Farmland

Re: Farmland

Postby winston » Mon Oct 13, 2008 8:43 am

Sunday October 12, 2:37 PM
China's communists set to approve key land reforms

China's ruling Communist Party was expected Sunday to approve a major economic reform plan that would let farmers trade and mortgage their right to land and bolster the nation's food security.

The move is part of a wider package of reforms aimed at reducing a gaping rural-urban income gap that has expanded during 30 years of capitalist market policies.

They are seen as key to an economic plan to be approved on the closing day of an annual meeting here attended by up to 500 members of the party's central and disciplinary committees and other key officials, and chaired by President Hu Jintao.

Under the new policies, farmers would be able to trade, rent and mortgage their land use rights for profit in a land transaction market, Dang Guoying, a rural scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the China Daily newspaper.

"The move will speed up the country's urbanisation by bringing more farmers to the cities with the big farm contractors promoting modern farming in rural areas," it quoted Dang as saying.

Policies approved by the party traditionally are placed before the National People's Congress, China's parliament, for approval when it holds its annual session the following March.

Building large-scale industrial farms
is seen as key to China's long-held policy of remaining self-sufficient in grain production and being able to feed its population of 1.3 billion people, state press say.

Most of China's farm plots are small and held individually at a time when hundreds of millions of farmers are leaving the land to seek better lives in the nation's quickly developing urban centres.

According to China's constitution all land is owned by the state, so the land reforms under discussion are not expected to result in private ownership of land, observers note.

"Reviving the rural economy is key to China's next stage of development," the Outlook Weekly magazine quoted Chang Xueze, a professor with the National Development and Reform Commission, as saying.

"It is both the new focus and the bottleneck of our country's next round of reforms."

The reform package could also include adjustments to China's macro-economic policy during the global financial crisis and amid a slowing in export growth, according to the official National Business Daily.

The rural focus of the ruling party meeting is also a nod to this year's 30th anniversary of China's opening and reform policies, which began in 1978 with policies returning collectivised farmlands back to individual farmers.

The 1978 reforms ended decades of China's disastrous experimentation with Maoist-style collectivisation that left the nation impoverished and backward.

While the market reforms have led to spectacular economic growth in the world's most populous nation, the income gap between China's 800 million or so farmers and the increasingly prosperous urban areas has also become a huge headache for policymakers.
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Re: Farmland

Postby winston » Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:36 pm

Farm reforms will seek to end land grabs

China says a new rural farm policy is largely aimed at curbing illegal land grabs that have fueled widespread discontent in the countryside.

China approved the major policy on October 12 to expand transfers of land-use rights held by farmers in a bid to boost rural incomes and maintain the nation's food security.

A top official said a major thrust of the policy would be to protect peasants from being swindled or forced off land.

China sees tens of thousands of cases every year of poor farmers forced off their land for little or no compensation by developers seeking to expand industrial or residential projects.

Such incidents are a key factor in tens of thousands of protests, often violent, that erupt across China each year.

Source: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
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Re: Farmland

Postby winston » Thu Nov 13, 2008 6:42 pm

China Has No Plans to Buy Farmland Overseas, NDRC Official Says
By Lee Spears

Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- China, the world's most populous nation, has no plans to buy or take long-term leases on farmland overseas to meet the growing challenge of ensuring adequate food supplies, the vice chairman of the nation's planning agency said.

The involvement of Chinese companies in overseas farming projects doesn't signify a government initiative to rely on other countries' land to feed its 1.3 billion people, Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said today at a press briefing in Beijing.

``This is not a large-scale plan for Chinese farmers or companies to buy or take long-term leases on other countries' land,'' Zhang said. ``In effect, we would be depending on other countries to ensure our own food security, and our plans contain no such consideration.''

China needs to feed one fifth of the world's population with only 7 percent of global arable land. The country faces ``severe challenges'' in safeguarding grain supplies due to its expanding population, rapid rate of urbanization and rising consumption, Zhang said today.

Chinese companies have entered cooperative agreements abroad to facilitate the purchase and shipping of some agricultural goods, Zhang said. The nation's demand for one such crop, soybeans, is more than double the country's own output, he said.

The commission today released what Zhang called the country's first medium and long-term grain security plan, targeting production of at least 500 billion kilograms (1.1 trillion pounds) in 2010 and more than 540 billion kilograms in 2020. Output last year was 501.6 billion kilograms.

The government last month said it will raise the minimum purchase price for wheat, by between 13 percent and 15.3 percent, to encourage farmers to grow the commodity and increase rural incomes. It also pledged to raise subsidies for agricultural production materials, machinery and seeds.

