Friday, May 22, 2009

Badael-Alternatives

Badael is back and these interruptions are starting to get on my nerves. This week, Samar Sleiman, our newest recruit wrote about the drive by Gulf countries and other rich countries to grow food on land in poor countries. My editorial: Alone...the people of Gaza are alone. And Muhammad Muhsin tells us the story of kabees (pickles)

1 comment:

Steve Bloom said...

Sunday's FT covered a detailed new report on this depressingly large scale trend. Excerpts:

"African countries are giving away vast tracts of farmland to other countries and investors almost for free, with the only benefits consisting of vague promises of jobs and infrastructure, according to a report published on Monday."

"The report, which studied cases in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Madagascar and Sudan, uncovered farmland investment in the past five years totalling about 2.5m hectares – equal to about half the arable land of the UK."

"Other estimates, including one from Peter Brabeck, chairman of Nestlé, put total farmland investments in Africa, Latin America and Asia above 15m hectares, about half the size of Italy."