Why Corporations...and Petro-States Are Snapping Up Huge Chunks of Farmland in the Developing World

Why Corporations, Emerging Powers and Petro-States Are Snapping Up Huge Chunks of Farmland in the Developing World

By Scott Thill, AlterNet. Posted August 11, 2009.

In the past six months, big players in the global economy have grabbed 50 million acres of arable land, from Africa to Southeast Asia.




Stop me if you think you've heard this one before:

Investment banks, sovereign wealth funds and other barely regulated financial entities in search of fat paydays go on buying binges structurally adjusted to maximize their earnings reports and employee bonuses, while simultaneously screwing their business associates and everyone else in the process. It's all done in near-total secrecy, and by the time everyone finds out about it, they're already in the poorhouse.

That's more or less the playbook for the derivatives and credit-default swaps gold rush that ruined the global economy, which cratered in 2007 and has yet to recuperate.

The bubble money has now moved on from housing and turned to the commodities markets, especially global food production. Given what that money did to the housing market, things don't look good for local communities whose land is being bought up by governments, sovereign wealth and hedge funds, and other investors on the hunt for real value in a hyperreal economy.

Entrenched and developing economic powers -- the U.K., China, South Korea, India and more -- have launched land rushes to outsource production of everything from staples like rice, wheat, corn and sugar to finance bubbles like biofuels. That includes oil-wealthy Gulf States, which recently feasted on commodities speculation that exploded oil prices in 2008. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/141734/why_corporations%2C_emerging_powers_and_petro-states_are_snapping_up_huge_chunks_of_farmland_in_the_developing_world/

You can't grow crops without Water.