Gallery
The EBRD sent a joint letter with the IMF and World Bank to Ukraine's Prime Minister three weeks ago airing concerns that a proposed state-controlled grain export monopoly could deter future private sector investments in the country's agricultural industry. (Above: EBRD headquarters)
“After the farm came, the animals here disappeared,” says Omot Ochan, one of the local Anuak people. (Photo by Fred Pearce)
Workers clear earth for irrigated rice farming on Ethiopian land leased by a Saudi firm. (Photo by Fred Pearce)
More than a million white-eared kob, an endangered antelope, migrate across the Gambella grasslands. (Photo: Mike D. Kock/Gallo Images)
"We don't invest in commodities; the trend is for them to fall. The value is in owning the land ... And we are not investing in land anywhere else in the world, except Brazil," says Daniel Ward of the Virginia Tech endowment. (Above: soybean farm in Brazil.)
Se entregarían 240 mil hectáreas para el cultivo a la empresa estatal china Heilongjiang Beidahuang. Antes de cosechar soja, el acuerdo ya cosecha críticas de parte de organizaciones comunitarias y ambientalistas. El gobierno provincial lo defiende.
Donde no ha habido operaciones --hasta el año pasado-- fue en la compra o el arrendamiento de campos
An Indian worker transplants rice on a major commercial agricultural scheme in the Gambela region of Ethiopia. (Photo: Ben Parker/IRIN)
"Many of those land deals are beneficial, and it would be too bad if some were held back because of Western groups' ways of looking at things. Whenever somebody invests in Africa and actually builds infrastructure in Africa, they're the ones who are at risk. You can't take the infrastructure home! I'm not endorsing all these deals, but when capital is put into Africa, that's a good sign. Africa has to look at these things, but it shouldn't be viewed purely through Western eyes, because there's a real opportunity as the rest of the world looks to Africa." -Bill Gates
Romania's State Secretary for Agriculture, Adrian Radulescu, says this year Romania’s Agency for Payments and Intervention in Agriculture (APIA) will introduce a satellite monitoring system, which will spy on unworked plots.
