Economic Growth to Rebound 4.8 Percent - UN
Source: BusinessDay
Johannesburg, South Africa - 18 May 2010
Johannesburg — The UN Economic Commission for Africa reports that growth on the continent could top 4.8 per cent in 2010 after dipping by over 2 per cent in 2009.
UNECA and the African Union Commission say that the opposite occurred in 2009 - with the continent's economy dipping 2.4 per cent in 2009 down from 4.9 per cent the previous year.
But West African growth, based in oil, climbed at 5.5% last year.
East Africa's economies grew by 4.3%, while North Africa posted a Gross Domestic Product growth rate of 3.6 per cent.
Central Africa economies grew by an average 1.8% and in Southern Africa, the economies shrunk by 1.1 per cent.
But the UN body says that's likely to change - returning to positive growth this year.
Commodity prices are expected to stabilize in 2010 and rise moderately in 2011 - and with Africa commodity heavy, its likely "Africa's long-term growth prospects and ability to sustain high rates of employment generation and broader social development depend on success in economic diversification," UN Economic Commission report.
But the UN has warned African governments' that they need to improve investment in infrastructure and human capital, improve efforts at domestic resource mobilization, market reforms, increase incentives to support private-sector employment and to lift productivity and income in the informal sector are needed to achieve these aims.
AfDB Commits USD 40 Million in the African Agriculture Fund
Source: Allafrica.com
Tunis - 19 May 2010
The private sector window of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group received, on 19 May 2010, board approval for a USD 40 million equity investment in the African Agriculture Fund (AAF), a private-equity fund designed to respond to the food crisis that severely impacted the continent in 2008 in the wake of escalating food prices and staple export bans.
The increased support to AAF, whose total target size is USD 300 million, is part of a coordinated response to prevent the crises from reversing decades of progress, growth, and investment in Africa.
A result of a collective effort of the Bank and its partners, the French development agency (AFD), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the West African Development Bank (BOAD), the Fund features two specific instruments aimed at lowering the risk perception typically associated with investments in agriculture and agribusiness.
First, an innovative distribution mechanism will provide private sector investors with an accelerated return. Second, a technical assistance facility of $14 million will supply business development services and business linkages services to a range of large companies and SMEs.
The Fund's main focus will be African agribusiness companies operating in food production, processing, packaging, cold storage, distribution, and marketing. Investments will aim at supporting the whole food production value chain by providing both capital and advisory services to a wide range of agri-companies operating on the continent.
The Fund will also operate according to a Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Manual that features an environmental and social risk management system, guidelines for an optimal use of the technical assistance facility and, for the first time in the area on Agribusiness private equity, a Code of Conduct for Land Acquisition and Land Use in Agricultural and Agribusiness Projects to prevent unsustainable practices in land acquisition and land use.
The Agribusiness team of the Bank's Private sector department aims at investing in private equity funds focused on agriculture, supporting trade finance in agricultural commodities and partnering with key agribusiness groups to attract private sector operators to invest in agriculture in Africa.
AAF will be the Bank's second investment in a private equity fund targeting the agribusiness sector, after AgriVie. It will also follow a series of agribusiness investments in palm plantations, edible oil refinery and commodity trade finance. In the past three years, the private sector department has approved 16 equity funds for an amount in excess of USD 300 million in infrastructure, health as well as in generalist funds.
The AfDB Group seeks to sustained continued growth of its member countries through better infrastructure, stronger private sector, more robust institutions and greater economic integration.
Africa Has to Find a New Kind of Leadership Or Face Stagnation
Source: Allafrica.com
Johannesburg, South Africa - 17 May 2010
A minister in an African country that shall remain nameless was relating his experience of joining the government from the private sector at a dinner at a recent African business conference. He said the need to observe official protocol was one of the biggest challenges of transferring from an environment of informality in business to the public service. Simply walking out of his office to speak directly to an official about an issue, rather than working through the chain of command, had thrown his ministry into panic mode, he said - so steeped were they in following procedure.
In fact, protocol and procedure had, he found, become an end in themselves and adhering to them appeared to be more important than achieving an outcome. "Actually getting the job done doesn't seem to be part of the deal."
A recent survey conducted by the World Economic Forum among 300 of its Young Global Leaders across 70 countries, including many in Africa, found that most would like to join the public service to have the opportunity to make a difference and be part of decision making - and because of dissatisfaction with the current leadership. However, they were unwilling to do so because of their negative perceptions about public service, which included excessive bureaucracy, exposure to fraud and corruption and inadequate pay.
