You can’t drink crude oil. You can’t eat petrodollars.In the face of soaring food prices with Gulf nations being hit hard they have to import more than 80 per cent of the food needed for their rapidly growing populations.
Gulf rulers have a new strategy: They are buying unused agricultural land in poor countries like Pakistan, Thailand, and Sudan, and becoming large-scale farmers.
The Dubai-based private equity firm Abraaj Capital aims to work with the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in buying up large tracts of land in Pakistan for the creation of major agribusinesses.
With the state acting as both food producer and trader, the UAE hopes to help lower food prices by eliminating profits by middlemen.
More details on this move can be obtained from this article:
High Food Prices… Oil Sheikhs Turn to Farming, MC-Business, Jun 1, 2008
Dr. Geoff Pound
Image: “buying unused agricultural land in poor countries like Pakistan…”