Source: Bloomberg
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Re: Farmland

Postby LenaHuat » Thu Nov 13, 2008 8:58 pm

The Maldives govt is planning to purchase land overseas so that they will not be boat refugees when climate change swallows up their islands. It would be wise for us, as individuals, to hve home/homes overseas.
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Re: Farmland

Postby millionairemind » Wed Nov 19, 2008 3:48 pm

Land leased to secure crops for South Korea
By Javier Blas in London

Published: November 18 2008 18:45 | Last updated: November 18 2008 18:45

Daewoo Logistics of South Korea has secured farmland in Madagascar to grow food crops for Seoul, in a deal that diplomats and consultants said was the largest of its kind.

The company said it had leased 1.3m hectares of farmland – about half the size of Belgium – from Madagascar’s government for 99 years. It plans to ship the maize and palm oil harvests back to South Korea. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The pursuit of foreign farm investments is a clear sign of how countries are seeking food security following this year’s crisis – which saw record prices for commodities such as wheat and rice and food riots in countries from Egypt to Haiti.

Prices for agricultural commodities have tumbled by about half from such levels but countries remain concerned about long-term supplies.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation warned this year that the race by some countries to secure farmland overseas risked creating a “neo-colonial” system. Those fears could be increased by the fact that Daewoo’s farm in Madagascar represents about half the African country’s arable land, according to estimates by the US government.

Shin Dong-hyun, a senior manager at Daewoo Logistics in Seoul, said the company would develop the arable land for farming over the next 15 years, using labour from South Africa, and intended to replace about half South Korea’s maize imports.

South Korea, a heavily populated but resource-poor nation, is the fourth-largest importer of maize and among the 10 largest buyers of soyabeans.

Carl Atkins, of consultants Bidwells Agribusiness, said Daewoo Logistics’ investment in Madagascar was the largest it had seen. “The project does not surprise me, as countries are looking to improve food security, but its size – it does surprise me.”

Concepción Calpe, a senior economist at the FAO in Rome, said the investment came after this year’s food crisis. “Countries are looking to buy or lease farmland to improve their food security,” she said.

Al-Qudra Holding, an investment company based in Abu Dhabi, said in August it planned to buy 400,000 hectares of arable land in countries in Africa and Asia by the end of the first quarter of 2009.

Meles Zenawi, prime minister of Ethiopia, said this year its government was “very eager” to provide hundreds of thousands of hectares of agricultural land to Middle Eastern countries for investment.

Source: The Financial Times Limited 2008
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Re: Farmland

Postby winston » Mon Jan 05, 2009 7:43 am

Global trends driving 'land grab' in poor nations: activists

Resource-hungry nations are snapping up huge tracts of agricultural land in poor Asian nations, in what activists say is a "land grab" that will worsen poverty and malnutrition.

Global trends including high prices for oil and commodities, the biofuels boom, and now the sweeping downturn, are spurring import-reliant countries to take action to protect their sources of food.

China and South Korea, which are both short on arable land, and Middle Eastern nations flush with petrodollars, are driving the trend to sign up rights to swathes of territory in Asia and Africa.

"Today's food and financial crises have, in tandem, triggered a new global land grab," the Spain-based agricultural rights group Grain said in a recent report.

It said that some deals were targeted at boosting food security by producing crops that would be sent back home for consumption, while others were to establish money-making plantations like palm oil and rubber.

"As a result of both trends, fertile agricultural land is being swiftly privatised and consolidated by foreign companies in some of the world's poorest and hungriest countries," it said.

In one of the biggest deals, South Korea's Daewoo Logistics said in November it would invest about 6.0 billion dollars to develop 3.2 million acres (1.3 million hectares) in Madagascar -- almost half the size of Belgium.

Daewoo plans to produce four million tonnes of corn and 500,000 tonnes of palm oil a year, most of which will be shipped out of impoverished Madagascar -- where the World Food Programme still provides food relief.

"We will build everything from ports and railways to markets on a barren and untouched area," said Shin Dong-Hyun, general manager of the WFP's financing and strategic planning department.

Although commodity prices have fallen from their highs earlier this year, resource-poor and heavily populated countries are still concerned about securing long-term supplies.

Walden Bello, from Bangkok-based advocacy group Focus on the Global South, said the looming global recession is not likely to halt the trend which he fears will worsen the lot of landless peasants.

"In a situation where global agricultural production has become so volatile and unpredictable, I would not be surprised if the Middle Eastern countries that are engaged in this would continue to push on," he told AFP.

Bello said that many of the deals were struck in dysfunctional and corruption-ridden nations, and rejected claims the land being signed away is of poor quality, and that the projects will bring jobs and improve infrastructure.

