AFRICA IN THE SUPERMARKET CART

By Gundhramns Hammer

February 27, 2013

Source: CIAT Blogs

 

Africa is for sale to the highest bidder. Many foreign investors (Saudi Arabia, Germany, Sweden, India, South Korea, Jordan, China, some US universities and corporations, etc.) are buying and/or leasing land in Africa. At the root of this land grabbing is food security and the quest for biofuels.

Those African governments involved in these deals show no transparency and no concern for their country fellowmen. They are only interested in their own pockets and having a bank account in Switzerland or in any other tax haven notwithstanding they claim it is done to get funds for local development. As usual the foreign investors promise jobs and development projects which are never delivered or if they do so is only a few crumbs.

In the end, poor African families are kicked out of their ancestral lands with no compensation and end up poorer. The rich get richer. And the consumers in the so called "developed" nations get what they want at the supermarkets or at the gas stations. 

 

But not only people suffer because of these foreign land investments in Africa (Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia). Forests are cleared (Fig. 1) to make room for soybean crops, sugar cane fields or any plantation done for profit. Such projects are portrayed as "sustainable development" outside Afica in the media.

 

 

Figure 1. Massive deforestation in Cameroon. Source: The Oakland Institute (2012).

 

 

These shortsighted projects cause deforestation, soil erosion and wildlife extinction. Biodiversity is destroyed and replaced by monocultures (Fig. 2) and massive used of pesticides and herbicides poisoning the soil and water resources.

 

 

Figure 2. Monocultures in Zambia. Fuente: The Oakland Institute (2011).

 

 

 

All of this makes no ecological sense. Shortsightedness results in Nature shorcircuiting and hitting right in the ass of a species that brags about being so sapiens in the long run.

 

The consumption demands of the consumers in the rich nations or those from wealthy people in the poor nations are obviously at the gist of this matter. What they ask for is given to them by the shepherds of the flocks. 

 

So watch out and be careful with what you consume or buy so that when you push the gas pedal of your car or shop for some luxury or food item (fish, meat, etc.) that come out of Africa, you do not squeeze or choke up an African child directly with your hands but indirectly yes, with a very long rope reaching way beyond your own home. 

 

After all, everything is connected on this beautiful planet we call Earth, be it ecological systems of Nature or in the economical schemes set up by this biped naked ape (Homo sapiens). The former supporting the latter.

What it is really sad is that man by chasing economical dreams of power has been empowered not to solve problems which he should but to resolve the equation of his own destruction in the end. 

 

He has to back to school and learn that: Economics + screwed up ecology = self-destruction. The sooner he learns this the better if he wants to survive.

Nature will teach him hard lessons if he does not pay attention at the School of Life. So far he has not.  

 

He must remember that Mother Nature, the Teacher, is very patient but when she gets tired she strikes right and left and up and down. And down the drain humankind could go to join the labyrinthodonts for being so haughty and deaf.

 

His latest assault upon his brethren in Africa leaves him standing as an idiot in the long run, for what sounds like money today, tomorrow will sound as death and pain caused by political restlessness and dispair which will eventually reach his doorstep and knock at his door. Should he open or not his door, the pestilence will get in his abode and shake his bed and sleep in peace no more.

 

Let us see what is happening in a flow sequence:

                                          

   FOREIGN INVESTORS

 

Source: Aljazeera

                                                             

Source: Country Scents

                                                              

CORN

OIL PALM

RAPESEED

SOYBEAN

SUNFLOWER

SUGAR CANE
JATROPHA

PLANTATION FORESTRY
ETC.

Source: income strategies blog

THE RESULT AT THE END 

1. A LOT OF PEOPLE GET POORER IN AFRICA

Source: theguardian

Source: ahmedbashu3.blogspot.com

  

AND 

2. A FEW PEOPLE GET RICHER IN AND OUT OF AFRICA

Source: EMPOWER NETWORK

So where does man put his sapiens before or after he is name? Wherever he puts it, does he deserve it? In spite of all of his cultural paraphernalia he still is quite insapiens.

 

References

The Oakland Institute (2011). Understanding Land Investment Deals in Africa. Country Report: Zambia. OI, Oakland, CA, USA. 54 p.

The Oakland Institute (2012). Understanding Land Investment Deals in Africa. Massive Deforestation Portrayed as Sustainable Development: The Deceit of Herakles Farms in Cameroon. OI Land Deal Brief, September 2012. 15 p.