Cambodia seeks Kuwaiti aid for flood victims [-Begging season after flood?]

KUWAIT, Oct 17 (KUNA) -- Prospected Kuwaiti relief assistance for victims of the deadly floods in Cambodia was basic topic discussed on Monday by the top diplomat of the Asian nation and the number-one national relief official, Barjas Homoud Al-Barjas. Emerging from a meeting with Al-Barjas, the Chairman of the Kuwait Red Crescent Society, Lung Kim said the discussions dealt with prospected offering of relief assistance to his nation that have suffered from heavy losses and damage as a result of wide-scale floods.

The floods caused by torrential rainfall damaged many houses, infrastructural facilities, roads, schools, bridges and hospital, Lung said.

He praised the KRCS for its noticeable relief and humanitarian efforts worldwide, particularly in the Asian continent where most of the peoples have suffered from natural catastrophes.

Cambodia maids barred from "abusive" Kuwait

Thu Jun 30, 2011

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodian recruitment agencies have decided not to send maids to Kuwait after complaints by human rights groups of abuse by employers, a recruitment official said on Thursday.

Impoverished Cambodia is one of Asia's biggest exporters of maids abroad, a valuable source of foreign exchange.

An Bunhak, president of the Association of Cambodian Recruiting Agencies, said Cambodia had not yet sent any maids to Kuwait and the agencies had decided against so doing because of the country's record of abuse.

"We have received a report from our embassy in Kuwait about abuse of maids and also the report from Human Rights Watch," An said.

Kuwait recently purchased 130,000 hectares of rice fields in Cambodia, who pockets the money?

Hun Xen during his visit to Kuwait in 2008

The 21st-Century Land Rush

Wednesday, September 22, 2010
By Blake Hurst
The American

The move toward securing farmland in faraway places can be seen not only as a bet on increasing food prices, but also as a hedge against a breakdown in world trade.

Farmers often joke that they don't want any more land... except their neighbors'. These days, the old joke is playing itself out on the world stage. Countries are looking outside their borders for more land in a bid to protect their food supplies. Large investors are betting on higher grain prices. It’s a twenty-first century land rush.

A recent study by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations documented the purchase of 2.5 million hectares by foreign investors in five African countries. China purchased 100,000 hectares in Zimbabwe, part of a series of investments that led to more than a million Chinese farmers in Africa. Indian companies purchased hundreds of thousands of hectares in Africa. The Hindustan Times reports that the government of India is urging Indian firms to buy land in South America. South Korea secured 690,000 hectares in Sudan. Saudi Arabia purchased half a million acres in Tanzania. Kuwait recently purchased 130,000 hectares of rice fields in Cambodia. Qatar leased 20,000 hectares in Kenya.

China purchased 100,000 hectares in Zimbabwe, part of a series of investments that have led to more than a million Chinese farmers in Africa.Private groups are also making large investments in land. Steve Fairchild, editor of Today's Farmer, reports that George Soros raised $350 million to buy farmland in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Africa. The grain company Bunge is exploring the possibility of raising $100 million to purchase land in Brazil. John Lamb, an agricultural expert with the World Bank, notes that anecdotal reports place recent worldwide purchases of farmland by foreign countries and large investors at more than 125 million acres. If true, and the data is sketchy, that would amount to an area one third larger than Germany.

The cause of all this activity is the 2007 and 2008 run-up in food prices and the widely accepted estimate that food demand will double by 2050. The last decade saw record low grain stocks worldwide, and 2007 and 2008 brought food riots in 15 countries.

In the period shortly after World War II, the world had food stocks in storage equal to 365 days of use. Now, we have about 35 days’ worth of food stocks, a level that the United Nations estimates is only half of that needed to protect against bad harvests. The FAO estimated that an additional 50 million people worldwide suffered from hunger during the 2007 and 2008 increase in food prices.

Anecdotal reports place recent worldwide purchases of farmland by foreign countries and large investors at more than 125 million acres.During the 2007–2008 commodity boom, at least half the countries that export rice either increased export taxes or banned the sale of rice. Some 25 countries implemented export controls. Even in the United States, where food supplies were never in danger, Costco limited its customers' purchases of rice to prevent hoarding. For the first time since the early 1970s, food security was front-page news.

