Ethiopia Is Embracing GMOs Slowly, Quietly

Global conglomerates of farm inputs, seeds, fertilizer, GMO crops providers, are coming to Ethiopia. Are they bringing a miraculous solution to the country’s food security problem, as they claim or delayed toxicity, as detractors argue?

Twenty-five large French companies and entities in the agricultural field will be making an exploratory visit to Ethiopia from 15 September to 19 September 2019, according to the Ethiopian Embassy in France.

Most of them are from an international agricultural co-operative called Limagrain Group, a group of radical rural campaigners claiming to be in favour of open-field [GM] experiments. Established as a cooperative, the French group is active in the field of vegetable seeds and field crops (corn, wheat, etc.) via the Vilmorin listed company, of which it controls 72.5% of the capital.

The company has been providing the corn and soybean seeds that it develops in similar climates in Latin America and Asia to West African countries such as Cameroon, Mali and Senegal. More than 330,000 tons of grain are processed each year in seven production plants across Europe, according to Limagrain.

In 2014, Limagrain invested up to US$60 million for a 28% stake in SeedCo, one of Africa’s largest home-grown seed companies, despite opposition from certain corners. The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), a Pan African platform comprising networks and farmer organizations described Limagrain’s move as an attempt to devour the continent’s seed company through acquisition and neo-colonial occupation by the French to benefit from SeedCo’s involvement in input subsidy schemes in Africa.

The Ethiopian officials consider the arrival of multinational companies in the agricultural and other sectors as a welcome move in a bid to help the country become self-sufficient and potentially exporters of food.

However, critics say some fundamental issues, such as the effects of the imported seeds, fertilizers and genetically modified crops, and the ecological, economic impacts of introducing new plants into the environment are being glossed over for the sake of presenting it all in a positive light.

“Whoever controls the seed market controls the food supply and the people. Technology can be good if properly utilized, but the issue of power concentration in few hands is worrying”, says Teshome Hunduma, who is currently doing research on seed system development from Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

Farmers cannot save and reuse hybrid seeds as the yield decreases when recycled. They have to buy every year and this creates dependency.

Limagrain describes its products, not as GMO but rather seed selection and varietal cross-breeding to offer more productive varieties. Explaining the nature and virtue of those grain and seeds, Frédéric Savin, Limagrin’s Africa director says “It is a hybrid variety. It offers substantial progress. Compared with the local variety, the result is nearly double.” Teshome agrees with Mr. Savin on the high yield that farmers get from hybrid seeds. The problem is that “farmers cannot save and reuse hybrid seeds as the yield decreases when recycled. They have to buy every year and this creates dependency. Which means it is risky when the company fails to supply seeds due to various reasons and decide on the price of these seeds. Farmers prefer open-pollinated varieties for the purpose of saving and reuse,” explains Teshome.

Even in its own turf, the company has been facing resistance and opposition from a broad range of farm, consumer, environmental and health organizations. In January 2018, Limagrain’s two plots of wheat had been destroyed in Seine-et-Marne, France by mowers who accused of the company running “hidden GMOs.” The company lamented that its one year of field trials was lost, costing it around one million euros.

Limagrain is not completely new to Ethiopia. It has already been collaborating with an intermediary, an Israeli-based NGO (some say a lobbyist), Fair Planet to provide seeds to Ethiopian farmers for the past three years.

On its website, Fair Planet says it works to “increase food security and provide new economic opportunities for smallholder farmers in developing countries, through access to high-quality seed varieties.” To secure those seeds, Fair Planet partners with the global agribusiness conglomerates. Other than Limagrain, these include Switzerland’s Syngenta, Netherland’s Enza Zaden and East-West Seed, Germany’s Bayer-Monsanto. Whether big multinational companies selling seeds to small farmers are the solution remain a question among certain professionals.

Stating that the subsistence farming method in Ethiopia is inefficient and marked by significantly lower yields, Fair Planet claims that farmers working with it can increase productivity more than five times and increase income up to eight times. However, AFSA objects to this characterization. “The vast bulk of food produced on the continent comes from homegrown farmers’ seeds (some studies put the figure at 80%). If these seeds are so “backward,” what moves farmers to keep preserving and planting them?” it asks in one of its newsletters.

BASF, another German chemical group and the world’s third-largest crop chemicals supplier, has also been active in the Ethiopian vegetable seed business since August 2018. Abnet Belachew, country manager to Ethiopia with BASF trade office said that the group works to complete the agricultural solutions concentrated around biological and chemical deliverables, soil fertility enhancement and pest and diseases protections. In addition to products that help deter infestations of fall armyworm in maize, BASF has been supplying diverse pesticides for crop protection, he said.

Yet BASF’s genetically modified products have not been always welcomed in Europe. Three of the first genetically modified potatoes were forbidden from being sold in Europe in January 2013, forcing the company to withdraw its applications for marketing authorization in the European Union.

