Will Global Warming, Overpopulation, Floods,Dr oughts and Food Riots Make This Man Rich? meet the new capitalists of chaos By McKenzie Funk he day we fly to juba in an old dc-9, the militants in Nigeria and ethnic separatists in Somalia and sun is out and the clouds are distant puffs, and all we Ethiopia, looking to cash in on any commodity – petroleum, can see is green: the dirty green of the Nile, the dark uranium, whatever – that might come his way in the wake green of the mango trees, the radiant green of the of independence. If a country is too combustible for most in- uncultivated savanna. The land is flat and muddy vestors to touch, he’s interested. It’s a strategy he dreamed Tand empty, and it stretches forever. “Just look at that shit,” up early in his career, while he was still working for AIG. “I Phil Heilberg says, as if daring me to question his genius. saw the Soviet Union split up,” he recalls. “Saw it up close. “You could grow anything there.” I realized there was a lot of money to be made in breakups, Heilberg, a former Wall Street trader, is a big man: six and I vowed that the next time I’d be on the inside.” feet two, well over 200 pounds, loud and voluble, accus- Now, looking out the window of the plane, Heilberg tomed to getting his way. Before we boarded the plane in is en route to the biggest deal of his life. Last year, he Nairobi for the quick hop from Kenya to Sudan, he’d almost snapped up a lease on 1 million acres of farmland in the gotten in a fight with another passenger, a middle-aged aid war-ravaged savanna of southern Sudan – a tract nearly worker, after trying to cut in front of the man’s wife during the size of Delaware – making him one of the largest pri- a baggage check. The aid worker had started yelling at him vate landholders in Africa. A map crammed in his com- – something about everyone having to wait in the same line. puter bag shows where he now hopes to double his hold- “Do you want to go?” Heilberg yelled back. “Let’s go! I’m a ings: another million acres configured in six rectangular lot bigger than you!” blocks to the east and north, close to the border with Ethi- profit of doom A partner at AIG’s commodities-trading unit before he opia, outlined in orange marker. The land is incredibly fer- Phil Heilberg, a former left the insurance giant in 1999 – “I used to be one of the tile and safe from drought, irrigated by an offshoot of the partner at AIG, is now one highest-paid guys on Wall Street,” he boasts – Heilberg is Nile, largely free of land mines. There’s no asset more tan- of the largest private now betting heavily that he can profit from Africa’s chaos. gible than land, Heilberg insists – and, if he’s right, there landholders in Africa. He has befriended Darfuri rebels in London, oil-bunkering will soon be none more profitable.
0058 || RollingRolling StoneStone || rollingstone.comrollingstone.com MonthMay xx,27, 2010 Photographs by Jenn Warren rollingstone.comrollingstone.com || RollingRolling StoneStone || 059 0 LAND GRAB up the cost of fertilizer, China’s growing ered my timetable from five years to four. Going to the Guns Heilberg confers with appetite for meat, a global population that It could happen in the next 18 months.” Be- Gen. Paulino Matip (left) and his son Gabriel at the general’s compound in Juba. “He’s a is racing toward 9 billion – are structural, sides, he says, political risk is nothing com- capitalist,” Heilberg says. “He understands fundamental. That is, permanent. “It’s a pared to the systemic risk long favored by that I deserve to make a profit.” fragile situation,” says Nicholas Minot, Wall Street – the kind that took down his a senior fellow at the International Food old employer, AIG, along with much of the Policy Research Institute. “If food stocks rest of modern capitalism. “World events are low, a small shortfall in production are making my point for me,” he says. “Ev- can cause a big jump in price. Demand for erything has become a risk asset. Had I food is inelastic. People will always pay to stayed at AIG, I would have lost every- keep eating.” thing. That’s AIG, for God’s sake. A sta- Heilberg looked at the crisis and saw op- ble place. A $200 billion company. Blue- portunity. “The world is like the universe chip. Everything’s a risk asset – you just – ever expanding,” he says. “I focus on the don’t realize it.” pressure points.” In Sudan, he has found a For Heilberg, the global economic melt- point that could be crucial to food securi- down underscores an essential lesson in ty: the largest country in Africa, and 10th- capitalism: that no one is actually in con- largest on the planet, crisscrossed by rivers, trol. “When something happens, it hap- dotted with swamps. The Arab-led govern- pens,” he says. Things can be the same for ment in Khartoum, where the two forks 40 or 50 years, and then they’re not. Today of the Nile meet, has reportedly turned is one of those moments when they’re not. over nearly 2 million acres to Saudi Ara- “We already have a commodities prob- bia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and the United lem,” he says. “I