Even though grain prices have retreated from their 2008 highs, worries about the reliability of grain supplies have reappeared. Russia is suffering from recent wildfires and drought. The wheat crop has been devastated by the highest temperatures in 130 years. On August 5, Russia banned wheat exports until the end of the year, and the wheat market in Chicago surged 8.3 percent in one day. Over the past several years, Russia exported over 15 million metric tons of wheat per year. Russia urged Kazakhstan to embargo exports, and some observers worry that Russia will pressure Ukraine to curtail her exports as well. Demand for grain remains strong worldwide, as China has entered the U.S. corn market for the first time in a decade. Corn prices have been strong in response to hot U.S. weather, the unexpected demand from China, and the difficulties in the wheat market.

Increasing food prices are not the only reason for sovereign interest in foreign land purchases. The threat of export embargoes and a worldwide flirtation with protectionism, especially in the United States, have frightened food importers. The move toward securing farm land in faraway places can be seen not only as a bet on increasing food prices, but also as a hedge against a breakdown in world trade. Nations are showing a marked lack of faith in their ability to import food when supplies are in short supply.

Fifteen countries had food riots in 2007 and 2008.It is worth noting the backlash against foreign involvement in land purchases. A coup in Madagascar was at least partially caused by concern over a proposed deal with a South Korean company for a 1.3 million hectare lease. Hungary promised to allow foreign investment in farmland upon its accession to the EU. The accession agreement would allow foreign investment beginning in 2011, but most of the leading political parties in Hungary favor reneging on the deal. The Philippines nixed a land contract with China because of concerns about local food security. Farm workers in Mozambique resisted the settlement of thousands of Chinese workers on their leased property there. Brazil is promising to end foreign investment in land. Development groups worry about the displacement of local farmers, the advent of a "new form of colonialism," and the specter of natives going hungry while food is exported to the country that owns the farmland.

Resistance to the "globalization" and "industrialization" of agriculture in developing countries is not surprising. Land is perceived as different than shares of stock or a factory or store. Not only that, but the inhabitants of the land changing hands usually suffer from weak land tenure and extreme poverty. The best way to protect existing farmers is to work toward increasing their efficiency, profitability, and property rights. Allegiance to local seeds and traditional methods of farming will not solve the problems of hunger, nor will it help the local farmers defend themselves against displacement by foreign investors. Productive and profitable farmers are likely to stay on the land, and will not be vulnerable to competitors from elsewhere. Neither China, India, nor the Gulf states have shown much interest in the American Midwest.

The threat of export embargoes and a worldwide flirtation with protectionism, especially in the United States, have frightened food importers.Today, there are 0.25 hectares of arable land for person, but by 2050, the available land per person will have decreased to 0.16 hectares. In order to feed more people with less land per person, we will need more investment in agricultural infrastructure, agricultural technologies, fertilizer, seeds, machinery, roads, and storage and processing facilities. It would be better if the beneficiaries of that investment were local farmers, but it is certain that foreign investment will have to provide much of the capital needed to double food production in the next 40 years. The United States and the European Union can increase production, but much of the extra food will have to come from places outside the developed world, and developing countries don't have the capital resources to do what needs to be done. Investment will have to flow from places with hungry mouths and little available farmland to places where agriculture productivity has lagged and food production can be increased.

The disconnect between America's discussion of food and the way food supply is seen in the rest of the world is almost complete. The experiences of 2007 and 2008 have faded from our collective memory, and we Americans continue to focus on the way food is produced rather than the terrifying prospect of scarcity. With all the focus in the United States on the drawbacks of plenty, what's happening in the rest of the world is not just a reminder of our good fortune, but also a cautionary tale.

Blake Hurst is a Missouri farmer.

Cambodia: If you don't want to buy it, rent it! For info, call Dr. Hun Xen

The Rent-A-Country

Thursday, Mar. 12, 2009
By Krista Mahr
Time Magazine (USA)

"When farmers in food-insecure countries like Laos and Cambodia are scrambling to feed their children, does it make sense to lease out vast tracts to grow rice for foreign governments?"

Take a moment to consider breakfast, the most important meal of the day. Maybe you grabbed a banana or ate a bowl of granola. Whatever it was, chances are that some — if not all — of your morning meal came from a country you don't live in.

Food isolationism is dead. It collapsed in a messy, public heap last year when oil hit $100-plus per bbl. and the world's crush on biofuels pushed food prices to unprecedented highs. Thirty-six nations needed food aid. Twenty-five imposed export bans or restrictions to keep staple crops like rice and wheat at home. As prices shot up 50%, food riots erupted in Haiti, killing at least five, and eventually brought down the government. (Read about Russia's "recession diet".)

And then something else happened. A few diplomats and business leaders quietly boarded their jets and got to work. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and South Korea — well-off states without enough good land or water to feed their people — started to look outside their borders. "It's economically not viable to grow food in the desert," says David Hallam, deputy director of trade and markets for the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization. "They said, 'If we can't grow our own food, we'll grow it somewhere else.'"

