Are African Land Grabs Really Water Grabs?

[polly7]

By Jennifer C Franco and Lyla Mehta

and Gert Jan Veldwisch

Source: CNN Wednesday, March 27, 2013

(CNN) -- Millions of hectares of land have been acquired in the past few years across Africa by investors who are moving into large-scale agriculture to take advantage of potential windfall gains. Popularly these deals have become known as "land grabbing," but they could just as well have been framed as "water grabs."

All around the world powerful actors (transnational as well as national) are pointing out that the lands in which they invest are "marginal" and "unproductive" lands. This has been shown to be untrue for many cases; either the land is already used by small-scale food producers, or is of prime quality and associated with good (potential) access to water.

Full Article: http://www.zcommunications.org/are-african-land-grabs-really-water-grabs-by-jennifer-c-franco

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/05/business/op-ed-africa-land-grab/index.html

[dipsydoodle]

1. It varies

as of the late the Niger delta in Mali comes to mind.