would not be surprised if Arab Emirates, hoping to make the north- in a day or a week oil goes to $100 or $150. ern region the breadbasket of the Arab Like that: Boom! We’re seeing the death world. But in the southern half of Sudan, knell of the financial instrument – of the where the land is even lusher, what little paper world. We’re going to see the rise agriculture exists is mostly small-scale: of the commodity. A bushel of corn can’t families with a few cows, tiny plots planted be $15.” with sorghum and corn. Heilberg imagines Before Sudan, Heilberg’s path was con- the landscape transformed by American- ventional, if accelerated. The son of a coffee style agribusiness, complete with irriga- trader, he grew up in New York and earned tion and fertilizers and 400-horsepow- both a bachelor’s degree and an MBA in er combines. But such ambitions require five years at Wharton. He worked on the a huge gamble. A referendum scheduled foreign-exchange desk at Salomon Broth- for next January could give the south full ers, then helped found AIG’s commodities- independence from the north, potentially trading unit in Hong Kong. Responsible voiding any previous deals. Or the referen- for all of Asia, he would fly off to Shanghai dum could be postponed or rigged, spark- with CEO Hank Greenberg, off to Tash- ing outright war. Either way, the risk is too kent to meet with a dictator. “His star great for most investors to bear. was shining in those days,” recalls Nadav Heilberg is part of a growing wave of investment strategy. “The world needs the semiautonomous south’s struggle for Heilberg sits up. The monkey is gone. Not for Heilberg. Instability is not only Lehavy, a college classmate who succeeded capitalists who are maneuvering to exploit food. Thomas Malthus talked about the full independence. Matip is the one who The guards used to have a monkey. Heil- built into his investment model, it’s inte- Heilberg in Hong Kong. the world’s looming food crisis. As the poor problem of finite land but infinite growth. approved Heilberg’s lease on the farmland, berg, whose family pet is a cockapoo gral to the equation. “I’m trying to be me- For a time, the lifestyle suited Heilberg. riot over shortages in places like Senegal He’s been wrong to date – we can use tech- and the general’s son serves as an official named Cookie Dough, thought the mon- thodical,” he says. “I think mathemati- “It’s constant stimulus, constant transac- and Bangladesh, investors are racing to nology to push out more food. But what partner in the venture. Heilberg makes no key was cute. cally. I do probability trees and all that. tions,” he says. “You’re always looking at corner the market on the world’s dwindling happens when technology isn’t coming fast apologies for such arrangements. “This is “Where’s your monkey?” he yells at the I have secession at 90 percent. I’ve low- markets and trying to get an edge. It’s like farmland. In the past two years, as many as enough? I think people will panic, espe- Africa,” he says. “The whole place is like guards. a drug.” But after the Asian financial crisis 50 million acres – the equivalent of all the cially those who have no land to grow on.” one big mafia. I’m like a mafia head. That’s in 1997 – and after scared investors fled cropland in France, or 10 percent of arable For Heilberg, going long on the coming the way it works.” he global farmland grab emerging markets for the Internet bub- Africa – have changed hands. Rising pow- age of scarcity means “going to the guns” Gabriel, dressed in an Armani jacket got under way in earnest after the ble – he quit AIG to strike out on his own, ers like China, India and South Korea have – ingratiating himself with the thugs, and armed with three Nokia cellphones, spring of 2008, when food prices Heilberg makes working as a consultant and leasing out snapped up millions of acres from Camer- strongmen and warlords who hold the ushers us into an aging Land Cruiser pick- spiked worldwide. Soybeans dou- his seats on the New York Board of Trade. oon to Kazakhstan, competing against oil- chips in places like Sudan. When our plane up. We speed down one of Juba’s only paved bled, corn and wheat tripled, and no apologies for Then, in 2002, a friend told him about rich states like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, touches down in Juba, the capital of south- roads, passing boys on motorbikes, men Trice quintupled, as the world’s stockpiles Sudan. Within a year he had signed his and Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs ern Sudan, we are met at the airport by Ga- tending makeshift kiosks, and shipping of food shrunk to a two-month supply. dealing with first contract there – an oil deal that later and Morgan Stanley. All are betting that briel, the eldest son of Gen. Paulino Matip, containers ringed by guards and concer- The governments of Vietnam, Cambodia, fell through. He was stepping outside of the population growth and climate change – the army’s deputy commander in chief. tina wire. The containers, which serve as India and Brazil banned grain exports; warlords. “This Wall