Their words did not fall on deaf ears. In April, diplomatic relations between Cambodia and Qatar were officially established. In May, the Presidents of South Korea and Sudan discussed food cooperation at the launch of the Korea-Arab Society in Seoul. The Saudi Binladin Group penned nonbinding agreements with Indonesia to plant rice on some 1.5 million acres (607,000 hectares) of island paradise, and millions more have reportedly been earmarked, from Pakistan and Kazakhstan to Burma and the Philippines. Alwi Shihab, a special economic adviser on the Middle East to the President of Indonesia, sees this new investment as a boon to the nation's agricultural sector. "We have large, sizable, fertile -land and good water," says Shihab.

Growing crops for strangers, of course, is nothing new. The long, grim march of colonialism was driven by Europe's penchant for sugar, tea, tobacco and other crops that don't flourish in northern climes. But as climate change and growing populations put ever more pressure on the earth, state-backed searches for land and food contracts as part of a national food-security strategy strike many as fundamentally new. "We're talking about a whole different logic," says Renée Vellvé, a researcher for Grain, an organization that has been compiling media reports of these deals. Vellvé's group sees a downside. When farmers in food-insecure countries like Laos and Cambodia are scrambling to feed their children, does it make sense to lease out vast tracts to grow rice for foreign governments? "These are not fallow fields," says Paul Risley, a World Food Program spokesman based in Thailand. "These are villages where families have farmed for centuries."

And for investors, moving into regions where so many depend so fiercely on the land can translate into risk. "You see a backlash," says Rajesh Behal, a principal investment officer for International Finance Corp., which has just put $75 million into an emerging-market agribusiness fund. "People say, 'Who are these people, and how long will they be there?'" In July, South Korea's Daewoo Logistics signed contracts to lease more than 2.2 million acres (900,000 hectares) in Madagascar — more than a third of the island nation's arable land — to grow corn and oil palms. A violent political dispute erupted in the capital soon after, complicating the deal. "Farming is a pretty dirty business," says Behal. "You have to know the nuances and withstand the volatility."

But in countries where governments can't afford — or don't prioritize — significant domestic agricultural investment, foreign money has the power to deliver better roads, irrigation, technology and training. "One thousand times we say yes on private and public agricultural investment, but done in a certain way," says Jean-Philippe Audinet, acting director of the policy division at the U.N.'s International Fund for Agricultural Development. "It's very important not to look negatively at this trend. We have to try to look at the win-win."

After all, is there a choice? Some of these deals are probably doomed to fall under the ax of the global credit crunch, if they haven't already. But for land-poor countries, the underlying problem of relying heavily on imports will remain. Encouraging a new generation of deals to come out of the diplomatic closet may be the best chance we have to make sure that people on both ends of the bargain end up with food on their plate.

—With reporting by Jennifer Veale in Seoul

Cambodia farm land sold to wealthy nations

29 Jan 2009
By Nick Paton Walsh
Channel 4 News (UK)

Countries who are unable to produce enough food for themselves are scouring the world for cheap farmland to grow food and export it home, reports Nick Paton Walsh.

Never mind the food miles: when prices are soaring around the world some countries have found a way of keeping their own consumers happy - farming out their farms overseas.

China, South Korea and many Arab nations can't produce enough food for themselves, but they do have cash and plenty of it.

Now they are scouring the world for cheap farmland to grow their own food and export it home. It's a global trend which has already got the United Nations worried.

Huge plots of land in Africa have been secured and now many rich nations are looking elsewhere for farmland.

One of Asia's poorest countries, Cambodia, is at the top of their wish list.

Cambodia: Oil-rich Kuwait in August granted a 546-million-dollar loan in return for crop production

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

Sunday, January 04, 2009

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — 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 ofthe 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".

Kuwait, Cambodia sign diplomatic agreement

KUWAIT, Dec 4 (KUNA) -- The State of Kuwait and the Kingdom of Cambodia on Thursday signed a bilateral agreement to establish diplomatic missions at both countries.

The agreement was signed by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Dr. Mohammad Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah and Cambodian counterpart, Hor Namhong.

The signing ceremony was attended by Undersecretary at the foreign ministry Ambassador Khalid Suleiman Al-Jarallah, Director of Sheikh Dr. Mohammad's Office Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah, Head of Africa Department and Acting Head of Asia Department at the ministry Ambassador Faisal Al-Mulaifi, Head of Protocols Department Ambassador Dhari Ajran Al-Ajran and the Cambodian Ambassador to the country.

