An investment arm of the largest private company in the U.S. — Koch, Inc., formerly known as Koch Industries — is investing in an agricultural business venture that will provide corporations with carbon offsets while pulling local natural resources from almost 7.2 million acres (2.9 million hectares) of land in three West African countries, the Center for Media and Democracy has learned.
The project, led by the U.S.-based company African Agriculture Holdings, will consume large amounts of water in a drought-prone region and prevent the land from being used for subsistence farming in order to grow cattle feed for export and provide corporations needing to offset their CO2 emissions with carbon credits.
Koch, largely owned by Charles Koch and his brother’s widow, Julia Koch, bought 266,666 shares of African Agriculture in the fourth quarter of 2023 through one of its many investment arms, Spring Creek Capital, which invests in publicly traded companies. African Agriculture went public on NASDAQ on December 7, 2023, issuing a total of 58 million shares.
The Oakland Institute, a nonprofit advocacy group promoting local land ownership in Africa along with environmental good practices on that land, says that the company is already producing alfalfa as cattle feed for export from Senegal and that its “claim over this staggering amount of land and critical water rights raises serious concerns over the potential impact of the project on the livelihoods of local communities,” according to a February 1 press release.
“It is shocking to see a U.S. firm taking over pasture land from herders in Africa to export animal feed to the Middle East and South Korea,” said Frederic Mousseau, the institute’s policy director. African Agriculture is also holding land as an investment for when water is expected to run out in cattle feed producing areas in the U.S.
The company’s largest shareholder is Global Commodities and Investment, a firm based in the Cayman Islands and run by the Romanian billionaire Frank Timis, who fled his home country decades ago when faced with drug convictions. His companies have been accused of fraud, corruption, and influence peddling, especially in their successful pursuit of oil leases off the coast of Senegal and in its mining operations.
Using his connections to two consecutive Senegalese presidents, Timins “gained control of two major… offshore oil blocks worth billions of dollars,” paying just $5 million before flipping them for more than $650 million to U.K. oil giant BP and its U.S. partner, according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
The “sweetheart deal” cost Senegal billions in lost rights and royalties, OCCRP said. “The loss hits hard in a country in which 75 percent of families live in chronic poverty.”
Koch has its own sordid history of exploiting indigenous populations. In the late 1980s, the Senate investigated the company for stealing oil from Indian reservations in the U.S. Koch later admitted in court that by falsifying oil well receipts, it had collected roughly $10 million a year in crude oil from these reservations without paying for it.
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You people do not like constructive criticism, especially when it comes to speaking about the way Western nations investors culture of “Neocolonialism!” I sent a comment about the Koch Investment in Senegal, where many Senegalese have been removed from an area they had called their. I provided similarities about the Liberia Mining Company -LMC, and MMAL ; Bong Mining Company and Mittal Steel Company disingenuous business practices from which Liberians and the country received absolutely no tangible benefits. But, instead of accepting my comments, I was denied even though as requested, I modified and made some corrections to my comments.
Fast forward, I shared it with myself on my email and WhatsApp pages, but Don Wiener’s article which prompted my response appeared! Why?
A NEW FORM OF RECOLONIZING
AFRICA
What the is the question; and how can a form of recolonizing the continent of Africa be addressed to prevent land grabbing, subjugation, and deprivation of their lands and removal of the African people, in this case Senegal from their home land under a pseudo form of development?
In the form and manner of this kind of “Land Grab” it matters much to me considering the fact, the process foreign investors use to dislodge Africans (us) of our lands. This is done in several ways, through a “Scam process called investment” and they comb their way through agents in high places; some maybe ministers, influential citizens or external notable personalities and Presidents of African nations.
Liberia, my country have had and continue to be a place of this sort of practices; specific instances have proven to be indicators and or barometers in testing the temperature of these false businesses whose interests serve are to benefit themselves than the people and nation in which these ventures are undertaking; the land when acquired in most instances during the operation of the business pay in most cases ten pennies on a dollar. A classical case is the former Liberia Mining Company (LMC), which begun around early 1950 and gradually ended when the originator of the deal, the 18th President of the country died in 1971; during the operation of LMC, it paid “TEN CENTS” on a ton of Iron Ore from a lucrative Mining Project in the Western region of the country called Bomi Hills, now Bomi County. As if this was not enough, my country entered another of such Concession Agreements with another American Company the Mine Management Associates Limited (MMAL)…..that also did not pay any substantial returns to the country, but left the sector in the same region in ruins when in 1975 a “Massive Land Slide” caused several hundred deaths of Liberian citizens in the early morning of the occurrence, thus forcing it to close! Liberia has had several kinds of these so-called investments without any tangible benefits; case in point, the Liberia – American Swedish Mining Company (LAMCO) mined Iron Ore and other Minerals including diamonds in its Northern Region called Nimba County, then left! As I write, Mittal Steal, another US/ Indian Company is operating and has subcontracted a portion of its business to another company run by Indians, as if the citizens of the region can not do the simplest kind of mining operations in their own county, or Liberians business interests could not be hired to handle the job.
It is frustrating and utterly unnecessary for a sovereign nation to enter into concession agreements without the country’s and its citizens being prioritized; this like “SMITTING ONE’S FOR A MORSEL OF MEAL!” It is goodhearted when leaders of African nations can not learn lessons from the past to properly use a platform of GOOD GOVERNANCE to channel development in their countries to benefit the citizens on these long terms investments which over decades of land and human resources usage benefits no one but these false investors.
In my thinking, this is not only a NEW FORM OF RECOLONIZING AFRICA, but a crime against nst humanity in view of the “BUSINESS COSMETICS” they apply as “INVESTORS!” Accordingly therefore, the Koch Investment by which farmers are dislodged of millions acres of land to benefit the enterprise is the continued dilemma the continent is facing. This land grab is similar to when Africans were taken from the continent and taken to America, Great Britain and other countries as slave; it is true therefore, that none Africans are using another formula centered on seizure of lands for protracted periods by moving their owners to other places unsuitable as habitat. And this is the dilemma the continent must eradicate if it’s citizens will benefit from the so-called land grab that is ruining cultures and the lives of our people.
That is wicked!
I spelled Koch but somehow it was changed.
Loch and all the others need to be in PRISON!👎🤬
Good reporting.I am from Guinea Conakry.I visit Senegal every year.This land grab will be bigger than slavery or colonialism.The consequences will be devastating.I see impacts impacts in my community already.We should do everything to stop these unscrupulous billionaires.By all means necessary!