Street establishment; today’s gener- with its accompanying droughts and de- During the 1990s, according to Human housing and offices for international aid hungry rioters took to the streets in the ation of hedge-fund managers has barely sertification and flooding – will soon make Rights Watch and other witnesses, Mat- workers, were driven in on flatbed trucks Ivory Coast, Indonesia, Peru, Egypt, Haiti, is Africa,” he says. heard of him. “What we were doing at AIG food as valuable as oil. On a planet of melt- ip’s private militias brutally cleared civil- after the fighting ended in 2005; when and Yemen and the Philippines. In the Murray- was institutional in nature,” says Lehavy. ing glaciers, overcrowded cities and mil- ians from their homes – torching villages, if the violence begins anew, they could be Darling Basin of Australia, once a top rice “The whole place “Now Phil is there at the source, at the bot- lions of climate refugees, those who control raping women, executing men – to make driven out just as quickly. Heilberg is al- producer and the world’s second-largest tom of the value chain.” the food will control the world. way for oil drilling. The violence was part ready pressing Gabriel about contracts to exporter of wheat, thousands of farms is like one big At 45, Heilberg is exactly where he wants “I can see it,” says Heilberg, laying out of one of the longest-running wars in Af- sign and meetings to arrange as we reach failed after six years of drought. At Costco to be – going after value that others don’t what he views as the scientific basis of his rica, a civil conflict between Sudan’s Mus- our destination: the general’s heavily for- and Sam’s Club, American shoppers were mafia – and I’m recognize, or simply don’t have the where- lim north and the mostly Christian and an- tified compound in downtown Juba, sur- limited to a few bags of rice each. Experts withal to tap. “Wall Street used to be a McKenzie Funk is working on a book imist south that formally ended in 2005. rounded by machine-gun emplacements now describe the crisis as a temporary like a mafia head.” straight line,” he says. “It made people a about climate-change capitalism. This is Now, to secure his land deal, Heilberg is and thatch-roofed huts known as tukuls, shock, but many of its underlying causes – lot of money. A lot of money. But the mun- his first story for Rolling Stone. banking on Matip to come out on top in the homes of guards and their families. climate change, soaring oil prices that jack dane bores me. The interest rate on this is
60 | Rolling Stone | rollingstone.com May 27, 2010 May 27, 2010 rollingstone.com | Rolling Stone | 61 LAND GRAB six percent, and you borrow at three per- dle finger to the Muslim-led government portant to Heilberg than Matip’s violent him more land – the king of the Bari peo- was on his hands and knees at the gener- Gatdet, a feared tactician who was re- cent – anybody can do that. As an entre- in Khartoum. “Do you know what a tefillin past. “There are no white hats here,” he ple, a Nuer commissioner in Upper Nile al’s home. If you want to disarm Paulino, cently put in charge of the south’s air de- preneur, it’s never a straight line. When is?” he says. “The box and leather strap you says. “It’s the Wild West. People get upset state – and check out new acreage by jeep, you’ve got to kill him. You don’t disarm a fenses, sits alone with two bodyguards at a you’re an entrepreneur, you have to create put on during prayers? It’s a reminder of when I say you’ve got to go to the guns. helicopter or prop plane. But mostly this man like that.” table near the water. Heilberg moves brisk- something.” God bringing us out of Egypt or whatever. Hell, you had to carry a gun back then. visit is about the mundane reality of cut- Heilberg turns back to Gabriel and gets ly through the preliminaries to the matter I always bring mine to Sudan.” You were a cowboy? You would lose all ting deals with strongmen in Africa, where down to the business at hand. “Now we at hand. “You have the anti-aircraft now?” f there’s a moral code guiding Heilberg won’t discuss the terms of his your horses and cows, your women would waiting is an art. This, in fact, is Heilberg’s have the momentum,” he says. “We have he asks the general. “The ones that have the Heilberg in Sudan, it is that of Ayn million-acre lease, but he’s a long way from be raped, and everything you had would be first principle, the rule that he believes sets to hold Salva accountable. If I could go wings that go higher? OK. Good. And the Rand, his favorite author: Place your- making money on the deal. In lieu of sal- gone. People take their ideals and try to im- him apart from other investors: Do your see Salva with your dad – I would like tanks? Where are the new tanks?” self above all else; get in no one’s way, aries, he pays the management team at pose them someplace else. That’s coloniza- own legwork. Travel. Find out in person. him to honor his word by signing the pa- Gatdet points across the river toward and let no one get in yours; give no his investment firm, Jarch Capital, with a