"What we're talking about is private parties using state contracts to enrich themselves," he said. "It's an intersection of corrupt governments and land-hungry nations."

In Cambodia, where the WFP also supplies aid, oil-rich Kuwait in August granted a 546-million-dollar loan in return for crop production.

Undersecretary of State Suos Yara said Cambodia was also in talks with Qatar, South Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia over agricultural investments including land concessions.

"If we do this work successfully, we can get at least 3.0 billion dollars from these agricultural investments," he said.

"With the (global financial) crisis, this is a chance for Cambodia to look to the future by pushing agriculture in order to attract foreign investments."

But opposition lawmaker Son Chhay said he was suspicious about why a wealthy nation like Kuwait needed to lease land to grow rice rather then just import the grain.

"Cambodian farmers need the land," he said, urging the government to limit the area under lease and ensure Cambodia was not plundered by foreign nations.

In the Philippines, another land lease hotspot, a series of high-profile deals has clashed with long-running demands for agrarian reform including land redistribution.

"It will aggravate the problem of landlessness, the insufficiency of land for Filipino peasants," said Congressman Rafael Mariano, who also heads the Peasants' Movement of the Philippines (KMP).

However the Philippine government is undeterred and during President Gloria Arroyo's visit to Qatar in December, officials opened talks over the lease of at least 100,000 hectares of agricultural land to the emirate.

Bello said he expected these sorts of deals to increase, forcing peasants from rural areas and into cities where together with the global downturn they will add to the ranks of the unemployed.

"It's particularly explosive in those countries where you have a high degree of landlessness, like the Philippines where seven out of 10 rural people do not have access to land," he said.

In the impoverished and corrupt dictatorship of Laos, some experts estimate that between two million and three million hectares have been parcelled off in a rampant and uncontrolled process that has now been suspended by the government.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has sounded alarm over the loss of land in a country where in rural areas, every second child is malnourished and access to land for foraging of natural resources is critical.

"If the environment is changed, with the trees cut and replaced with industrial crops," said FAO representative in Laos, Serge Verniau, "they can face serious danger".
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Re: Farmland

Postby kennynah » Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:40 pm


The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has sounded alarm over the loss of land in a country where in rural areas, every second child is malnourished and access to land for foraging of natural resources is critical.


i dont mean to sound inhumane, when i say that in the animal kingdom, when the mother is acutely aware of the dangers of bearing too many young, judging from natural environment and food sources, they usually produce fewer newborns that year or totally postpone the birth altogether... why are humans not doing the same...we are indeed more intelligent than the rest of the animals, and hence should be even wiser than them, right?

and yet, we do the exact opposite... it is my unqualified observation that the wealthier bear fewer offsprings than the less wealthy... why this anomaly? i have no idea.
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Re: Farmland

Postby winston » Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:14 pm

SKorea shipbuilder buys big tract of Russian land

South Korea's largest shipbuilder announced it will buy a big tract of Russian farmland in the latest move by Korean firms to help their crowded country secure stable food supplies. Hyundai Heavy Industries said it had agreed to acquire a 67.6 percent stake in Khorol Zerno, owner and operator of 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) of farmland in Russia's Far East, for 6.5 million dollars. It said it would invest another nine million dollars to purchase another 40,000 hectares to expand the farmland to 50,000 hectares by 2012.

"It's part of efforts to diversify our business. It also aims to help the country secure a stable food supply in the future," Hyundai Heavy spokeswoman Miri Kim told AFP. The firm said it expected the farmland to produce 60,000 tons of corn and beans annually by 2014. Crops would be supplied to domestic consumers and for export. The company said it also expected to help South Korean livestock farms by freeing them up from sudden price changes and from shortages of provender.

The farmland at Khorolsky Rion is a two-and-a-half hour drive away from the port of Vladivostok. Last year South Korea's Daewoo Logistics said it had won initial approval from the Madagascar government to lease 1.3 million hectares (3.2 million acres) of farmland -- half the size of Belgium. But the deal has faced collapse amid political unrest there. Heavily populated and resource-poor South Korea, one of Asia's largest importers of corn, has striven to secure stable supplies of natural resources including food.

http://sg.biz.yahoo.com/090414/1/4n0fg.html
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Re: Farmland

Postby LenaHuat » Wed Apr 15, 2009 9:35 pm

Vladivostok is going to be Russia's Shenzhen :idea:
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Re: Farmland

Postby winston » Mon May 11, 2009 9:37 am

Chongqing spending US$8b to buy Farmland outside of China ? :roll:

Do you think they know what they are doing ? Having said that, it does tell you how much money is slosshing in the system ..
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