African Diamond Miners Choosing Carrots Over Carats

Finally, some good news to come out of the global recession! As the price of rough diamonds plummets in Africa, miners throughout the continent are instead turning toward a future in agriculture.

Diamond mining has nearly destroyed many African nations. In Sierra Leone, for instance, diamonds are what fueled an 11-year civil war, which killed or injured nearly 100,000 people and displaced millions. The conflict was popularized in the Oscar-nominated blockbuster film, Blood Diamond, starring Leonardo DiCapprio.

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With a renewed focus on farming, sustenance is finally taking precedence over bloodshed. “We are noticing with the decline in mining and with huge unemployment rates across the district, that there is much more interest in our agriculture programmes,” said a spokesperson for COOPI, an international NGO which helps youths begin as farmers.

According to one COOPI youth counselor, 80% of the youths in Sierra Leone would probably choose farming today over mining, if they were given the right tools and education. It simply makes more sense. Pit men can labor for hours just to make the wages necessary for a bowl of rice and sauce. Instead, that labor could be spent growing their own food.

Furthermore, diamond mining is a horribly unsustainable and environmentally destructive use of the land. The process of pit mining pollutes the water supply, contaminates the soil and causes widespread desertification– a growing concern across Africa already due to increased droughts and climate change.

Diamond prices have already fallen by 20%, and some reports suggest that they may fall by another 60%. One of the largest mining firms in Sierra Leone, Koidu Holdings, once employed 600 miners. Today they retain only 60. Yet despite concerns for increased poverty, now for the first time that hard labor is being wrought for food rather than rocks.

It’s a refreshing change for the once blood-strewn region. Perhaps moving into the future, it’ll be for the promise of blood oranges, rather than blood diamonds, that the soil is turned and the hoes are clocked.

Source: IRIN Africa

Image Credit: Julien Harneis on Flickr under a Creative Commons License

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