tion to me. I don’t do that. This is what it “There’s only so much you can glean with- pers. I would like to get that paper signed. the bush, where he spent nine years dur- Icharity, and expect none. “Her individual- stake in the company. Until this year, the is. I’m not promoting it or demoting it, I’m out body language,” he says. “If everyone I would like confirmation. Once we have ing the civil war. ism is extreme – but anything in its purest vice chairman of Jarch was a man with ex- just part of the system.” has the same information, everyone comes confirmation of the deal from Salva and “Right here?” Heilberg exclaims. He form is more powerful,” he says. “Howard tensive experience and connections in both In an area that most would describe as to the same conclusions. A lot of traders the agriculture minister, then nobody can peers into the darkness. Roark is the hero of The Fountainhead be- Africa and Washington: former ambassa- anarchic, Heilberg sees hints of a liber- didn’t understand that.” say anything. It’s confirmed by the govern- “How are all your bullet wounds?” he cause he’s pure. He doesn’t care about what dor Joe Wilson, the husband of outed CIA tarian utopia, one in which even lawless- Heilberg turns to the general’s son. Ga- ment of southern Sudan. I would like Salva continues. Gatdet had been shot 28 times anyone else thinks – not about ness has an upside. “My view is briel looks to be in his 20s, but he’s actual- to sign and we would then shut up every- during the war. “You don’t need a bullet- social norms, the right clubs, the that you want government to be ly 34, according to his MySpace page. Or body. Because then it’s not just your fa- proof vest. You know who’s on your side.” right people. We all want a bit of as small as possible,” he says. “In maybe 42, as he later tells me. ther, it’s the two most powerful men in the He points to the heavens. “Always miss- Howard Roark in us.” a sense, Africa can start with a “Gabriel, do you have any cows here?” country. We’ll shut up everybody.” ing the vital areas – that’s good. Soon, the Like Rand’s hero, Heilberg has clean slate.” Once he gains control Heilberg asks. Cows are the way to a Nuer When Gabriel finishes translating, the south will be independent.” come under attack from all sides, of his land, he figures he’ll be able man’s heart. general nods. “OK,” he says. “We will talk “Yeah,” Gatdet says. “The war good for from human rights activists to to do with it as he pleases. “Listen, “No, no cows here,” says Gabriel. to the Israelis.” The signatures don’t seem them.” rival businessmen and European I want to control that ground,” he “You already moved them? How many to interest him – only the mercenaries. journalists. His land grab in Sudan says. “I don’t want someone saying, cattle do you have in Mayom?” “We will make an appointment at Sal- n new york and london i meet has been described as “the most ‘Thank you for your investment, “Many,” says Gabriel. va’s house and go and meet him,” Gabriel other leading investors who, like Heil- scandalous case yet” and “one of now get out.’ I want a country that’s A soldier brings us bottled water and adds. He warns that everything is moving berg, are stepping away from the paper the shadiest deals of all.” One Brit- weaker. There’s a cost to dealing cans of Coke. The elders leave. The gen- slowly: Days from now, a European arbi- world to make commodities plays. But ish blogger accuses him of forg- with strong countries: resource na- eral remains slouched in his seat, his long tration court is expected to announce who unlike Heilberg, they tend to operate at ing “a wholly new business strat- tionalism. People forget that.” arms draped over the back of the chair. He – the south or the north – can claim the Ia distance. On the condition of anonymity, egy – hyperdisaster capitalism.” betting on Chaos is 68, ancient for Sudan. Heilberg consid- contentious, oil-rich region of Abyei, west one leading Wall Street banker tells me But those who know him say that Heilberg has leased 1 million t the center of mat- ers Matip one of the savviest men he’s ever of the general’s home base. Juba is para- about his firm’s recent dealings in Ukraine Heilberg is often his own worst acres in southern Sudan (above), ip’s compound in Juba is met. But sitting here in the courtyard – his lyzed, awaiting a trigger for renewed vi- and Russia. Much of the dirty work, he enemy. “Phil has not made his own and is angling for another million. a dirt courtyard shaded eyes blank, his face expressionless and al- olence. “They don’t multitask here,” Heil- says, is done by local hustlers who take ad- case very well in the way that he’s by mango trees. A crowd most catatonic, devoid of any glimmer of berg complains. vantage of the region’s poverty to assemble ■ Land Leased ■ Land Sought phrased and communicated it, but of Nuer elders, their faces human response – the general gives off the That night, Heilberg has Gabriel take vast tracts of farmland that will appeal to that’s a function of the world he Ascarred with tattoos and horizontal impression of a madman. us