Ethiopia has long been resisting genetically modified organisms and food options that are often adulterated by pesticides, despite intensive lobbying, often by the purveyors of GMO seeds, multi-national giants. However, all indications are it is now succumbing to the promises of GMOs, gradually and discretely.

Corteva Agriscience, the agriculture division of the American brand DowDuPont, opened its office in Addis Ababa in mid-April, 2019. The company says it is focused on bringing farmers “best-in-class seeds and crop protection solutions”, to maximize the farmer’s yields and improve their profitability in these markets, as it was stated at the launching ceremony.

However, what was not mentioned was how lawmakers in several states of the USA were trying to ban one of its products, a pesticide called chlorpyrifos that said to kill insects on contact by attacking their nervous systems. “Several studies have linked prenatal exposure of chlorpyrifos to lower birth weights, lower IQs, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other developmental issues in children,” Ana B. Ibarra wrote on Governing website.

The entrance of those companies in the Ethiopian agriculture sector would have major ramifications, specialists say. Teshome Hunduma told Ethiopia Observer the discussions related to GMOs have always been a sustainability question i.e. whether they are environmentally safe, technically appropriate, economically viable and socially acceptable or not.

He says there is also an issue of power balance between multinational companies that have control over the technology through intellectual property rights such as patents and weak governments in the Global South like Ethiopia and their subsistence farmers.

In Ethiopia, one person particularly was key in trying to keep genetically modified crops at bay through adamant and active opposition: Dr. Tewolde B. Gebre Egziabher. The man who served as Ethiopia’s General Manager for Environmental Protection Authority for more than two decades actively took part in international negotiations for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to safeguard biodiversity and defend traditional rights of farmers and communities to their crop diversity. The CBD was finalized in 1992.

Tewolde led the African and Like-Minded Group in negotiations for what was called Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety finally agreed in Montreal, Canada in 2000. In Ethiopia, he initiated and worked to enact a biosafety proclamation in 2009 based on precautionary principles as a foundation for GMO regulation system to avoid potential social, economic and environmental risks.

However, in 2014, Ethiopia approved the commercial cultivation of genetically modified insect-resistant BT cotton and field research on GM maize. “The amendment of the law was not because Ethiopia was keen on biotechnology research or because it had the capacity to ensure the use of GMOs that may have adverse effects on biological diversity and subsistence farmers,” Teshome says. Rather the government has made the amendment to allow GM pest-resistant plant cotton variety, which produces an insecticide to kill bollworm namely BT cotton to meet the growing textile industry in Ethiopia, Teshome said.

However, Teshome explained, the Ethiopian government has not used an independent study that examines the experience of other countries on the benefits and risks of BT cotton when it amended its biosafety law. “We know that BT cotton failed in Burkina Faso due to loss of its insect-resistant traits and yield potential over time,” he added.

In recent years, government officials began working to develop a legislative mechanism, while practising GMO variety testing. Whether the genetically modified plants should be treated like their conventional equivalents or should a precautionary approach should be taken has to be decided.

For Teshome, even the regulatory system is not up to the standard in Ethiopia and the institutional arrangement is inconvenient as mandates are shared between the Ministry of Agriculture, and Environment, Forest and Climate Change Commission (currently under the Prime Minister’s office). Ethiopia needs to get its institutional arrangement right and address the public concern around the technology, he concluded.

Ethiopian Observer

Ethiopia Earned $318 Million From Horticulture Exports in 2018/19

Ethiopia collected some $318 million from the export of flowers and other horticulture products Ethiopian fiscal year, which ended July 7, 2019.

Mekonnen Hailu, Public Relations Director of the Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC), said the export of flowers alone generated $261 million of the mentioned sum, securing the rest, $57million, from the export of vegetables, fruit, and herbs.

... over a hundred companies have been engaged in the cultivation of flowers, fruit, and vegetables as well as herbs and supply of high-quality products to the international market.

Ethiopian horticulture products' main export destinations are the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, UK, USA, Japan, Norway, Germany, UAE, Belgium, and Italy.

Merkato

Giant Dam Project, Irrigated Sugar Plantations Disrupt Ethiopian Communities

A giant dam and irrigated sugar plantations are “wreaking havoc” in southern Ethiopia and threaten to wipe out tens of thousands of indigenous peoples , a US-based thinktank has claimed. The Oakland Institute says that while the Ethiopian government has made considerable progress on human rights under prime minister Abiy Ahmed, it has yet to address the impact of state development plans on indigenous populations in the lower Omo valley, where people face loss of livelihoods, starvation, and violent conflict .

Acute hunger is now widespread, the organisation said in a report, due to blockage of the Omo River by Gibe III, Africa’s tallest dam. Since late 2015, the dam has stopped the river’s annual flood, a natural event that the valley’s inhabitants have relied upon for centuries for farming. As a result, entire communities have been tipped into destitution.