A further deterrent was the perception of public service being a second-rate employment option where values such as accountability, transparency, ethics and innovation were not in evidence. Many viewed the sector as a closed shop, with key appointments linked to political patronage rather than merit.
Another dinner speaker said people with ambitions to improve the performance of government often believed they could work within the system until they attained a leadership position that would allow them to effect change. But that is a pipe dream. More often than not, people get sucked into the system and become part of the status quo rather than a force for change. Or they leave. It is difficult for individuals to change the rules of the public service game and that is why mediocrity and process trump innovation and vision.
Young and talented leaders who may aspire to public service are taking their skills to the private sector rather than fighting for influence and change in government systems dominated by party political agendas and patronage.
Is this an unchangeable reality that we have to live with? Or could the slow but steady improvement of political leadership in Africa mean that, at some point, the bureaucratic system will begin to improve?
African governments are facing a new world that is driven by technology and increasing access to information through the internet. Social media and blogging have become ways for citizens to examine and criticise inefficient and corrupt governments and to find information that will ultimately allow them to make more informed choices at the ballot box.
More than ever, Africa needs a new kind of leadership both to build on the gains of improving governance and to drag the spoilers, of whom there are so many, into a new era.
A reformed and vibrant public sector might even lure skilled Africans back to the continent. But they will not give up prosperous lives abroad to enter a system that stifles innovation and new ideas.
Talk of political change tends to focus on a change of president, minister or official. The whole system of government, including the public service, must be reviewed if Africa is to position itself for a more successful future.
As bureaucracies deal with public money, some rigorous order and checks and balances are necessary. But some elements of private-sector models could be introduced to make the public service more dynamic and results-orientated. Already, new partnerships between business and states have allowed some fresh air to blow through the corridors of power.
Changing entrenched mindsets and attitudes through the chain of governance is a long process but it needs to start somewhere.
If Africans do not start now putting measures in place to foster a new generation of leaders in governance structures, leaders that have change and innovation rather than patronage and process as core drivers, in 50 years' time Africa will be little changed from what it is today.
Continent Has Less Say After Changes in World Bank Voting
Source: Allafrica.com
Paris, France - 17 May 2010
The World Bank has described its recent increase of 3.13 percent in the voting power of emerging economies as a reform "to enhance voice and participation of developing and transition countries". But the shift has actually decreased a third of African countries' share of votes.
Eighteen sub-Saharan countries have thus lost a measure of their already modest influence in the institution's decision-making process. Nigeria and South Africa are hardest hit, their voting powers having been decreased by about 10 percent.
Only oil-rich Sudan - whose president has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on suspicion of war crimes - has seen its share of votes increase.
The World Bank, internationally mandated with financing development projects, has long been criticised by civil society and recipient countries as unrepresentative of those it claims to be helping. Sub-Saharan Africa, the target of many of its "poverty reduction" programmes, retains a total of less than six percent of the institution's voting rights.
Finally responding to critics, the Bank has in recent years indicated some intention towards reforming its governance and making it more inclusive of its purported beneficiaries. Its Istanbul Declaration of October 2009 committed to "protect the voting power of the smallest poor countries".
But on Apr 25, it shuffled voting rights to increase the share of China (by 1.64 percent), South Korea (0.58 percent), Turkey (0.55 percent), Mexico (0.5 percent), and Singapore (0.24 percent). According to the Bank's own economic definitions, South Korea and Singapore are high-income countries, whereas Mexico and Turkey are upper middle-income countries.
Criticising the adjustments, head of research for anti-poverty campaigner Oxfam, Duncan Green, noted in a blog entry titled "The World Bank breaks its promises on Africa's voting power" that "the reform reflects the shift in global GDP (gross domestic product), and so benefits the big emerging economies, not the slower growing economies in Africa".
Adds Sebastien Fourmy, who follows global financial institutions at Oxfam's French chapter: "This reform is an attempt at making nice with the main emerging world players, such as China and Brazil, in the hope that they will contribute a larger share of the Bank's funding.
"This comes at a point where Europe has growing difficulties in meeting its financial commitments to development," he explains. "European countries have therefore agreed to a minor reduction in their voting powers but most are still clinging to their chairs."