to meet another of his board members, big investors. “Here’s the trick,” the banker comes out of rather than his objec- Khartoum cuts, are gathered for an audience. “The south has got to give the general Gen. Peter Gatdet, at an outdoor bar on says. “All these collective farms collapsed tives,” says one former colleague. Chickens and a pair of uniformed control of the purse,” Heilberg says, lean- the banks of the Nile. On the way, we drive once they decollectivized them, because “He’s a straight shooter. My sense is soldiers with AK-47s shuffle in the ing in to flatter his host. “People have been down a bumpy dirt road lined with dozens they had no capital – the guys couldn’t af- that he is sincerely motivated. For sudan background. The general himself approaching me. A private security firm – of bombed-out tanks, their turrets bent, ford tractors. It sort of reverted to pseudo- this guy to spend every summer lit- darfur wears a tracksuit and slouches in mercenaries – they want to come and train their tracks missing. Southern Sudan is subsistence agriculture. So you could come erally hanging around Juba strikes a plastic chair in front of a plas- the troops. Even the Israelis, they want to rumored to have new tanks now, ones it to these guys and get thousands of hectares me as something more than a pred- NORTH-SOUTH BORDER tic table with a doily on it. “Ah, sell weapons and training. They want to could use to help win independence, even for a bottle of vodka and, like, two months atory buccaneer.” Philippe,” he murmurs, slowly know if I’ll speak to the general on their without the referendum next year. Heil- of grain. It was basically a big rip-off Heilberg, an avowed libertari- sudan standing to hug his visitor. Gabriel behalf. Maybe they see something of in- berg’s business strategy rests, in no small of peasants.” an, sees himself as a virtuous cap- translates the rest: “The only white terest, because the split is coming. Twelve part, on such military calculations. The savviest corporate buyers see glob- italist, doing good in the world by White man who is good.” months? Eighteen months? How long? In- al warming as a double boon: In the short remaining faithful to his own self- 200 miles Nile Heilberg’s primary goal for the dependence is coming soon. We all know term, it’s a push factor, destroying agricul- that.” The general grunts. interest. “I’ve had to make a lot of Juba visit is signatures: He wants Matip ture in regions such as northern China and personal sacrifices,” he says. “I’m to lean on the southern govern- Southern Sudan is a welter of tribes the American Southwest, which are be- funding this whole thing. I’ve made ment’s president and agriculture and sub-tribes. Most of the men Heil- hustlers in russia coming too dry to support crops, and caus- a bet with my own money that the minister to sign off on the land deal. berg has put on his “advisory board” are, ing food prices to spike. In the long term, world will play out like I expect it It’s mostly for show: The farmland like the general, Nuer. Much of the south- are scoring huge it creates a pull: Higher-latitude countries to. In that sense, what I’m doing is pure.” agent Valerie Plame. Wilson left the firm is in the general’s home state of Unity, and ern government, meanwhile, is made up like Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Kazakh- His plan for the farmland is straightfor- after vainly advising Heilberg to describe Heilberg has it because the general says he of Dinkas. If civil war were to break out tracts of farm- stan and Canada are becoming more pro- ward: He wants to farm it, not flip it, and his plans in more diplomatic terms, but has it. But official approval would reassure again, it might not be just between north ductive, not less, as the climate heats up. to sell crops locally before selling interna- other well-connected insiders – including potential investors and silence detractors and south but between the tribes as well. land for a few “You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to tionally. There’s certainly a domestic mar- the neoconservative commentator J. Peter who claim that the million-acre lease vio- Matip, whose forces were integrated into suggest that production belts in the North- ket for it: Sudan is in the midst of a long- Pham and noted security analyst Larry lates Sudan’s new land law restricting for- the army only after the 2005 peace ac- bottles of vodka. ern Hemisphere are shifting northwards,” running famine, and aid groups are willing Johnson – are still on board. eign ownership. In Heilberg’s computer cord, retains leverage over Salva Kiir, the says Carl Atkin, the head of agribusiness to pay top dollar for food. He knows it will To secure a lease on the land, Heilberg bag are other documents he wants signed, president of southern Sudan: the ability “it was A big rip- research at Bidwells, the British real es- be years before the first seeds can be plant- placed Matip on Jarch’s advisory board too – ones he won’t show me – which I as- to revive his Nuer militia. “He can cause tate behemoth. The firm’s