Ethiopia at centre of global farmland rush
21 March, 2011 | John Vidal in Gambella, Ethiopia (The Guardian)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Locals move out as international contractors seize
opportunities offered by government to lease farmland at
knockdown rates
Karuturi snapped it up, and next year the company, one of the
world's top 25 agri-businesses, will export palm oil, sugar, rice and
other foods from Gambella province – a remote region near the
Sudan border – to world markets.
Ethiopia is one of the world's largest recipients of humanitarian food
and development assistance, last year receiving more than 700,000
tonnes of food and £1.8bn in aid, but it has offered three million
hectares (7.4 million acres) of virgin land to foreign corporations
such as Karuturi.
"It's very good land. It's quite cheap. In fact it is very cheap. We
have no land like this in India," says Karmjeet Sekhon, project
manager for what is expected to be one of Africa's largest farms.
"There you are lucky to get 1% of organic matter in the soil. Here it
is more than 5%. We don't need fertiliser or herbicides. There is
absolutely nothing that will not grow on it.
"To start with there will be 20,000 hectares of oil palm, 15,000
hectares of sugar cane and 40,000 hectares of rice, edible oils and
maize and cotton. We are building reservoirs, dykes, roads, towns
of 15,000 people. "This is phase one. In three years time we will
have 300,000 hectares cultivated and maybe 60,000 workers. We
could feed a nation here."
Sparsely-populated Gambella is at the centre of the global rush for
cheap land, precipitated by the oil price rise in 2007/2008, when
many countries racked by food riots encouraged their farmers to
invest abroad to grow food.
The lowest prices are in Africa, where, says the World Bank, at
least 35 million hectares of land has been bought or leased. Other
groups, including Friends of the Earth International, say the figure is
higher. The Ethiopian government says 36 countries including India,
China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have leased farm land there.
Gambella has offered investors 1.1 million hectares, nearly a quarter
of its best farmland, and 896 companies have come to the region in
the last three years. They range from Saudi billionaire Al Amoudi,
who is constructing a 20-mile canal to irrigate 10,000 hectares to
grow rice, to Ethiopian businessmen who have plots of less than
200 hectares.
This month the concessions are being worked at a breakneck pace,
with giant tractors and heavy machinery clearing trees, draining
swamps and ploughing the land in time to catch the next growing
season.
Forests across hundreds of square km are being clear-felled and
burned to the dismay of locals and environmentalists concerned
about the fate of the region's rich wildlife.
Local government officers have denied claims that people are being
forcibly moved to make way for foreign companies.
"This year we will relocate 15,000 people to give them better
access to water, schools and transport. [But] it is a coincidence that
the investors are coming at the same time as the villages are being
relocated," said Kassahun Zerrfu from Gambella's department for
investment.
"We are not relocating people to give land to the investors. The
problem is there is no infrastructure where they have lived. It's all
voluntary."
Under the government's "villagisation" programme, three or four
villages at a time are being moved closer to roads and services, but
many people say they are not being compensated and are having to
wait. "We were promised a school, a health clinic and fresh water
eight months ago. We only have one water pump so far," said Udul
Ujulu, chief of Karmi village, a new village of 250 people nine miles
outside Gambella town.
Others displaced by new farms said they were scared for their lives
if they complained. "What power do we have to stop them? We just
stay silent," said one farmer told to move off his land.
"There is no movement of population. It's their choice to have these
basic services. But they have to abandon their previous way of life,"
said farm minister Wondirad Mandefro.
Courtesy
21 March, 2011 | John Vidal in Gambella, Ethiopia (The Guardian)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Locals move out as international contractors seize
opportunities offered by government to lease farmland at
knockdown rates
- It's the deal of the
century: £150 a
week to lease more
than 2,500 sq km
(1,000 sq miles) of
virgin, fertile land –
an area the size of
Dorset – for 50
years. Bangalore-
based food company
Karuturi Global says
it had not even seen
the land when it was
Karuturi snapped it up, and next year the company, one of the
world's top 25 agri-businesses, will export palm oil, sugar, rice and
other foods from Gambella province – a remote region near the
Sudan border – to world markets.
Ethiopia is one of the world's largest recipients of humanitarian food
and development assistance, last year receiving more than 700,000
tonnes of food and £1.8bn in aid, but it has offered three million
hectares (7.4 million acres) of virgin land to foreign corporations
such as Karuturi.
"It's very good land. It's quite cheap. In fact it is very cheap. We
have no land like this in India," says Karmjeet Sekhon, project
manager for what is expected to be one of Africa's largest farms.
"There you are lucky to get 1% of organic matter in the soil. Here it
is more than 5%. We don't need fertiliser or herbicides. There is
absolutely nothing that will not grow on it.
"To start with there will be 20,000 hectares of oil palm, 15,000
hectares of sugar cane and 40,000 hectares of rice, edible oils and
maize and cotton. We are building reservoirs, dykes, roads, towns
of 15,000 people. "This is phase one. In three years time we will
have 300,000 hectares cultivated and maybe 60,000 workers. We
could feed a nation here."
Sparsely-populated Gambella is at the centre of the global rush for
cheap land, precipitated by the oil price rise in 2007/2008, when
many countries racked by food riots encouraged their farmers to
invest abroad to grow food.
The lowest prices are in Africa, where, says the World Bank, at
least 35 million hectares of land has been bought or leased. Other
groups, including Friends of the Earth International, say the figure is
higher. The Ethiopian government says 36 countries including India,
China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have leased farm land there.
Gambella has offered investors 1.1 million hectares, nearly a quarter
of its best farmland, and 896 companies have come to the region in
the last three years. They range from Saudi billionaire Al Amoudi,
who is constructing a 20-mile canal to irrigate 10,000 hectares to
grow rice, to Ethiopian businessmen who have plots of less than
200 hectares.
This month the concessions are being worked at a breakneck pace,
with giant tractors and heavy machinery clearing trees, draining
swamps and ploughing the land in time to catch the next growing
season.
Forests across hundreds of square km are being clear-felled and
burned to the dismay of locals and environmentalists concerned
about the fate of the region's rich wildlife.
Local government officers have denied claims that people are being
forcibly moved to make way for foreign companies.
"This year we will relocate 15,000 people to give them better
access to water, schools and transport. [But] it is a coincidence that
the investors are coming at the same time as the villages are being
relocated," said Kassahun Zerrfu from Gambella's department for
investment.
"We are not relocating people to give land to the investors. The
problem is there is no infrastructure where they have lived. It's all
voluntary."
Under the government's "villagisation" programme, three or four
villages at a time are being moved closer to roads and services, but
many people say they are not being compensated and are having to
wait. "We were promised a school, a health clinic and fresh water
eight months ago. We only have one water pump so far," said Udul
Ujulu, chief of Karmi village, a new village of 250 people nine miles
outside Gambella town.
Others displaced by new farms said they were scared for their lives
if they complained. "What power do we have to stop them? We just
stay silent," said one farmer told to move off his land.
"There is no movement of population. It's their choice to have these
basic services. But they have to abandon their previous way of life,"
said farm minister Wondirad Mandefro.
Courtesy
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| Karmjeet Sekhon, project manager for Indian food company Karuturi Global, with crops in Ethiopia's Gambella province. Photograph: John Vidal for the Guardian |