"And, of course, the United States remains the only member with the power to veto the Bank's decisions," Fourmy confirms. This is because the Bank's voting system weighs votes according to countries' shares of the world's GDP.
South Africa's finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, reportedly said his country was disappointed with the reforms as sub-Saharan countries' say was diminished despite ongoing pressure that the Bank should boost the voices of developing countries in decision-making at the Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
World Bank president Robert Zoellick admitted that, "the change in voting-power helps us better reflect the realities of a new multi-polar global economy where developing countries are now key global players". Yet, endorsement of the shift in voting power was "crucial for the Bank's legitimacy", according to Zoellick.
The British watchdog initiative called the Bretton Woods Project, which monitors the World Bank and the IMF, said in a recent report that: "a closer look shows that the World Bank will continue to be overwhelmingly dominated by rich countries.
"Developing countries represent over 80 percent of the world's population and the Bank's membership. They are where almost all of the Bank's activities take place" -- and yet, "its governance remains illegitimate and outdated," the report argued.
Fourmy agrees: "In the end, the fundamentals of decision-making at the Bank have been carefully preserved."
Moreover, "even if votes were effectively reformed in favour of its poorest members, decisions will still be taken by consensus rather than votes. Out of the 24 administrator countries that usually craft consensus decisions at the Bank, only two are from sub-Saharan Africa," explains Fourmy. "There was talk of including a third one but that idea has not been mentioned in a while," he adds.
"We hope that emerging economies whose voting rights were increased are going to bear increasing responsibility in the funding of development but that remains to be seen," says Fourmy. "So far, none of them have expressed clear commitment or a detailed vision of their approach to development assistance."
'Land Rush' as Threats to Food Security Intensify
Source: Allafrica.com
17 May 2010
In the past three years, foreign governments and investment companies have been buying or leasing vast tracts of farmland in Africa and elsewhere for producing biofuels or food for their own use.[1]
This 'land rush' was triggered by the demand for biofuels, and accelerated [2] with the financial and food crisis of 2007/8 (see [3] Financing World Hunger, SiS 46).
Government policies promoting biofuels are based on the mistaken belief that fuels made from plants are 'carbon neutral', in that burning them would simply release the carbon dioxide fixed by photosynthesis and would not increase greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The European Union is aiming for 10 per cent of its transport to run on biofuels by 2020 [4] (Europe Unveils 2020 Plan for Reducing C Emissions, SiS 37). George W. Bush, for his part, proposed to cure the US' 'addiction to oil' by increasing the federal budget 22 per cent for research into clean fuel technologies including biofuels as substitutes for oil to power the country's cars [5] (Biofuels for Oil Addicts, SiS 30). The hope is to replace more than 70 per cent of oil imports from 'unstable parts of the world' - the Middle East - by 2025.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) helpfully identified immense areas of 'spare land' in developing countries that could be used for planting 'bio-energy' crops to be turned into biofuels. The World Bank's recent report on the 2008 commodities price hike includes a diagram entitled [6] 'The stock of unused but potentially arable land is enormous', depicting more than 700 million hectares of 'unused' land in sub-Saharan Africa, and more than 800 million hectares in Latin America and the Caribbean.
CORPORATE FARMING FOR THE RICH
International agribusinesses, investment banks, hedge funds, commodity traders, sovereign wealth funds, UK pension funds, foundations and 'individuals have been snapping up some of the world's cheapest land, in Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Malawi, Ethiopia, Congo, Zambia, Uganda, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Mali, Sierra Leone, Ghana and elsewhere. Ethiopia alone has approved 815 foreign-financed agricultural projects since 2007. Any land investors can't buy is leased for about $1 per year per hectare. In many cases, the contracts have led to evictions, civil unrest and complaints of 'land grabbing', John Vidal reports in UK's Guardian [1].
Nyikaw Ochalla, an indigenous Anuak from the Gambella region of Ethiopia now living in Britain but in regular contact with farmers in his region, told Vidal [1]: 'All of the land in the Gambella region is utilised. Each community has and looks after its own territory and the rivers and farmlands within it. It is a myth propagated by the government and investors to say that there is waste land or land that is not utilised in Gambella.
'The foreign companies are arriving in large numbers, depriving people of land they have used for centuries. There is no consultation with the indigenous population. The deals are done secretly. The only thing the local people see is people coming with lots of tractors to invade their lands. People cannot believe what is happening. Thousands of people will be affected and people will go hungry.'
