The neo-colonial rush for global farmland has gone exponential since the food scare of 2007-2008.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Telegraph
Last week’s long-delayed report by the World Bank suggests that purchases in developing countries rose to 45m hectares in 2009, a ten-fold jump from levels of the last decade. Two thirds have been in Africa, where institutions offer weak defence.
As is by now well-known, sovereign wealth funds from the Mid-East, as well as state-entities from China, the Pacific Rim, and even India are trying to lock up chunks of the world’s future food supply. Western agribusiness is trying to beat them to it. Western funds – many listed on London’s AIM exchange – are in turn trying to beat them. The NGO GRAIN, and farmlandgrab.com, have both documented the stampede in detail.
Hedge funds that struck rich ‘shorting’ US sub-prime have rotated into the next great play of our era: ‘long’ soil. “Productive agricultural land with water on site, will be very valuable in the future. And I’ve put a good amount of money into that,” said Michael Burry, star of ‘The Big Short’.
Needless to say, this has set off a fierce backlash. Brazil has passed a decree limiting acreage held by foreign-owned companies, the latest evidence that our half-century era of globalisation may be drawing to a close.
Authorities are probing whether firms are using local fronts to disguise investment in Mato Grosso and Amazonia. “Brazilian land must stay in the hands of Brazilians,” said the farm development minister, Guilherme Cassel. It is starting to feel like the early 1970s when the military regime more or less froze out foreign buyers.
Where will this leave the plans of SinoLatin Capital, Goldman Sachs, Harvest Capital, or Berkshire Hathaway? Warren Buffett, wisely, is exploring his $400m venture in soya and sugar with a Brazilian partner.
Argentina is drawing up its own law, pressed by the country’s bishops. More than 7pc of national territory is owned by foreigners. The Benetton brothers have 900,000 hectares of Patagonia, some on disputed Mapuche tribal land. George Soros has holdings, so does CNN’s Ted Turner, and currency trader Joe Lewis, who made himself a public enemy by blocking public access to the majestic Hidden Lake.
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