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Article

2 Jul 2012

Author:
[opinion] Adam Robert Green, This is Africa

Growing Africa's Land

...Africa's land is attracting unprecedented commercial interest from governments, sovereign funds, private companies and asset managers...Civil society groups, politicians and commentators...fret about the potential impact of rapid foreign land acquisition on property rights, food security and the environment. In a public statement, the Land Matrix - an NGO coalition - claimed: "Investors are targeting countries with weak land tenure security, although they try to look for countries that at the same time offer relatively high levels of investor protection. Only very few projects seem to engage in adequate consultations with local communities."...The majority of land investment is export-oriented. While 78 percent of land deals globally are for agricultural production, three quarters is for biofuels, for which the African market has limited absorptive capacity. [refers to Daewoo Logistics, BlackRock, Emergent Asset Management, al-Qudra Holding, Addax Bioenergy (part of Addax & Oryx Group), Zad Holding, Citadel Capital]