Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
12 The minimum wage in Ethiopia is about 8 birr (39p) a day (Rice 2010).
13 FOE, Biofuels Subsidies. Available at: www.foe.org/biofuelsubsidies
14 Land-grabbing is carried out by both foreign and domestic governments, in association with
either domestic or foreign investors. It has become a global phenomenon, for reasons already
stated.
15 See GRAIN (2008). Roughly 20 per cent of the global land-grab is sheduled for agro-fuel
crops, whih, alongside of projected export food crops, constitute a new investment frontier
for food, financial, energy and auto companies (Vidal, 2009, p12).
16. See also Wald et al. on Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, in this volume.
17. For critical reviews, see the Journal of Agrarian Change , vol 39, no 6, 2008.
18. his is also the case elsewhere, suh as in Southeast Asia - see, e.g. Cotula et al. (2008).
19. For example, Royal Duth Shell is exploring a joint venture with Brazil's powerful bioethanol
producer, Cosan. For Shell, this move signals growth potential to investors, and for Cosan this
alliance would double ethanol production, and for Brazil it would consolidate its role as 'the
world's alternative energy superpower with the potential to ship huge quantities of fuel to
the US and Europe assuming a US reduction in biofuel import tariffs' (Mathiason, 2010, p43).
For other details, see GRAIN (2008) and McMihael (2009b).
20. IFC expenditures in sub-Saharan Africa rose from $167 million in 2003 to $1.8 billion in 2009
(Daniel 2010, p12).
21. The World Bank's subset of investment projects notes that food crops account for 37 per cent,
while fuel crops, and industrial and cash crops, eah account for 21 per cent (2010, p35). he
Bank's report claims that more than 70 per cent of land deals are in Africa.
22. Cf. De Shuter (2010), and Borras and Franco (2010).
23. A project manager in Mali, for example, argues 'that no country has developed economically
with a large percentage of its population on farms. Small farmers with titles will either suc-
ceed or have to sell the land to finance another life … ' (MacFarquhar, 2010, pA4).
24. This is perhaps captured in the unproblematic statement of Rodney Cooke, director at the
UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD): 'I would avoid the blanket
term “land-grabbing”. Done the right way, these deals can bring benefits for all parties and
be a tool for development' (quoted in Vidal, 2010).
25. For example, Rostow's stages of growth scenario claimed 'the revolutionary hanges in agri-
cultural productivity are an essential condition for successful take-of', and Jefrey Sahs con-
cretizes this trajectory by defining 'rising agricultural productivity' as 'food production per
farmer' (quoted in Weis, 2010, p315). As Weis comments: 'Enhanced productivity per worker,
plant and animal are then linked in a normative way, as though inevitable aspects of develop-
ment, to suh things as the relative decline of the agricultural workforce, progressively heap-
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