consulting wing ed, and he’ll need to bring in joint-venture and promised to provide jobs for his Nuer sume would give him rights to the region’s rapid-fire ethnic conflagration,” says John off of peasants,” is helping financial clients make a major partners for the actual production. Israe- tribesmen. In famously corrupt Juba, uranium and zinc. Such deals could be Prendergast, a human rights activist and push into Eastern Europe. lis, perhaps: “They have experience in Af- Matip is one of the few leaders he admires. worth billions if southern Sudan secedes former director of African affairs at the one wall street Bidwells’ London offices are in a nar- rica. They’ve shown an ability to figure out “He’s a capitalist,” Heilberg says. “All of the from the north, freeing Heilberg to export National Security Council. At one point, row building down an alley off Hanover problems.” Heilberg also likes the irony other guys are Commies. He understands the new country’s mineral wealth. according to Heilberg, Kiir made the mis- banker explains. Square. In an airy fourth-floor conference of bringing in Israelis to farm what some that if I put money in, I deserve to make a Beyond the signatures, Heilberg also take of trying to demobilize Matip’s forces. room, with skylights and hardwood floors,
consider Arab land, a way to give the mid- profit.” Such considerations are more im- wants to meet with officials who can sell from top: jenn warren; map by Haisam Hussein “Forty-eight hours later,” he says, “Kiir Atkin lays out a world map depicting soil
62 | Rolling Stone | rollingstone.com May 27, 2010 May 27, 2010 rollingstone.com | Rolling Stone | 63 LAND GRAB qualities – the USDA’s “Inherent Land group might say, ‘It’s ours and ours alone,’ ance. They don’t seem to mind being taxed “What’s this guy called, the blind one?” week passes. we drive to Quality Assessment” – with the richest but you never know. Land isn’t staked out. to death. Maybe we can have Greenland – asks Gabriel. Matip’s compound. We drive back. areas shaded in green. “You’ve got a splotch It’s common. Ownership is seasonal, and there’s a lot of land there.” “Uh, Ray Charles . . . no, Stevie Wonder,” We smoke hookahs at the hotel. in North America,” he says. “A splotch in fluid. So when you get an individual lay- Heilberg says. We wait. “And there’s Ray We order pizza. We drive to the South America. Pockets in the U.K. But ing claim to such a large chunk of land, fter the initial meeting Charles!” The Global Nile. We drive back. It begins to the main interest is this black soil going up prime grazing land, you’re basically start- with Matip, things in Juba grind Gabriel finally secures a meeting with Aseem like a farce. Heilberg either has Juba through Russia and the Ukraine – some of ing another war.” to a halt. Heilberg spends day Dr. Joseph for six that evening. Heilberg all wrapped up, or he has nothing but his the best soil in the world.” In Atkin’s view, Still, even the consultant admits that after day in his hotel – two rows puts on a dark suit and dark tie; Gabri- Land Grab capitalist ideals and a strange friendship environmental factors – frigid winters and Heilberg’s holdings are good land. Ac- of well-appointed prefab contain- el sticks with his gold-colored tracksuit. Countries are racing to buy up with some Sudanese generals. It will be short growing seasons – have helped keep cording to Atkin’s soil map, the region isn’t Aers stacked on top of each other – waiting Just before sunset, we climb into Gabri- farmland across the world, often impossible to know which until the fight- prices low there; a hectare of black earth in quite as fertile as the belt of black earth in for word that the president or agriculture el’s Land Cruiser and bounce along pot- through government-backed ing begins. Romania is a fifth of the price of a hectare Russia – a shade away from perfect. But minister is ready to meet. To pass the time, holed dirt tracks in the direction of the companies. (Figures include On one of our last mornings, Gabriel dis- in England. Overlay a climate-change map by some accounts, parts of Africa he sits in the air conditioning, smok- jebel, Juba’s landmark mountain, pass- pending and failed deals.) appears. He doesn’t show up at the hotel. on the soil map, Atkin says, maybe add ing cigars and playing Texas Hold’em ing an open-air market and a field of huts He stops answering his phones. Finally, population data, and you could on his BlackBerry. He reads the that have been razed by the government. just before dinnertime, he lopes in. “These make a fortune. He himself has book he brought along on the trip: Now the area is populated by mounds of China guys were following me on the road,” he just returned from Ukraine, and Sailing From Byzantium: How a burning trash. estimated Acres 19 million says. He pulled off on a side street, and one Bidwells has been working in Ro- Lost Empire Shaped the World. Dr. Joseph lives in an impressive house Targets Philippines, Kazakhstan, Russia, of his pursuers cut around him, blocking mania for five years, doing what On the third morning, Gabriel