A recent article from the Telegraph on the growing trend of first-world nations purchasing farmland in third-world African countries contained the following short description:

India, once the colonial jewel of Britain’s empire, has been accused of ‘neo-colonialism’ in Africa where its business people have joined a race with China, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to buy up agricultural estates and take advantage of cheap labour.

The objective is to paint the investment in a negative light by comparing it to colonalism and accusing them of “[taking] advantage” of local labor.

The colonialism comparison is just absurd, as there is nothing remotely similar between the forced political and cultural subjugation of a people, and the voluntary exchange of goods (land) or services (labor) for money.  As to whether anyone is being taken advantage of, one need only ask the simple question of whether or not Africans would be better off without the jobs created by foreign investment in food production.  To ask the question is to answer it.  Of course they wouldn’t be.  Cheap labor is only available because the alternatives are worse.