Indian companies, backed by government loans, have bought or leased hundreds of thousands of hectares in Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal and Mozambique, where they are growing rice, sugar cane, maize and lentils to feed their domestic market.
The Ethiopian government denied the deals were causing hunger and said that the land deals were attracting hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign investment and tens of thousands of jobs. A spokesman said that Ethiopia has 74 million hectares of fertile land, only 15 per cent of which is currently in use. Of the remaining land, only 3 to 4 per cent is offered to foreign investors.
Local government officers in Ethiopia said that foreign companies were not being charged for water, and in Awassa, the al-Amouni farm set up by Saudi billionaire businessman, Ethiopian-born Sheikh Modhammed al-Amoudi, uses as much water a year as 100,000 Ethiopians.
Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern emirate states, Qatar, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, are thought to be the biggest buyers of African land. In 2008, Saudi Arabia, one of the Middle East's largest wheat-growers, announced it was to reduce domestic cereal production by 12 per cent a year to conserve water. The government earmarked US$5 billion to provide loans at preferential rates to Saudi companies to invest in countries with strong agricultural potential.
Saudi Arabia is also leasing land from other countries such as Pakistan [7], already water-stressed and water-depleted. Ayesha Siddiqa, a strategic and political analyst said the idea is for individual landowners to lease to investors, opening the door to large-scale corporate farming. 'Big landowners who are now renting out their land to small farmers will throw them out and put it up to the highest foreign bidder,' she said, predicting that small landholders with 5-10 acres would be bought out, and 'landlessness and rural poverty will increase.'
INCREASING HUNGER AND LANDLESSNESS
Land grab has indeed intensified since the 2007/8 food commodity price crisis. The international not-for-profit organisation GRAIN produced a comprehensive report warning that [2]: 'If left unchecked, this global land grab could spell the end of small-scale farming and rural livelihoods.'
The Asian Peasant Coalition (APC), with 15 million members in 26 peasant organisations and six other supporting non-government organisations from Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, launched an Asia-wide protest against the global land grab in July 2009.[8] It said that 'state terrorism' and a widespread land grab in poor Asian countries took place at the height of the financial crisis.
The APC represents farmers, landless peasants, dalits, forest peoples, indigenous people, agricultural workers, herders, pastoralists, and the women and youths across these sectors.[9]
Approximately 365 million people in Asia derive their livelihoods from land, but, landlessness in Asia is worsening at an alarming rate over past decade, owing to [8] 'the greater degree of integration of Asian countries with the global market, and increasing demands for land by big corporate interests.'
Landlessness among Asian peasants is very high: 49.6 per cent in Bangladesh, 22 per cent in India, 10 per cent in Nepal and almost 75 per cent in Pakistan and the Philippines, and the trend is growing, according to Danilo Ramos, APC secretary general.
LAND GRAB ENCOURAGED BY GOVERNMENTS AND THE WORLD BANK
More than 100 cases of land grab have been compiled by GRAIN. 'Land grabbers' are driven by two different agendas, but they eventually converge.
The first agenda is food security. A number of countries that rely on food imports see outsourcing food production in foreign land as a long-term strategy to feed their own people cost-effectively, instead of having to pay the high prices in the world commodity markets. Saudi Arabia, Japan, China, India, Korea, Libya and Egypt fall into this category. Foreign governments are buying up farmland in countries like Sudan, Cambodia and the Philippines that depend on food aid delivered by the UN World Food Programme.
The second agenda is financial return, in particular, as the result of the financial meltdown of the housing and stock markets in 2007/8, investment fund managers have been turning to food and agricultural commodities and derivatives [3]; and coincidentally, agricultural land and produce are also seen as good sources of revenue.
Where these tracks come together [2] is that in both cases it is the private sector that will be in control. In the drive for food security, governments take the lead through a public policy agenda. But while public officials negotiate and make the deals for land contracts, the private sector is explicitly expected - and even encouraged - to take over. It is effectively a 'new colonialism' by transnational corporations.
China, for example, has been remarkably self-sufficient in food, though at a cost of using so much fertiliser that its soils are ruined, and its waterways putrid with pollution [10, 11] (China's Soils Ruined by Overuse of Chemical Fertilisers, China's Pollution Census Triggers Green Five-Year Plan, SiS 46). The Chinese government has been gradually outsourcing its food production well before the global food crisis. Some 30 agricultural cooperation deals have been sealed to give Chinese firms access to foreign farmland in exchange for Chinese technologies, training and infrastructure development funds, not only in Asia but also all over Africa.
