The Exploitation of Land in Africa is something that has happened for years but just recently there has been an explosion of wealthy countries either buying or renting land from impoverished third world countries within Africa making millions in agriculture and some paying as little as $1.00 per year, per 10000 square meters (Vidal, 2010) . The exploitation of Land is often referred to as “Land Grabbing” and several countries are taking advantage of this phenomenon. In all there are about 20 or more African countries involved in this. The foreign companies are arriving in large numbers, depriving people of land they have used for centuries. There is no consultation with the indigenous population. The deals are done secretly. The only thing the local people see is people coming with lots of tractors to invade their lands (Vidal, 2010) .
Many of the western news organizations are swift to point out the fact that China offers aid with no strings attached, whereas western nations offer aid with conditions tied to human rights. While there is some truth to this, it is often overlooked that a lot of conditions by western countries are not about human rights, but about opening up African economies and it is these conditions that are often criticized (Shah, 2010) .
Inter Press Service (IPS) noted some problems with a massive deal between China and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008. The deal involved China pledging a $9 billion loan as well as building massive new copper and cobalt mines, 4,000 km of roads and railways, upgrading Congo’s beleaguered mining sector, as well as building schools, hospital, and clinics. In return, Beijing secured copper and cobalt concession that over 25 years would supply Chinese manufacturing with 6.8 million tons of copper and 620,000 tons of cobalt (Shah, 2010) .
Together they are scouring Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Malawi, Ethiopia, Congo, Zambia, Uganda, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Mali, Sierra Leone, Ghana and elsewhere. Ethiopia alone has approved 815 foreign-financed agricultural projects since 2007 (Vidal, 2010) . Saudi Arabia, along with other Middle Eastern emirate states such as Qatar, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, is thought to be the biggest buyer. China has signed a contract with the Democratic Republic of Congo to grow 2.8m hectares of palm oil for biofuels. Before it fell apart after riots, a proposed 1.2m hectares deal between Madagascar and the South Korean company Daewoo would have included nearly half of the country's arable land (Vidal, 2010) . According to Land agent Tegenu Morke, "The land and labor is cheap and the climate is good here. Everyone – Saudis, Turks, Chinese, and Egyptians – is looking. The farmers do not like it because they get displaced, but they can find land elsewhere and, besides, they get compensation, equivalent to about 10 years' crop yield," (Vidal, 2010) . The attitude conveyed by the land agent is the same as the countries who exploit the land from the people of Africa. This exploitation is just an example of modern day Neo-Colonialism. According to The African network for social progress there are estimates somewhere between 20 and 50 million hectares of African land is already part of this grab. To put it in perspective, 50 million hectares is twice the size of the United Kingdom. And it likely won’t stop there (Aziz, 2011) .
In Zimbabwe land grabbing began over a century ago when the British came and claimed stake on acres and acres of land. Tobacco is the main money making crop in this country. President Mugabe wanted to take back 1/3 of all Zimbabwe’s productive farmland from white farmers and give it to the country’s peasants. In 1998 alone, a mere 4,500 wealthy whites owned a staggering 50% of Zimbabwe, and Mugabe says they had until August that year to give that land back (Films, 1998) . The British are not the only people in Zimbabwe using the land for their own good. China has been a dominate force though out Africa. China is a major importer of illegal timber from forests in Cameroon, Congo, and Equatorial Guinea. Though accurate figures are hard to access, www.globaltimber.org.uk says that up to 50% of all timber imported to China (Bond, 2006) .
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