South Korea’s Madagascar land lease: it gets worse - much worse
November 20, 2008 | by Alex Evans | More on Africa, Climate and resource scarcity, Economics and development | 4 comments
Yesterday I did a post linking to a piece by Javier Blas in the FT, who had learned that Madagascar had agreed to lease half of its arable land - an area half the size of Belgium - to Daewoo, the South Korean conglomerate, for palm oil and corn production.
A few hours later, a truly astonishing new angle on the story emerged. Guess how much South Korea had paid for its 99 year lease? Answer: Zip. Zero. Nada. Not a cent. The sum total of the benefts for Madagascar, according to a Daewoo spokesman? “We will provide jobs for them by farming it, which is good for Madagascar.” This in a country where 3.5% of people are on WFP food aid…
The benefits for South Korea, on the other hand:
“We want to plant corn there to ensure our food security. Food can be a weapon in this world,” said Hong Jong-wan, a manager at Daewoo. “We can either export the harvests to other countries or ship them back to Korea in case of a food crisis.”
Read the full piece from this morning’s paper here, plus an additional background brief from Javier Blas here. But if you really want a sense of the dimensions of this story, check out the language in the FT’s leader article (entitled “Food security deal should not stand”):
Pirates are not the only source of concern off the African coast. The deal South Korea’s Daewoo Logistics is negotiating with the Madagascan government looks rapacious … Any agreement must ultimately be in the interest of the local population. The Madagascan case looks positively neo-colonial.
What’s more, as the leader rightly observes, it’s not even as though South Korea could really rely on the deal in conditions of a massive price spike: Madagascar would have every incentive to nationalise the investment in conditions of acute crisis. But for now, the early losers look to be small farmers and the climate:
The Madagascan state may officially own the land in question, but small-scale farmers who have worked it for generations stand to lose their livelihoods. Much of the land, moreover, is currently forest. This potentially valuable resource in the fight against climate change would be destroyed for good.
Related posts
- Madagascar land grab: how the South Koreans see it
- South Korea leases half of Madagascar’s arable land
- No secrets (even in Madagascar)
- More on African land deals
- From landgrab to coup d’etat
One wonders why on earth the government of Madagascar would agree to such a deal, especially if most of the workers are going to be shipped in from South Africa. If significant bribes were involved, as seems highly likely, it would call into question Madagascar’s reputation as one of the cleanest countries in Africa (see both Transparency International and the Ibrahim Index of African Governance).
As someone who grew up in a very corrupt Madagascar and has been very supportive of Marc Ravalomanana’s reforming government, this is very disappointing. There has to be serious corruption involved to let this go through. I’m just hoping an international outcry puts a stop to it. But then it’s Madagascar, and the world doesn’t tend to notice it very often.
Not trying to justify this massive robbery but here is what is written on TIMES
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1861145,00.html
“Daewoo says the Madagascar land will be leased for about $12 an acre, which is a fraction of the cost of farmland in the corporation’s home country”
Hi. If you’re interested, we issued a critical report on this trend last month, with data on over 100 cases around the world. It’s online at http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=212. Regards.