'From Kazakhstan to Queensland, and from Mozambique to the Philippines, a steady and familiar process is under way, with Chinese companies leasing or buying up land, setting up large farms, flying in farmers, scientists and extension workers, and getting down to the work of crop production,' GRAIN reports [2]. Most of China's offshore farming is dedicated to rice, soybean, and maize, along with biofuel crops like sugarcane, cassava or sorghum.
The Gulf States - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - have neither the water nor the soil to produce food. But they have plenty of oil and money. Because they depend on food imported mainly from Europe, and their currencies are pegged to the US dollar, the simultaneous rise in food prices on the world market and the fall in the US dollar have boosted their import bill from US$8 billion to US$20 billion within the past five years. Given that water is already in short supply, the Saudi government decided to stop growing wheat, their main staple, by 2016, and instead to grow it elsewhere and ship it back.
The United Arab Emirates, similarly, under the aegis of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), banded together with Bahrain and the other Gulf nations to formulate a collective strategy of outsourcing food production, particularly to Islamic countries, where they will supply capital and oil contracts in exchange for guarantees that their corporations will have access to farmland and export the produce back home. The most heavily targeted states are Sudan and Pakistan, followed by a number of south-east Asian countries - Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam - as well as Turkey, Kazakhstan, Uganda, Ukraine, Georgia, Brazil and so on.
Within food industry circles, Japanese and Arab trading and processing corporations are the most involved.
Japanese firms already own 12 million hectares of farmland abroad for the production of food and fodder crops, some of that in China, where in 2006, Asahi, Itochu and Sumitomo began leasing hundreds of hectares of farmland for organic food production for the Chinese and Korean markets. In 2007, Asahi expanded to develop the first Japanese dairy farm in China. A year later, in September 2008, Asahi took advantage of the melamine milk tragedy to launch its first liquid milk product at a 50 per cent mark-up.
Japanese firms have also targeted Brazil. In late 2007, Mitsui bought 100,000 hectares of Brazilian farmland for soybean production.
The finance industry is getting in on the act. Throughout 2008, an army of investment houses, private equity funds, hedge funds and the like have been targeting farmlands throughout the world [2], with the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development 'greasing the way for this investment flow' and 'persuading' governments to change land ownership laws to ease the transactions. As a result, land prices have started to climb.
Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs have taken control of China's livestock industry: Its biggest piggeries, poultry farms and meat processing plants, including rights to the farmland. New York-based BlackRock Inc, one of the world's largest money managers with nearly US$1.5 trillion on its books, set up a US$200 million agricultural hedge fund, of which US$30 million will be used to acquire farmland around the world. Morgan Stanley, which nearly joined the queue for a US Treasury Department bail-out, bought 40,000 hectares of farmland in the Ukraine, where Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment house has acquired rights to 300,000 hectares. Meanwhile, Black Earth Farming, a Swedish investment group, acquired control of 331,000 hectares of farmland in the black earth region of Russia, where Alpcot-Agro, another Swedish investment firm, also bought rights to 128,000 hectares. Landkom, the British investment group, bought 100,000 hectares of agricultural land in Ukraine and vows to expand to 350,000 hecatres by 2011. All these land acquisitions are for producing grains, oils, meat and dairy for those in the world market who can pay.
WORLD FOOD CRISIS WORSENS
Not surprisingly, the food crisis worsens for the poor. At the end of 2009, over one billion of the world's population are critically hungry, with 24,000 dying of hunger each day, more than half of them children. The United Nations Food Programme faces a budget shortfall of US$4.1 billion [12, 13].
Food prices have remained high despite the economic downturn, and extreme weather patterns affecting production are causing more hunger.
Many commentators rightly blame the deregulated financial speculation in the global agricultural commodities markets for precipitating the 2007/8 world food crisis [3], and the ensuing land grab has almost certainly made it worse.
However, other more serious, longer term threats to food security are in danger of being overlooked, which no amount of land grab can insure any country or individuals against.
Veteran world watcher Lester Brown reminds us that many past civilizations collapsed on account of shrinking food supplies, and we may well meet the same fate from [14] 'our failure to deal with the environmental trends that are undermining world food economy - most importantly failing water tables, eroding soils, and rising temperatures.'
