Ghana

An Afro-Arab agriculture conference on farm investment, which was to take place in Zanzibar, has been cancelled due to the Tanzanian governmnt's 11th hour refusal to host it.

Civil society, including African farmers unions, need to educate local people that such land deals are not in their interests, however couched in 'win-win' terminology they appear to be.

A group of private Saudi investors said they plan to start a company with $533.3 million capital that will invest in farm projects mainly abroad. First projects may be with Ghana, Turkey and Kazakhstan.

Land buying firms no longer disclose their identities to avoid tarnishing their image

IFAD is supporting a pilot initiative to promote properly structured ("win-win") agricultural land deals in Ghana.

A focus on agricultural productivity should not become a cover for foreign private companies to grab land or impose expensive, input-intensive methods in the name of modernisation.

Together with GMO, the land grab wave that is spreading across Africa and other countries in the "developing world" should be brought to the attention of all interested Ghanaians. It is important for Ghanaians to avoid falling for it.

Las adquisiciones de tierra en África, Asia y Latinoamérica, tal y como se hacen en la actualidad, suponen condenar a los más pobres a ser desalojados de sus fincas o a perder acceso a la tierra, al agua y a otros recursos, según el primer estudio sobre la nueva tendencia de grandes corporaciones y gobiernos de invertir en tierras en países pobres, encargado por las agencias de las Naciones Unidas de la Agricultura y Alimentación y del Desarrollo (FAO y UNDP).

A Norwegian company, ScanFuel Ltd., says its Ghanaian unit has contracted about 400,000 hectares of land, with up to 60 percent reserved for biofuel production, “not less” than 30 percent for food production and the remainder for biodiversity buffer zones.

A number of African countries are inviting South African farmers to come over to their countries and ply their trade, and Libya is included.

“We have a land fund in South America, we have in Ukraine. Now we are developing one in Africa. We need to acquire land for farming,” says Guy de Montule, Louis Dreyfus’ chief executive officer for Middle East and Africa

Las impresionantes ventas de tierras del sur a grandes empresas extranjeras muestran la cara más insultante del mercado y del modelo económico vigente, esas operaciones convierten en una ridícula caricatura los procesos de descolonización del siglo pasado. De qué les sirve la independencia política a los países africanos o asiáticos si sus tierras, su territorio, terminan compradas por una empresa europea.