Land grabs reexamined: Gulf Arab agro-commodity chains and spaces of extraction

Abstract

Research on land grabs has identified the Gulf Arab states as major actors in the acquisition of agricultural land. However the role of these investments in the economies of the Gulf remains underexplored in the scholarly literature. In response, I propose that these projects are part of commodity chains that are articulated to the agribusiness industry in the Gulf states. I argue that they are extractive zones; enclaves created through articulation to the investor states, and disarticulation from their host society. With this considered, the commodity chains that link these projects with the Gulf economies transfer surplus value in the form of labour time, but also biophysical matter such as water, energy, and soil nutrients. This focus on the appropriation of nature allows a better understanding of these schemes and their role in the Gulf’s economic growth. As will be demonstrated, the cycle of exhaustion of water impells the location of these land grabs, and this context connects them with the history of domestic projects. This article uses a framework that integrates theory on the spatial contestations of commodity chains with work on political ecology, and by doing so it contributes to a growing body of work that examines the relationship between networks of commodity production and nature.

Logistics of the neoliberal food regime: circulation, corporate food security and the United Arab Emirates

“…Global South countries were integrated as primary producers by phases of colonial rule; industrial and technological developments were concentrated in the North. The current system, however, is more polycentric and features new arrangements of core-periphery relations (Margulis and Porter 2013, Belesky and Lawrence 2018, Tilzey 2018a, Henderson 2021, Hopewell 2016, McMichael 2019. New capitals are playing an increasing role in reshaping the flow of food commodities and agribusiness capital.…”

“…This is a vital yet under-discussed feature of the Gulf economies. The United Arab Emirates specifically, has undertaken large-scale agricultural investments in Egypt, Ethiopia, and South Sudan (Bush 2011, Dixon 2014, Hanieh 2018, Henderson 2021. Typically, land is leased and used to cultivate water-intensive crops.…”

“…However, this policy was highly water intensive and resulted in the depletion of groundwater aquifers, which were mostly non-renewable. The cost of water and the energy required to extract it was manifest across the social metabolism in the form of the increasing reliance on desalinated water (Henderson 2021).…”

The rise of Arab Gulf agro-capital: continuity and change in the corporate food regime

“…9 However, some of the largest projects have been located in the Nile basin, in Egypt or Sudan. These acquisitions target these countries' water resources, which facilitates high yields (Arafat and Nour 2020;Henderson 2021). They are also determined by close governmental relations between the Gulf countries and their counterparts (Dixon 2014;Mitchell 2002;Sims 2014).…”

“…By examining the systematic position of the Gulf states within the corporate food regime, this article contributes to the growing, yet incomplete, body of scholarship on agrarian change within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) (Ajl 2020;Ayeb and Bush 2019;Dixon 2014Dixon , 2015Harrigan 2014;Henderson 2019Henderson , 2021Mitchell 2002). As Ajl has pointed out, the Arab region has been largely excluded from critical agrarian research, despite the particular manner that imperialism has integrated it into the world market and determined its food sovereignty (2020).…”