La honte

The notion places and forms of the power invites to define the symbolic places of the power and its various forms of expression: political, economic, family. Because of a global food shortage, some rich countries are buying land in Africa to guarantee supplies for their citizens in the future. What are the causes of the land deals by rich countries in Africa, and its consequences? To illustrate the notion, I choose two documents.

For beginning, the main cause of land deals is the very strong increase of the population and through lack of for the agriculture which causes a global food shortage. As a consequence, they go in Africa to make agriculture. The main buyers are China and South Korea, Who bought together eighty pourcent of the lands sold in Africa. These rich countries bought a lot of land in Africa, for example China with three millions of hectares bought or praised in two thousand and nine. They buy in these countries in an economic purpose, the price is extremely low.

But this colonization has obviously consequences. The rich countries come to exploit the lands of poor country, which are countries the most starving to the world. As presented in the document " How food and water are driving a twenty first century African land grab, " Ethiopia with thirteen millions needing food aid but paradoxically the government is offering this best land to rich countries. Furthermore, foreign firms threw people off the land, exploits their ground without their consent, without warning and without compensation, and exports the food shown in the document “ The new way of colonialism in Africa”. Therefore the population more goes hungry because of these deals. This deals worsens the lack of food in these countries. The population is angry, but they are nothing, they can make nothing, it is David against Goliath. More over there is another consequence, the environment. There are no respect for the environment, because the intensive agriculture requires chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, intensive water use and large-scale transport, storage and distribution.
Nevertheless the purchase of these lands could improve the everyday life of the population, thanks to better agreements. That is to say African farmers could benefit from foreign investments, it could guarantee employment, better infrastructures and better crops yields provided that local people are consulted and their rights aren’t violated.

In conclusion, the land deals is a new form of colonization, the rich countries exploit the poor countries for their own interest, even if it causes disastrous consequences.