CURRENT FOOD SYSTEM COLLAPSING FROM UNSUSTAINABLE INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES
Our agriculture and food system has been showing signs of collapse [14, 15], with world grain yields falling to meet demand most years since 2000, and reserves reached their lowest in 50 years. Growth in yields has slowed despite record amounts of fertilisers being applied [16]. In the major croplands of the world - China, India and US, which contain half the world's population - industrial farming practices have severely depleted underground water, dried out rivers and lakes, eroded topsoil, and decimated wild life with fertiliser and pesticide run-offs. Most alarming is the recent disappearance of bees and other pollinators (see [17] Mystery of Disappearing Honeybees and other articles in the series, SiS 34).
At the same time, world oil production has passed its peak [18] (Oil Running Out, SiS 25) with the peak of natural gas not far behind.[19] Conventional industrial agriculture is heavily dependent on fossil fuels (especially in the manufacture of N fertilisers), as well as water.
CLIMATE CHANGE WILL SLASH PRODUCTIVITY
In addition, climate change has emerged as a major threat to agricultural productivity. Direct field monitoring showed that crop yields fell 10 per cent for each degree Celsius rise in night-time temperature during the growing season. [20] The International Food Policy Research Institute predicts that wheat yields in developing countries will drop 30 per cent by 2050, while irrigated rice yields will drop 15 per cent.[21] Climate change may hit the developing world harder, but the developed world is not immune. Increasing frequencies of drought, flood, and storm associated with climate change will devastate crops and livestock, and spells of extreme heat are also damaging as plants will start to deteriorate at about 32 degrees Celsius. The yields of corn, soybean and cotton could fall by 30 to 46 per cent under the slowest warming scenario, or 63 to 82 per cent under the fastest warming scenario.
FUEL VERSUS FOOD
The scramble for biofuels by developed nations was a major factor in precipitating the 2007/8 food crisis [3] and the ensuing 'land grab', as described here. Policies supporting biofuels such as those of the EU and US are grossly misguided.
The US imported 19.5 million barrels of petroleum a day in 2008, which made up 57 per cent of its total consumption.[22] In 2008, 9 billion gallons of ethanol were produced from 33 per cent of the corn harvest subsidised at US$6-7 billion, to supply just 1.3 per cent of the country's oil consumption. It takes 1,700 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol.[23] Even if all 341 Mt of corn in the US were to be converted into ethanol, it would provide only 5 per cent of the total oil consumption in the country, leaving nothing for livestock feed or food.[24]
The US is a major exporter of corn accounting for over 60 per cent of the world's export. Globally, the scramble for ethanol from corn and sugarcane and biodiesel from soybean, oilseeds, oil palm and jatropha resulted in accelerated deforestation (with large CO2 emissions) as well as forced evictions [25, 26] (Food Without Fossil Fuels Now, SiS 42) and land grab.
Biofuels from crops not only jeopardise food production; they are highly unsustainable, requiring huge inputs of fertilisers and pesticides as well as water, depleting soil fertility, accelerating soil erosion and generating a great deal of polluting wastes. A realistic energy accounting shows that all biofuels except one require more energy input in fossil fuels than the energy in the biofuel product. In other words, they have net negative energy returns and hence result in more CO2 emissions than just using the fossil fuels.[24] The energy returns for the major biofuels are: Corn ethanol -46 per cent, switchgrass -68 per cent; soybean biodiesel -63 per cent; and rapeseed biodiesel -58 per cent. Even palm oil produced in Thailand has a -8 per cent net energy return. The only exception is ethanol from sugarcane in Brazil, with a positive energy return of 128 percent [27], though it is still unsustainable in other respects.
GMOS DEFINITELY NOT THE ANSWER
Are genetically modified (GM) crops desperately needed for feeding the world and saving the climate as proponents claim? A three-year assessment by 400 scientists, policymakers and non-government organisation representatives - IAASTD (International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development) [28] - concluded that GM crops are at best irrelevant for food security and poverty alleviation, and small scale agro-ecological farming is the way ahead [29] (GM-Free Organic Agriculture to Feed the World, SiS 38).