surrounded by a thick white wall and at- Cameroon, Australia, Mozambique, his escape. When the man stepped into the Atkin calls “parceling” – a plot-by- stops by the hotel. It’s beginning to tended by a servant, who seats us on plush Canada, Sudan, Brazil road, holding a gun, Gabriel ran him over. fake-leather couches below a languid ceil- Impetus Has 20 percent of plot approach to the land grab. “We look like nothing is going to hap- world’s population, but only The second attacker came up from behind. re-aggregate small plots that were pen. No new land deals. No over- ing fan and offers each of us a Coke and a eight percent of arable land “I opened the door and hit him, and then he bottle of water. Across from us are three reallocated to everybody post-com- flights or jeep tours. No meeting Roadblock Kazakh protestors fell on the ground,” Gabriel says. munism,” he says. “You’re getting with the president. “Let’s go see Sudanese dignitaries watching a Nigerian took to the streets in January: “What did you say to them?” I ask. loads of villagers in a room with the Dad,” Heilberg suggests. Gabri- soap opera on a widescreen TV. “Stay away “Kazakh land is my land!” “We don’t say anything,” Gabriel says. “I mayor, and the mayor is saying, ‘All el tells us that the general’s fam- from my wife!” yells one actor. “Which collect their phones, and their guns.” right, who wants to sell their plot, ily compound in Unity state has wife?” says the other. “And kick them in the nuts!” Heilberg and who doesn’t?’ ” just been attacked by a longtime Dr. Joseph has yet to return home. We saudi arabia says. As climate change pushes farm- rival, part of the endless jock- sink back into the couches. Heilberg be- estimated Acres 6 million By now, Heilberg isn’t bothering to ask ing to higher latitudes, the money eying for position as the south gins talking nonstop, filling the silence. Targets Indonesia, Tanzania, Ethiopia, about signatures or meetings. The next has followed. Two of the most visi- inches toward independence. At first it seems like he’s keeping up ap- Egypt, Sudan day, when the European arbitration court ble farmland investors – British-run Greed is good Heilberg during his early One of Matip’s guards was captured in pearances for me. Then I realize that he’s Impetus Effort to farm wheat in the des- announces a ruling on the oil-rich region Landkom and Swedish-run Black days on Wall Street: “It’s like a drug.” the assault, and the general is too angry keeping them up for himself. He’s spent ert drained the country’s aquifers of Abyei, it’s not so bad for the south that Earth – have funneled hundreds of mil- to see anyone. five years of his life setting the stage in Royal Blessing Businessmen it causes immediate fighting, but it’s not lions of dollars into agricultural operations will get more rain because of global warm- “OK, so what’s the plan for today?” Heil- Sudan. That a supposed ally is too busy to who delivered first shipment of so good that it calms anyone down. Just in Ukraine and Russia. BlackRock has in- ing, including southern Sudan. Insofar as berg asks. “Have you found anyone for the meet with him – that there’s any weakness Ethiopian rice granted audi- in case, the country’s cellphone service is vested $250 million in British farmland, Heilberg believes in climate change, he be- agriculture?” The minister isn’t available, in his plan – doesn’t fit the heroic Rand ence with King Abdullah. jammed. There’s nothing to do but watch Pergam Finance has sunk $70 million into lieves in the effects, not the causes – the de- says Gabriel. “OK, so that’s tomorrow,” ian narrative. CNN. Heilberg is waiting for Matip to former ranches in Uruguay and Argentina, sertification and the fights over water and Heilberg says, turning the conversation to Heilberg starts counseling Gabriel south korea clean house, to drive off his remaining and Agcapita has put $18 million into Can- land that only make his farmland invest- new land acquisitions. “So we’ll find out about his dad. The general refuses to leave rivals and establish order in the coun- ada’s future corn belt. After Saskatchewan ment smarter. And he sees other upsides to about the Bari? What about Upper Nile?” his compound until he can discuss the re- estimated Acres 6 million try. He looks at Gabriel. “I was there with land prices jumped 15 percent in 2008 – global warming. On his laptop, he keeps a Soon, there is little more business to dis- cent attack with the president. “It’s called Targets Madagascar, Sudan, Mongolia, your father two years ago, when he told Russia, Argentina, Philippines the largest increase on record – Agcapita file on mineral-rich Greenland. He’s heard cuss. We talk about life. Heilberg tells us anxiety,” Heilberg says sympathetical- them he would burn down Juba,” he says. Impetus “We can’t eat semiconductors,” began raising its next $20 million. that the country has a secession movement that he’s given up diet cherry Pepsi – he ly. “Everyone gets it. It builds up in your says Richard Shin of Daewoo Logistics. “I think this is coming. It is coming soon. One of the