And agreements sometimes turn to neocolonialism

Last winter, the announcement of the "rental" over ninety-nine years in Korean Daewoo of half of the arable land in Madagascar has resonated as a clap of Thunder. "With Daewoo, everyone woke!", remembers for the French Development Agency. With 1.3 million hectares - the equivalent of half of the Belgium-, exchanged free of charge against jobs and infrastructure, there was what...

Of course, the stranglehold of the rich agricultural land of poor or emerging countries is not new: everywhere, colonial made its evidence in the matter... Banana republics of Central America are not yesterday, Amazon is doomed to predators and the stars of Hollywood is are long established small empires in Patagonia. Gradually, and for the same results, moved from the gunboat to the chequebook and lawyers. The novelty is that these transactions are today an unprecedented scale.

A massive and global phenomenon

In the eyes of observers as policies, the acceleration of the phenomenon is simply staggering. The number of "deals" explodes and they are more important surfaces. With the tsunami, economists are more to talk about "third wave of outsourcing", after that of plants in the 1980s, and then the high-tech in the 1990s. To describe it, it has even invented a term: "landgrab", or "land grabbing".

It would include 5-10 large contracts for the sale or rental of arable land per day, according to the Spanish NGO Grain, which relies on sources of press fault of official statistics. For FAO (the UN food and agriculture organization) and the London IIED (International Institute for Environment and Development), it is yet to "the tip of the iceberg."Thus an estimated 10 million hectares surrendered in 2008 and, according to the International Land Coalition, which brings together NGOs and intergovernmental agencies, 30 million hectares have been the subject of negotiations in the first half of 2009, equivalent to the France cultivable surface. The basic unit of the contracts went to the hundred of thousands of hectares and the phenomenon is now global. It is under pressure the best land, relatives of markets and irrigated", and struck head-on a central element of the identity, lifestyles and food security of entire societies, notes FAO. With the key, sometimes explosive reactions: in Madagascar, the thrust of fever after the Daewoo case account for a large part in the departure of the authority of President Ravalomanana.

Given this background movement, researchers and policy seem to be taken. The France "hope set a position on the subject by the end of the year", said a senior official. Everywhere are research groups and the World Bank has just launched a broad study of 17 countries.

Who buys

Everyone makes. Because the Earth - and the water that goes with - is now alongside the oil as an instrument of power and economic security. Rarity points its nose. In 2007, food prices doubled on average over one year and their secular decline appears to be halted forever. "It is said that can all buy and the climate is deleterious. "In Senegal, Mali, on meeting Russians say they are Spanish and are accompanied by English banks," fun an expert. Atmosphere...

States or their armed arms (public companies, sovereign wealth funds...) arrive at the top of customers: they want to ensure their supply in the long term and no longer depend on too unstable markets. A large block of "buyers" of extraterritorial spaces draws thus: because they totally lack water and agricultural potential, such as Saudi Arabia and the other rich producers of hydrocarbons (monarchies of the Gulf, Libya...), Egypt or the Jordan; or because they cannot meet the growing needs of their populations, such as China, India, Malaysia, South Korea or the Japan, which already import 60 of their diet. Beijing is a champion, with some 30 agreements end farm, 2008, rice, soybeans, corn and energy crops such as sugar cane, millet and sorghum.

But the private sector is not at rest. The agricultural food sector offers unexpected opportunities and the climate change, ecology, the energy crisis and carbon credits developed fashion biofuels, requiring of new and vast arable areas to replace oil. The annual rates of return are high ( 400 in Africa...) and speculation in full swing. It is on this niche major traditional stakeholders in the agri-food (the Swedish Blach Earth Farming and Alpcot Agro Russia, the British Lonrho in Angola, or South African conglomerate, Agri SA, who reigns over 10 million hectares in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but more surprisingly the industrial (Hyundai and Daewoo) and the heavy weight of international finance.) The financial crisis is over there. Abandoned for a time derivative markets, pension funds, investment funds and major banks have found new shelters values. The company New York Black Rock Inc. thus climbed last year a huge agricultural hedge fund, Morgan Stanley and Renaissance Capital are in Ukraine or the Brazil, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs have invested in farming in China.

Who sells

Underexploited agricultural, Africa is in the viewfinder of the investors. Up to the caricature: Ethiopia receives a hand the assistance of the World Food Programme, an organ of the United Nations and on the other hand allow Saudi Arabia to grow on its soil wheat, rice and barley... Sudan, Mali, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique are at the top of the Fourplay on the continent. But more small countries such as Senegal, Tanzania, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia, the Zimbabwe started also. The objectives are almost always the same: rice, corn, Sesame, oil palm and agrocarburants. And if Latin America is a land of election already traditional for these investments, Asia is a new horizon: Indonesia, Pakistan, Burma, Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Viet Nam, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Siberia, and even the small Papua, becoming a granary for Saudi Arabia. Not to mention the great continental Europe rich in wheat and oilseed rape, with the Ukraine and the Romania, where invest even French farmers.

But why sell or rent its terres Paradoxically less for the "cash" fueling the national budget for development in terms of infrastructure, employment, technology, seeds, and openness to the world market. For most years under structural adjustment plans, these countries have not invested as they should have in their agriculture. Their yields have been divided by three since the 1960s. Consequence: the country sellers or Hirers are often themselves applicants and do not hesitate to seek buyers.

How to manage this new market

"Presents these contracts as"win-win", but it is in the garbage!", it annoys Michel Merlet, Director of the NGO Agter. If States are takers, local opposition are strong. And agreements sometimes turn to neocolonialism. Grain NGOs point thus singled out Beijing, which comes with its own workforce and little adapted seed, which has not hesitated to upset the biodiversity of origin and is sits on the local social rules. Imported productivism led it to a decrease in employment. The opposite of industrial relocation! Above all, of what land talking Not easy to determine the land of rural in these developing countries or emerging rights: laws are blurry or overlap, use rights are not consolidated, cadastres are non-existent and very many "landless". Need modern legislation recognizing the rights of farmers in place." Currently, this is a true Capernaum. In Mali, a large country like 5 times France, there is only 20 notaries who work in urban areas! "Since independence, Governments are not attacked this problem and consider that the land belongs to the State," noted Vatché Papazian, specialist engineer of rural development at the AFD. "Earth was transferred by the colonists to the new sovereign States as was oil!", observes Michel Merlet.

Most experts fear that any regulation attempt is futile. Separating to the more hurried, policies are beginning to give signals and wish to see the codes of good conduct adopted by States and by clients. The Japan is done for a few months the Herald of this case; the African Union is working on the problem; the issue is found prominently at the G8 Summit in July last in Italy; and the General Assembly of the United Nations has to take. Displayed objective: avoid that the phenomenon does degenerate and eventually lead to violence.