The stupidity of comrador bourgeois regimes in Africa Congo seeks investors for farmland bigger than France By Simon Clark The Democratic Republic of Congo plans to lease farmland covering an area larger than France in an attempt to attract capital and technology capable of boosting jobs and food productivity in one of the world’s poorest countries. Congo may lease as much as 640,000 square kilometers (247,100 square miles), or more than one-quarter of the central African nation, according to John Ulimwengu, an adviser to the Congolese prime minister who is organizing the project. The land is scattered across Congo, which is rich in mineral resources, forests, cultivable soil and water, including the Congo River, Africa’s second-longest after the Nile. The government wants investors to transform the country’s subsistence farming. The farmland will be leased rather than sold outright in a bid to avoid future conflicts with investors who might be accused of land-grabbing. Memories of colonial injustice abound on the African continent. Investors from China to the United Arab Emirates and Western nations are buying African land as they search for yield and productive assets. Clashes over land have occurred in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe seized farms from white settlers. “We don’t want what happened in Zimbabwe happening in DRC—land conflict,” said Mr. Ulimwengu, who is also a senior researcher at the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute. “We want to make sure that we are doing it properly.” Africom Commodities Pty. Ltd., a closely held South African company, is developing the first of Congo’s agribusiness parks at Bukanga-Lonzo in partnership with the Congolese government. Africom already has planted 2,200 hectares (8.5 square miles) of maize, and a total of 10,000 hectares will be planted by the end of January, according to Tania Grobler, a spokeswoman for the company. Converting African land into large farms is “a hugely sensitive issue” because investors can encounter conflicting claims to ownership and usage from locals, said Andrew Brown, chief investment officer of Emerging Capital Partners, a private-equity firm that invests in Africa. … See more at: farmlandgrab.org/post/view/24142#sthash.a3o9MbTh.dpuf -
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 12:02:30 +0000
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