Despite widespread research indicating that growing biofuels on Africa's 'idle' lands could help to starve the continent, the practice remains rampant, according to a new study.
The report is the work of the Washington, D.C.-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a research center funded by 64 governments, private foundations and global organizations.
Researchers revealed that foreign companies are buying or leasing vast chunks of land in Africa and elsewhere for their own use. In fact, up to 50 million acres have been sold off or soon will be. That's equivalent to about 25 percent of all the farmland in Europe.
Much of that land is being bought by emerging nations to raise crops for their growing populations. These countries –
China,
India, South
Korea and oil-rich Gulf states – have land and water constraints at home. They got burned by last year’s global
food crisis and are turning to Africa as a food security blanket.
The rest of that land, a quarter or more, will be used by foreign companies to grow first-generation biofuels from crops, such as
palm oil and jatropha.
The problems with these
energy plants are well known.
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