Africa Report Criticizes Israel For Its Agri-Financial Policies On The Dark Continent.
The African magazine accuses Tel Aviv of using investments in the African agricultural sector to “promote its own diplomatic and economic agenda instead of offering sustainable solutions” and even “threatening the food sovereignty of some African countries.”
An authoritative monthly magazine dedicated to African politics, The Africa Report, published a very frank article containing a number of sharp criticisms of Israel’s financial policy on the “Dark Continent.”
According to an analysis by the Italian newspaper Il Post, the Tel Aviv government is using Israeli companies’ investments in the agribusiness sector “in a non-transparent manner to advance its own diplomatic and economic program in Africa.” With Israeli money, writes Il Post, instead of offering sustainable solutions and helping African countries fight hunger, projects carried out in Africa with Israeli financial participation “endanger the development and food sovereignty of some African countries, leading to serious and long-term consequences.”
The Africa Report magazine is being published by Jeune Afrique (Young Africa – ed., JAMG), one of the largest media companies in Africa. In addition to The Africa Report, JAMG also publishes the weekly Jeune Afrique and regularly organizes Africa’s premier business event, the Africa CEO Forum.
As a most fitting illustration, The Africa Report told its readers the story of a project called Aldeia Nova (Portuguese for “new village”, “new settlement” – ed.), which the Israeli agri-food company LR Group (LR) implemented in Angola.
After the bloody armed conflict that tormented this African country for almost thirty years, the more than worthy goal set by the Angolan government was to “reintegrate those who fought into society by providing them with the means to earn a living.”
The Angolan government has invested $70 million in this ambitious project. 9,000 hectares of land were divided into fifteen villages for houses, crops, and related infrastructure. The tender was won by LR Group.
Although the Israeli company now claims that the Aldeia Nova project has “revitalized the region’s economy and that 600 families have received a home and land to raise cows, pigs, or chickens,” local residents say they think otherwise. The Africa Report quotes some local farmers as saying, “For the Israeli LR, we were practically free labor.” Farmers must pay the Israeli company “for the use of houses, infrastructure, and land, while all that the residents of Aldeia Nova produce comes back directly to LR in the form of reimbursement, despite the fact that the Angolan government financed the project and provided the land,” the African magazine quoted the Italian Il Post newspaper.
Discontent among Angolan peasants is growing rapidly. “People are living in a state of modern slavery,” told The Africa Report a spokesman for Jovens Lúcidos (Portuguese for “Clear Youth” – ed.), a local association fighting for a better future for the people of Aldea Nova.
Finally, the African magazine cites a recent report by GRAIN, an international non-profit organization based in Barcelona, Spain, that has been working since the early 1980s to support farmers in their fight for climate-controlled food systems. In recent years, it has analyzed Israel’s financial and agri-food policies in the Global South, with a particular focus on projects that Tel Aviv is implementing in African countries such as Angola, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Nigeria, and South Sudan. The verdict of the GRAIN experts cannot but cause concern, “Many of the projects reviewed,” the NGO writes, “were found to be unsuitable for local conditions, uneconomical, and unsustainable.”