Lets Colonize Africa again. This time lets do it so we don't piss everybody off.

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...