most aggressive climate in- of its own. “Maybe global warming means worries the artificial sweetener will give mind.” Gabriel looks worried. “Have you Roadblock Daewoo deal in Madagascar It’ll be short.” vestors is Jim Slater, the co-founder of we can live in the Arctic,” he says. “The him Alzheimer’s. He tells us about the re- ever seen the movie Analyze This?” Heil- canceled after it fueled a coup d’etat. We sit with the general once more in the British-run Agrifirma, who came to fame Nordic countries seem to have a good bal- ally hot personal yoga instructor he had, berg asks. courtyard, guards and elders and wives writing an investment column for the a point of domestic tension: “I’m in my “Analyze what?” flitting by in the shadows, a television flick- Sunday Telegraph that he signed “The living room doing my yoga, and my wife “No, no – it’s a movie with Robert De united arab emirates ering a few feet away. Matip is still slouch- Capitalist.” In one previous venture, Slat- flips out!” Niro. He’s a mob boss, and he’s getting re- estimated Acres 4 million ing, but this time he looks Heilberg in the er made annual profits of 66 percent on Gabriel tells us that his own wife, who ettersson/getty images ally angry, and Billy Crystal tells him, ‘You Targets Sudan, Pakistan, Ukraine, New eye as he speaks. “What he can tell you is uranium and molybdenum in Greenland, “I can see It,” he cost him 89 cows, has just run out on him. know what I do when I’m really angry? I Zealand, Morocco, Cambodia this,” Gabriel translates for his father. “All nders P where retreating glaciers have extend- Heilberg offers him some tea. “We Are A hit a pillow.’ So he takes out his gun and Impetus One of world’s fattest countries; the things going on here, they are not good. ed the range of mining operations. Now, says, explaining the World” blares from the hotel’s speak- er- starts shooting a pillow. Crystal’s like, ‘Feel population doubling every nine years You should go. Go to America, and he will in Brazil, Slater has spent $20 million to er system. better?’ and De Niro says, ‘Yeah, I do.’ Your Sheep-cropping Using land in Vietnam call you. He’s not happy about the way the to raise and slaughter sheep, then flying buy or option 170,000 acres and survey how he’ll profit “Did you call Dr. Joseph?” Heilberg asks. dad needs to feel better. I know the way he them back to the UAE. government works. He will find out what another 6 million. Brazilian agriculture The doctor – who serves as the south’s min- is. He can get it all out.” things happen, and why. In a short time, will be relatively protected from the rav- from the coming ister of health – is another board member. alla/ap images; P We wait until 10:00. Dr. Joseph never we’ll rise, and put on the Internet, and you ages of climate change, he insists, because “Call Dr. Joseph, and see if he’s around.” shows. When we leave, Heilberg looks sick india will read in America.” the country has “about 15 percent of the age of scarcity. Dr. Joseph isn’t around. to his stomach. “Are you sure he’s still with estimated Acres 2 million “Thank you,” Heilberg says. “I know world’s recoverable water supply – 90 per- “We Are the World” comes on again – us?” he asks Gabriel. Targets Ethiopia, Madagascar, you’ll be successful. The way they’re doing cent more than its nearest rival.” “People will panic, the music is on a loop. /landov; Hussein M But any hit to his confidence is buried, Tanzania, Paraguay, Uruguay, things can’t last. History has shown us In the midst of such far-flung competi- “Is that Bruce Springsteen?” Heilberg temporary. The next morning, Heilberg is Argentina, Indonesia that’s how revolutions happen. But I hope tion, Heilberg is betting heavily on an area especially those asks. We fall silent, listening. REUTERS back to his old self. If any of his allies have Impetus Unpredictable you will call me back soon, documents in that many Western investors have avoid- “I think that one is Michael Jackson,” been bought off, it’s only more proof that monsoons, booming hand, and we will all smile and be happy.
umatov/ population h ed. “Honestly, I don’t advise anyone to do says Gabriel. eilberg Matip needs to sweep away the rot. If Heil- Luckily, it’s not all up to us.” He gestures to
who have no land il h Unintended Irony Largest h any farming north of Juba,” says an Amer- “Michael Jackson,” Heilberg agrees. We amil Z berg’s venture looks tenuous, clouded by source of leased farmland, the sky. “There is a higher power.” ican consultant close to the Dinka leader- wait for the next verse. political games, it’s only more proof that Ethiopia, is also the world’s That night, Heilberg goes straight to his ship. “You never know whose land you’re to grow Food on.” “That’s Cyndi Lauper,” I say. Juba needs to burn. If an individual’s vi- largest recipient of food aid. room, downs a dose of NyQuil and passes
standing on. They’re pastoralists. One “Bob Dylan,” Heilberg says next. courtesy of p from top: Sh sion is pure enough, reality bends to it. out. The next morning, [Cont. on 82]
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