Sudan

“African countries have not been in a reasonable bargaining position,” AU Agriculture Commissioner Rhoda Peace Tumusiime told Reuters in an interview at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa. “The pace of the trend was very fast and they didn’t envisage that there should be benefits to the community.”

The issue of food security is getting higher on Riyadh’s priority list.

"Il n'y a pas de liberté pour une société qui mange au-delà de ses frontières". Le colonel Kadhafi applique à la lettre ce principe du Livre vert.

Sub-Saharan African countries have of late become the target of a new form of investment that is strongly reminiscent of colonialism: investors from both industrialised and emerging economies buy or lease large tracts of farm land across the continent, either to guarantee their own food provisions or simply as yet another business.

En janvier, le premier riz “saoudien” produit à l’étranger a été présenté au roi Abdallah. Le consommateur saoudien ne goûte pas la différence. En dépit du renversement de conjoncture, il continue à payer son alimentation à un prix élevé, correspondant au niveau en vigueur pour les achats massifs effectués en 2008 afin de prévenir toute crise alimentaire.

Jarch Management Group, Ltd., a US investment firm, disclosed that it is considering additional opportunities to lease large tracts of farmland in Southern Sudan.

Essentially, the Middle East is left with two choices. “The region has to import. The question is, invest abroad or rely on the free market?” said Dr Eckart Woertz, program manager in economics at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.

Abu Dhabi's food imports increased considerably during the past two years as the cultivated area contracted and the level of self-sufficiency in several commodities and livestock went down, the emirate's Department of Planning and Economy has revealed. The department yesterday called for a strategic plan to achieve food security through an increase in agricultural investment outside the UAE, especially in Sudan.

Al Rajhi for International Investment will spend an estimated $400 million by 2011 to produce wheat and maize in Egypt and Sudan. The Saudi private firm is already farming 42,000 hectares of farmland in Egypt this year.

Not a day goes by without new acreage being signed over. "For Sale" ads for agricultural property are now featured in the international financial press. And there's no dearth of clients.

"Je crois que les tensions seront inévitables où que ce soit, faisant des enclaves agricoles étrangères de véritables forteresses assiégées."

Des États à la recherche d'autonomie alimentaire et des grands groupes louent des millions d'hectares à l'étranger. Christian Bouquet, spécialiste en géopolitique, explique le phénomène.