Greenwire: Governments and investors from industrial nations are increasingly spending billions of dollars to lease tracts of farmland in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa in efforts to secure their supply of staple crops.
In Africa alone, some 50 million acres — about the size of Nebraska — has been leased over the past two years. Buyers include Saudi Arabia, shifting wheat production abroad, and Indian businesses, which have spent $4.2 billion leasing African soil so far, spurred by government incentives.
The contracts, which typically last 40 to 99 years, have raised concerns that countries leasing the land could do so to the detriment of the food security of their own, often hungry populations.
“These contracts are pretty thin; no safeguards are being introduced,” said David Hallam, deputy director at the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which is discussing a code of conduct for the deals. “You see statements from ministers where they’re basically promising everything with no controls, no conditions.”
However, many experts are cautiously hopeful that a move by large agribusinesses into Africa could help feed millions. For example, most fields in Ethiopia are still plowed by oxen.