Is there such a thing as agro-imperialism?

by Andrew Rice

A new megafarm in Western Ethiopia, for palm-oil trees, sugar cane, rice and sesame.  All through the Rift Valley region, there are new fence posts signifying the recent rush for Ethiopian land. In the old days, farmers rarely bothered with such formal lines of demarcation, but now the country’s earth is in demand. One fence stretched on for a mile or more, very possibly belonging to Sheik Mohammed Al Amoudi, a Saudi Arabia-based oil-and-construction billionaire who was born in Ethiopia and maintains a close relationship with the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s autocratic regime.  Photo: Simon Norfolk/New York Times

Dr. Robert Zeigler, an eminent American botanist, flew to Saudi Arabia in March for a series of high-level discussions about the future of the kingdom’s food supply. Saudi leaders were frightened: heavily dependent on imports, they had seen the price of rice and wheat, their dietary staples, fluctuate violently on the world market over the previous three years, at one point doubling in just a few months. The Saudis, rich in oil money but poor in arable land, were groping for a strategy to ensure that they could continue to meet the appetites of a growing population, and they wanted Zeigler’s expertise.

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