Africa: food versus fuel’ controversy

For the production of biofuels, Kenya has officially sold 60 000 hectares of land, Sudan 471 000 and Mali 700 000. Everywhere, farmers are being forced to immigrate with their “hoes and their flocks” for nowhere. The production of this energy in many countries ruined the farmers’ cultivable areas. A Spanish company called “TAC Fernandez” made experiments of “jatropha”, a plant known for its advantages in the production of agro-fuels.

In 2008, the experimentation has allowed the firms to realise that the land was suitable for growing this plant. They had also requested the purchase of 120 000 hectares of land in Burkina Faso, and projecting to extend to other areas of land also required by the Spanish investors. Two other companies from India and Germany have acquired thousands of acres of land for the same purpose. These three investors have showed how the race to the so called clean energy is taking over food security. If the “jatropha” plant serves the European and Asian industries and environment, it denies, in the same time, the African people access to these large arable lands. The secretary general of the association Roppa Burkina Faso, Andre Tioro, has said: “Today, the population growth demands that we find solutions for the food, and for that the African producers know how to do it”. For him, biofuels represent a threat to the security of land and feeding the continent. Indeed, and following the riots here and there in Africa, the World Bank had committed a report in which the food crisis and food stability in Africa are involved with bio-fuels production. It added that due to the overexploitation of the vast tracts of land, to the deforestation and destruction of crops, these specialized firms have contributed and are responsible for 75% of the severe food crisis that hit several countries on the continent. It’s difficult to understand how a world that still has nearly a billion hungry people could dedicate a sizable chunk of its corn harvest to fuel. According to experts, the development of Europe has been reached on the basis of sound agricultural production basis which has emancipated the populations from food insecurity. Eurasian invasion, according to them, is therefore a new way to keep the African continent into endemic hunger and socioeconomic clashes. That will greatly increase its food needs and enable Europe and Asia to sell their agriculture surplus, already subsidized.