It's winter break, I'm lazy, and my head is full of thoughts.
After reading this Times article about a South Korean company buying up a very large part of Madagascar's farmable land to produce corn and palm oil. Almost all of this food will be shipped back to South Korea. A couple of European companies have done the same in other African countries, but with not as much land. These countries don't have much to lose. A big private company comes in, sets up a bunch of infrastructure, makes a bunch of people farmers and laborers, and the people get money. It's interesting and I like it. The article kind of compares this to the aid money being pumped in by wealtheir nations and its ineffectiveness to set up a country that can even partially sustain itself.
I can see the problems people see with this. First off I'm going to play the race card. This is a Korean company, no westerners to be seen, so it must be controversial (oooh, oh no you di unt! this is a joke), even though several European companies have done this already. But I know this isn't the reason for controversy. Leasing almost half of the arable land of a country for 99 years is disturbing. It's mind boggling that that much land will be used to grow food stuffs in a country that can't even support itself, and the Malagasy won't have access to that food. Adding salt to the wounds is that a lot of this food will be destroyed land turned into biofuels. What do you do when a more powerful, richer country basically buys land from your country? Suck it up and take the money... or continue to be poor and bum off of other countries? I'm a little nervous when a company, whos purpose is to maximize profits, to lease land from a country and make money from their investment. This could lead to exploitation of the people etc etc. There is a flip side though. They will set up infrastructure, and it will still be there after they leave. And the construction jobs and the work available afterwards should pump quite a bit of money into Madagascar's economy. Hopefully this kick starts a brighter economic future for Madagascar and the other host countries.
Sloppily written, yep. But it's ok, I'm still a little rusty writing. But pretty soon I'll be back to my Pulitzer Prize level writing...
