Corporations Descend on Africa to Securitize Natural Resources for ProfitSusanne Posel, Contributor An $11 million dollar project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Coca-Cola Corporation are employing 50,000 Kenyan and Ugandan smallholders to produce fruit for Minute Maid, a subsidiary for Coca-Cola. Mutli-national corporations are descending on Africa to utilize their land in the hopes that crop yields will boost their profit margins. Efforts like the Gitaus banana project, which produces varied crops, have invested in improved transportation while exploiting small-scale farmers in a blueprint plan to revolutionize Africas unused arable land. Africa is now the last frontier in terms of arable land, said James Nyoro, the Rockefeller Foundations managing director for Africa. With the population growing to 9 billion, the rest of the world will have to depend upon Africa to feed it. This discovery could be the largest attempt at water privatization. Corporations like Coca-Cola and Nestle, through third-party corporation True Alaska, have taken excessive amounts of water from water-starved communities, only to bottle it and sell it back to them. Once these corporations purchase the mineral rights to land they own, they turn their privately-owned city water into bottled Dasani. The price consumers pay is equivalent to 1000 times its actual worth. In the 1990s, the World Bank required numerous impoverished countries (like Africa) to privatize their water supplies as a condition of economic assistance. Andrew Mitchell, the United Kingdoms Secretary of State for International Development is delighted by this find. This is an important discovery. This research, which the British Government has funded, could have a profound effect on some of the worlds poorest people. As Africa struggles with internal conflict caused by nations like the US who want to securitize their natural resources, multi-national corporations are using this opportunity to make money from a tragic situation. Costs to Africas government will be substantial while these corporations aggressively employ marketing strategies within this developing nation. Their purpose is to use corporatism to extract Africas natural resources. linkwithin_text=Related Articles: 