Cambodia for sale by Hun Sen: Price tag $3 bln

Cambodia holds land deal talks

November 20 2008
By Raphael Minder in Hong Kong
Financial Times (Hong Kong)

Cambodia is in talks with several Asian and Middle Eastern governments to receive as much as $3bn in agricultural investment in return for millions of hectares in land concessions, according to a senior government official.

Some of the deals would be finalised “in coming months”, said Suos Yara, under-secretary of state responsible for economic co-operation.

The revelation comes as impoverished countries rich in fertile land and water such as Cambodia, but also nations in east Africa, seek agriculture investments from resource-poor but capital-rich countries.

Kuwait and Qatar were “very strongly interested” in securing more farming land, he said, with South Korea and the Philippines, which suffered from rice shortages this year, among potential Asian investors.

“Food prices have recently fallen but that really makes little difference because the food supply issue will be there for the long term,” he said. “With this financial crisis, we need to seize this opportunity to develop our farming and switch [foreign] investment from construction to agriculture.”

Kuwait has already agreed to give Cambodia loans totalling $546m (€436m, £369m) to develop agriculture, the second largest aid pledge ever received by Cambodia, after aid and loans totalling $601m offered by China last year.

This week, Daewoo Logistics of South Korea secured a landmark deal with Madagascar to grow food crops to send back to Seoul on a 99-year lease. Daewoo hopes to farm its Madagascar lease for free but is promising local jobs and infrastructure investments in road and irrigation.

Suos Yara would not detail the terms of the potential deals but said leases would run between 70 and 90 years. He did not say how much investors will pay for the leases, with the $3bn more likely in infrastructure investments than rent.

Phnom Penh calculates that Cambodia has 6m hectares available for farming, of which 2.5m are under cultivation. By comparison, the Korean deal with Madagascar covers 1.3m hectares.

Apart from boosting farming acreage, Suos Yara said the deals would make an equally significant contribution in terms of infrastructure and technology upgrades in a country that has emerged from decades of war and a 1970s genocide.

Last year, Cambodia produced 2.5m tonnes of rice, of which about 1.3m was exported, from a sector that relies on a single annual harvest and family-run farms. “With better technology and irrigation, rice production could double in some areas,” he said.

Cambodia’s farming push comes as the government faces an abrupt economic slowdown after averaging growth of 9 per cent over the past decade, as Korean property developers and other cash-strapped foreign investors start to shelve real estate projects.

Cambodia attracted about $3bn of foreign direct investment in 2007, of which 45 per cent was in real estate projects and 25 per cent in agriculture. Suos Yara said the land deals would help maintain foreign investment at such levels but with about half of the total coming from farming investments.

The country has suffered a food crisis, with the Asian Development Bank providing $35m in emergency food assistance last month. However, Suos Yara said conditions had returned to normal. “It was a distribution problem and not a food shortage problem,” he said.

While most of the potential investors were seeking to bolster their food reserves, Phnom Penh had also been talking to biofuel producers, including Indonesia, about ceding land for crops such as jatropha, a succulent plant becoming increasingly popular in the production of biofuels.

Kuwaitis to return to Cambodia for rice talks

Aug 6, 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - Cambodia's overtures to corner the rice export market in the Gulf had been reciprocated by Kuwait, Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun said Wednesday as a Kuwaiti delegation was scheduled to return this month for further negotiations.

'A Kuwaiti delegation will arrive back here on August 20 to continue the talks begun during the Kuwaiti prime minister's visit,' Chan Sarun said by telephone but declined to give further details.

Cambodia has been exporting low-grade rice to African countries, such as Guinea, but is muscling its way toward being a major regional rice exporter.

Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammed al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Saba ended a three-day visit to Cambodia Tuesday, during which he discussed swapping his country's technical assistance for arable land for cultivation of quality rice for Kuwait.

Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that he would visit the Gulf states of Kuwait and Qatar in January to discuss rice exports in a bid to clinch Gulf markets.

'Those countries have oil but no rice,' Hun Sen said in a speech carried on state radio during a rice-planting ceremony about 40 kilometres south-west of Phnom Penh. 'I think the Gulf can become our rice market.'

Cambodia welcomed cash, not credit, Hun Sen said.

'We are a poor country, so when countries buy our rice they should pay, not owe money,' the premier said.

That should not be a problem for oil-rich Qatar and Kuwait, both of whose prime ministers have visited Cambodia this year.

By 2015, the Cambodian government said, it hopes to export 10 million tons of the staple per year.