While Africa Dries Up, the “First World” Grabs Land and Water

“The tensions in south western Ethiopia illustrate the central importance of access to water in the global land rush. Hidden behind the current scramble for land is a world-wide struggle for control over water. Those who have been buying up vast stretches of farmland in recent years, whether they are based in Addis Ababa, Dubai or London, understand that the access to water they gain, often included for free and without restriction, may well be worth more over the long-term, than the land deals themselves.”

Although Al-Amoudi was born in Ethiopia, he has been a Saudi citizen since he was 19. A construction and real estate magnate and one of the richest men in the world, he has investments in several countries and is said to be in the process of investing US$3 billion in Ethiopian projects. Presumably, that includes gaining control over more land and water.

They are all after not just the control of the land but, more importantly, of the water

Corporations from India, Europe, and other countries, including the U.S., are moving in on the massive land grabs that involve millions of hectares (a hectare is 2.47 acres) in various countries of Africa. And, as GRAIN maintains, they are all after not just the control of the land but, more importantly, of the water. All of this is necessary because of the profligate and unsustainable use of water for irrigation of crops in the home country.

Continuous cropping and the monoculture of America’s own Midwest is an example of what is a part of the same problem: endless mile upon mile of corn, soybeans, and wheat, with much of it genetically engineered without any idea of the effects of those crops on people who eat the foodstuffs that result from such engineering. In California, the seemingly endless fields, groves, and orchards of fruit and row crops are using the water at a rate that is 15 percent more than can be replenished by rain and snow melt. And, that’s not to mention the serious depletion of the water from rivers like the Colorado, which has not reached the sea in any meaningful way for decades.

The “real value” is in the water and the water is abundant in Africa, said Neil Crowder of the Britain-based Chayton Capital, which has been acquiring farmland in Zambia, according to GRAIN, which points out that such investors perceive Africa’s water resources as being “vastly underutilized” and ready to be harnessed for food production for export.

The reality, GRAIN notes, is that “a third of Africans already live in water-scarce environments and climate change is likely to increase these numbers significantly. Massive land deals could rob millions of people of their access to water and risk the depletion of the continent’s most precious fresh water sources.”

What is being described in reports from many countries is nothing less than a return to colonialism, which may not be in exactly the same form of the old colonialism, politically or economically, but has essentially the same result. A small elite that cuts deals with transnational corporations will be the ones (along with their minions) who benefit from the leases or outright purchases of the land and water, while the people lose their traditions, culture, and their lives because they no longer have control over their lands, which sustain them. And, since political entities (foreign governments) keep a safe distance, their fingerprints are not on the transactions. So, it could not really be colonialism, right?

No one should have any illusions about what is happening to the “developing” countries where the rich roll into villages in their four-wheel-drive monstrosities, directly from the airport, and tell the villagers that they are about to receive the gift of “development,” so that they can live like the “First World.” After the message is delivered, the rich are driven back to the airport, back to their real world, while the villagers, happy to have the attention of so many important people, are left to wonder what the “development” is all about. This is especially true, when they have to start paying for water and start paying for rent on a small piece of land on which to grow their food.

That water is not the kind you can catch and save and use sometime in the future

And, to make up the difference between subsistence and starvation, they will be allowed to apply for jobs on the vast plantations that will be created to raise food to be shipped to Europe, Saudi Arabia, China, Japan, or the U.S. What is being played out across the planet today is what has been played out in microcosm in the U.S., in that the nation has shifted to an industrial system of food production that requires fertile land, lots of petroleum products and chemicals, cheap water, and, above all, cheap labor. The U.S. has run out of most of the above ingredients and food is becoming more and more expensive. Naturally, the handful of giant food companies that controls food production are looking for other places to ply their trade and this is true of the other developed countries.

Ordinary people in the countries targeted for exploitation do not deserve the treatment to which they are, or will be, subjected. They have gone from being under the power of colonial rulers to, in mid-20th Century, being subjects of despots or strongman rulers, whose allegiance was to those who could do them favors, not to the people. The people deserve better and it is up to the citizens of the “advanced democracies” to see that they get it.

The world’s corporations, especially Corporate America, that are engaged in the new colonialism will never see to the peoples’ freedom or needs on their own. They will have to be forced to do the right thing.