Western corporations carve up Africa
April 1, 2014 A newly released report reveals how the British and American
governments are facilitating the corporate takeover of African food systems.
Huge tracts of land in African countries with access to the sea and high
economic growth are being targeted by corporations such as Monsanto and
Unilever with help from the British and American governments including
millions of dollars that are intended for helping the poor, says a report
published today by UK campaigning group World Development Movement.
The document, titled Carving up a continent: How the UK government is
facilitating the corporate takeover of African food systems, explains that a
G8 initiative called the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition is
using money intended for poverty reduction to instead ease access to key
African locations for some of the worlds biggest companies, which already
control much of the global food market.
Using money intended for poverty reduction to ease access to key African
locations
Doublespeak and the new scramble for Africa
Whats more, the New Alliance agreements signed with ten key African
countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Malawi,
Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania) are conditional, and many of them
require the country in question to bring legislation for example, revising
seed laws to force small farmers to buy seeds and fertilisers from the
corporates rather than seed sharing, which has been practised for
generations and ensures biodiversity.
Under the new paradigm, multinationals gain access to fertile land and
agricultural corridors on the pretext of tackling food poverty and helping
Africas starving and needy. In reality this is doublespeak. If the New
Alliance continues unchecked, its likely that problems are stored up for
the future, as small scale and family farmers are forced off their land to
make way for industrial scale crop production. WDM also identifies issues
such as insecure and poorly paid jobs and a focus on producing for export
markets rather than to feed local populations.
The reports introduction, by WDM director Nick Dearden, says: This is an
old story given new impetus. More than a century ago the scramble for
Africa was instituted under the pretence of civilising the continent.
Barbaric crimes were committed and the continent systematically de-developed
because it profited Europe. Since that time, Africas problem has never been
a lack of integration into the international economy the problem is how it
is integrated and in whose interests.
One of the campaigners outside Downing Street - where the UK Prime Minister
and Chancellor live - holds up a cake of Africa with New Alliance countries
marked out with flags. Photo: WDM
One of the campaigners outside Downing Street where the UK Prime Minister
and Chancellor live holds up a cake of Africa with New Alliance countries
marked out with flags. Photo: WDM
Oblivious citizens
This isnt the first time the New Alliance has come under fire the
Guardian newspaper published a critical piece last year. But the general
populations of the countries whose taxpayers are supporting this power grab
are woefully unaware that it is even happening, and so too are the citizens
in whose countries these events are unfolding. This despite the fact that a
whopping £600 million of UK aid money, for example, via the Department for
International Development (DFID), is being channelled into this between 2012
and 2016.
Ironically this comes at a time when alternatives to the industrialisation
of agriculture are being explored worldwide, and as the realities of climate
change are being better understood. Africa is a place where new models of
permaculture could meet old models of sustainable farming and cooperation to
leapfrog the West finding sustainable and locally owned solutions to
nutritious food production.
The wheels are already turning
But this hangs in the balance. Many New Alliance partnership countries, such
as Malawi, have already instituted many of the changes demanded as part of
their agreement, and it has become much easier for foreign corporations to
buy great tracts of land. Ghana recently saw the Plant Breeders Bill being
pushed through its Parliament by politicians that Food Sovereignty Ghana
implied might be on the take.
The corporations involved in the New Alliance are huge Monsanto, Unilever,
Syngenta, DuPont, Cargill, Diageo, SABMiller, Coca Cola, Yara. The last
company Yara may not be a name you recognise, but is the largest global
manufacturer of fertiliser. According to the WDM report, these agrochemicals
already cause serious levels of food poisoning in sub-Saharan Africa, with
the UN estimating that health problems linked to pesticides could cost the
region $90 billon between 2005 and 2020. Fertilisers also damage soil,
leading farmers to rely on them even more in order to maintain production,
which increases their risk of getting into debt.
The tragic consequences of small-scale farmers reliance on fertilisers in
India have been much reported. An estimated 250,000 farmers committed
suicide between 1995 and 2010 after getting into debt through buying
agrochemicals.
Campaigners representing the New Alliance multinationals carve and eat up
Africa. Why no protests anywhere in Africa? Because most of us are oblivious
to whats being done behind our backs, is the simple answer. Photo: WDM
Campaigners representing the New Alliance multinationals carve and eat up
Africa. Why no protests anywhere in Africa? Because most of us are oblivious
to whats being done behind our backs, is the simple answer. Photo: WDM
Under the guise of charity
Remember that old development chestnut Give a man a fish and you feed him
for a day. Show him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime? The New
Alliance seems to be about snapping his fishing rod in half, throwing it
into the sea and telling him that you now own the sea and he must buy his
fish from you, at wildly fluctuating prices. And its under the guise of
charity.
The scramble for Africa was instituted under the pretence of civilising
the continent
Yet look at the personnel. Unilevers external affairs director was
previously at DFID and DFIDs director of policy used to work for Unilever.
Meanwhile, for all the talk of wanting to solve African hunger, the chosen
countries are almost all coastal, and tend to have high economic growth. Of
the countries in Africa that have the worst hunger index scores, only one
Ethiopia is a New Alliance country.
While all the players talk about poverty reduction and food security, the
reality is that the path that will have the most positive effect for African
farmers and populations long term is food sovereignty. That means ownership
and control of land and non-reliance on imported seeds and foods, as well as
being able to adjust crops to need. It might be tempting to apply the
machine logic of industrialisation to agriculture and scale it up, on the
basis that more food grown equals more people fed. But in reality the
problem of hunger is not one to do with volume of food produced worldwide
rather its to do with existing unjust systems of food production and
distribution. These are the very systems that the New Alliance is desperate
to bring to Africa.
Other players are the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa, set up by the
Rockefeller Foundation, and the Gates Foundation; the New Vision for
Agriculture, launched by the World Economic Forum and led by 33
multinationals from Monsanto to Walmart; and Grow Africa, a collaboration
between the World Economic Forum and the African Union.
Of course, the New Alliance does have its defenders. Namely, international
pop gimp Bonos ONE Foundation, which hit the headlines a few years ago for
giving a whopping 1% of its funds to actual charity
In its 2013 report Growing Africa: Unlocking the potential of agribusiness
the World Bank said: Africa represents the last frontier in global food
and agricultural markets. Once Africas greatest commodity to line the
pockets of its pillagers was its human capital. Now theyre coming for the
land, and the sustenance it offers. Dont wait until its too late.
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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