Libyan leader denounces new African land grab

(GIN)—Libya ’s Col. Muammar Gaddafi has called for an end to the buying and selling of African farmland by food-importing nations. Speaking at a UN hunger summit, he described it as “new feudalism” which could spread to Latin America as well.

“Rich countries are now buying the land in Africa. They are cheating African people out of their rights. This is also going to happen in Latin America…,” he told the meeting at the headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome , Italy.

Gaddafi’s call was disputed by U.N. officials.

“It is wrong to call them land grabs,” said Kanayo Nwanze, who heads the U.N. International Fund for Agricultural Development. “These are investments in farmland like investments in oil exploration We can have win-win situations.”

In the past two years, various non-African countries—China, India, South Korea, Britain and the Arab Gulf states leading the pack— have picked up huge tracts of farmland in Africa by lease or purchase, to produce food or biofuels for their own use.

Most of the land claimed by foreign acquisition was already in use by local people.

This is part of the November 25, 2009 online edition of Frost Illustrated.

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