vast lands in India don't you think rather than spending billions outside of India far off in some land called Africa and logistics problems etc..invest in those remote places in India u save $$$ by the way this is not feasible and almost impossible for India where people are dieing from hunger cut down defense spending invest more in lands in some of the remote places in India instead of going out of India and over come food crisis..

 

[wtf]

India joins race for land in Africa, China way ahead​

I find this slightly scary.

Investment in natural resources in Africa have never made the local population wealthy, studies have shown that new mines or processing plants have not made local countries wealthier but that most of the wealth has immediately flown out of the country into the investor nation.It has also often left destruction behind as governments and rebels fight for natural resources (Nigerian oil, blood diamonds)

In this case it is agriculture and may help the local population increase their wealth. But nevertheless, with the colonial history of of India and the forced Indigo cultivation and China's history with forced Opium cultivation, it is surprising that these countries are starting the same fights in another continent.

Hopefully both countries will behave with more concern for local population that the European Colonists did in China and India.

 

[white_pawn]

nice..canada grows farming products despite extreme conditions there are vast lands in India don't you think rather than spending billions outside of India far off in some land called Africa and logistics problems etc..invest in those remote places in India u save $$$ by the way this is not feasible and almost impossible for India where people are dieing from hunger cut down defense spending invest more in lands in some of the remote places in India instead of going out of India and over come food crisis..

As there is lot of instability in some part of Africe and there is scarcity of food, their are lots of countries involved in the region to provided Aid and Humanitarian help to them.

But again its not about spending billions of Dollers outside India, you basically know what i mean to say. Its about growing one's influance in the region. Bcoz as of yet africe is not exlpored much my outside world and it has got lots of naturel resource's which most of the countires have their eye on. And which ever country is involved in this kind of work have same moto behind, and that is influanceing the region so as to have access to the energy recources.

 

[taiji]

China's official food policy is self-reliance. China is the largest food producer in the world but it produce just enough food for its people. This is very important for security reasons, but also defeats the west propaganda of "who is going to feed Chinese" some years ago. I don't see this policy will change.

Investing farmland in Africa actually is a good thing. It creates jobs at local. There are still famines in Africa. NGOs should stop buying food from developed countries(they are heavily subsidized and are unfair to African farmers), rather they should go to the local food markets. It promotes business in Africa and give what African need -- not aid but job.