GM crops are actually much worse than the high input green revolution varieties they replace, as documented by the large dossier of evidence we have accumulated over the years [30, 31] (The Case for A GM-Free Sustainable World, GM Science Exposed, ISIS publications). They require more fertilisers, more pesticides, more water, but yield less. GM crops are less resilient to environmental stresses, pests and diseases and hence highly vulnerable to climate change. But they cost more because of the corporate monopoly developed around gene patenting [32] US Farmers Oppose 'Big Ag' in Anti-Trust Hearing (SiS 46). After 15 years of allowing GM varieties to take over its major crops, the United States is facing ecological meltdown [33] (GM Crops Facing Meltdown in the USA, SiS 46). The same has happened with the introduction of GM cotton in India, where, in addition, it has accelerated farm suicides by increasing farmers' indebtedness [34] (Farmer Suicides and Bt Cotton Nightmare Unfolding in India, SiS 45). Above all, genetic modification introduces specific hazards as I have indicated for more than ten years [35] (Genetic Engineering Dream or Nightmare, ISIS publication). Many scientists now acknowledge those hazards, some having done their own studies to find out [36] (GM is Dangerous and Futile, SiS 40).
There is no alternative to addressing the serious long-term threats to food security other than a decisive and comprehensive shift worldwide to organic agriculture and localized food and energy systems (see [37, 38] Food Futures Now: *Organic *Sustainable *Fossil Fuel Free, Green Energies - 100% Renewable by 2050, ISIS/TWN publications).
Saudi Prince Eyes Investment in Agriculture Sector
Source: Allafrica.com
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania - 16 May 2010
The government's Kilimo Kwanza, agricultural development blueprint, seem to have impressed visiting Saudi Prince Sultan Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al Kabeer who has shown interest to invest in the sector.
Briefing journalists after meeting Prince Bin Saud Al Kabeer over the weekend, Tanzania Investment Centre Executive Director, Emmanuel Ole Naiko said the visitor wanted to invest in large scale commercial farming.
"During our meeting we discussed a lot about investment regulations in the country and he indicated that he is interested in investing in the agriculture sector," Mr Ole Naiko said.
He said the Saudi Prince was impressed by the various incentives and good investment policies which the government had put in place which attracted private capital in all sectors of the economy.
Ole Naiko said Prince Bin Saud Al Kabeer had already sent his team of experts to visit JKT and Tanzania Prisons tracts of land in Iringa, Lindi and Mtwara regions and was encouraged that the soil was fertile and good for farming.
"It's the expert report which convinced him to come and visit the country to find out more regarding investment regulations and incentives available in the country," the TIC chief noted.
The Saudi Prince is one of the shareholders of the mobile phone service company, Zain Tanzania Limited, which is a subsidiary of Zain International of United Arab Emirates.
Speaking after meeting the TIC chief, Prince Bin Saud Al Kabeer said his country's rich oil economy has many manufacturing industries which need raw materials which include crops.
"I am impressed by the peace and harmony that is prevailing in this country but also the good investment regulations and incentive packages," Price Bin Saud Al Kabeer said.
He assured Tanzanians that agriculture commodities have a huge market in the oil rich gulf nation hence urged them to increase production.
The meeting at TIC was also attended by the National Service (JKT) and Tanzania Prisons senior officials.
Business Delegation Left for Brazil and Argentina
Source: Allafrica.com
Luanda, Angola - 16 May 2010
A 32-member strong angolan business delegation left for Buenos Aires today on a 5-day working visit aimed to promote the angolan market and attract investments, at the invitation of the ministry of external relations of Argentina.
The angolan state secretary for industry, Kiala Gabriel, heads the angolan delegation comprising representatives of the ministries of Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries, Tourism, Commerce, Health and of the bonded warehouse.
According to mr Gabriel, the angolan delegation will stop over in Salvador da Bahia (Brazil) to attend the two day economic forum organized by the Angola/Brazil Business Center.
He stated that Angola intends to strenghten institutional cooperation with Brazil in food production, agriculture equipments production, training of cadres and discuss possible partnerships in setting up industrial poles.
The state secretary added that Argentina is ready for investment in various sectors, including the opening of industrial poles and in the hotel sector, the reason why the delegation include hotel owners from the angolan provinces of Huila (south), Bie (central highland) and Uige (north).
The other sectors interesting the angolan delegation are farming, food industry, bio-technology matallurgy and plastic products, according to the state minister.
He said that the angolan industrial park is recovering from several years of war, despite some constrains, stressing the need to protect the angolan made products, thus reducing imports.
The state secretary added that the government is trying to introduce policies with the aim to discourage imports, namely of those already produced in Angola with high quality, stating that some industries are already exporting their products, mainly at regional level.