Responding to the report, Seleshi Bekele, Ethiopia’s minister of water, irrigation and electricity , said that while the government accepts there are problems, “the points raised in the paper are not properly documented or balanced.” Seleshi said solutions had been put in place to mitigate the impact of the dam, including small-scale irrigation and outgrower schemes.

According to the report, however, such promises have not materialised. Moreover, said the study, communities claim they were tricked into leaving their ancestral land in order to make way for sugar plantations built by the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation as part of its mammoth Omo-Kuraz sugar development project (OKSDP). The project, a 100,000 hectare (247,000 acre) irrigated agricultural scheme, is fed by the waters of the Omo.

Indigenous populations were told the sugar plantations would bring hundreds of thousands of new jobs to the region. They were pressed to give up nomadic livestock-herding and adopt sedentary lifestyles, as part of the Ethiopian government’s controversial “villagisation” programme, which has since been halted. Some were threatened with having their cattle seized or killed by police.

The report alleges that resettlement sites are not big enough to feed families, and that promised services – schooling, healthcare, grinding mills, food aid, and electricity – either remain undelivered or have been woefully inadequate. Only a small percentage of new jobs have materialised, with a large majority given to migrant workers from other regions of Ethiopia.

Seleshi countered that the Sugar Corporation had spent 79m Ethiopian birr (US$ 2.7m; June 2019) constructing infrastructure and social services in the valley, including schools and health centres.

This is Oakland’s fourth report on South Omo. In 2013 it accused the Ethiopian government of using killings, beatings and rapes in order to force indigenous communities to accept the sugar cane projects. It also accused western aid agencies of covering up evidence of the abuses. Other international groups such as Human Rights Watch and Survival International have also condemned the government for abuses in South Omo in the past.

Yet there are some signs of a change in approach. At an April seminar on South Omo’s livelihood challenges,  government minister Seyoum Mesfin told visiting academics and journalists that the new government recognised certain “development interventions in the pastoralist areas … came with a cost.” The minister ... and added that the government “will not allow a repeat of those situations”.

Full article...

Ethiopia 2019/20 Coffee Exports To Rise To Record High

 Ethiopia, Africa’s top coffee producer, is expected to export a record-high 4 million 60-kg bags of coffee in 2019/20, the U.S. Department of Agriculture attache in Addis Ababa said, as yields improve and the area dedicated to coffee farming increase.
Production of coffee is expected to rise to 7.35 million tonnes in 2019/20, an 1.4% increase from the 2018/19 season. Exports account for just over half of overall production, and are forecast to grow 0.5% in 2019/20 from the previous year to reach 4 million bags. Coffee is Ethiopia’s most important export.

Exporters in the country are facing increased regulation, the USDA said, with the government banning several exporters in recent months for defaulting on their contracts and hoarding beans.

While supplies are greater this year thanks to higher yields due to better rains and the reduced prevalence of disease, the USDA’s forecasted yield of 0.82 tonnes per hectare comes in well below the government’s target of 1.1 tonnes per hectare, the report noted.

And production continues to face the broader threat of farmers switching to other crops.

“One of the major challenges the Ethiopian coffee sector is facing is that many coffee producers, mostly from the eastern part of the country are tearing out the coffee bushes and replacing them with khat, a plant with stimulant properties,” the USDA said.

Meanwhile, domestic demand in Africa’s top coffee consumer is expected to remain robust, with the USDA expecting Ethiopian consumption to rise by 2.4% in 2019/20 compared to 2018/19.

Reuters

When do the 'democracy' credentials of an aid-recipient government matter, and when do they not?

That much of Africa has allowed itself to get pitifully hooked on foreign aid is no secret. In recent years there has been heated discussion about this, but the aid industry is not at all threatened. Too many interested parties are involved in it on both the donor and recipient sides for that to happen.

The aspects of this mutual dependence most often discussed are how much (or how little) the aid achieves, how sustainable the ‘projects’ it funds are, whether the donors are as dependent on the relationship as the recipients and so on.

In recent years there has also been talk about linking aid to ‘human rights, democracy and good governance,’ but there is no reason to think there is any shred of seriousness about this rhetoric, if even a cursory look at some of the worlds biggest donor/recipient relationships is any indication.

Of course there are varying levels of humanitarianism in donor/recipient relationships, but there are so many other factors that feed them from both sides.

One big issue that it is taboo to talk about is that many of the people who work in the ‘non-governmental’ sector that is almost totally donor-dependent might actually be ‘donating’ much more to their countries if they were in the productive sector-farming, setting up businesses, etc. But shhh, it is politically incorrect to think this.

Recently deceased Ethiopian president Meles Zenawi was rather effective at raising donor money in the western world. However, it was notable in the generally favourable eulogies in the ‘international media’ (people who use this term almost always actually mean the western media) that there were almost none who pretended that he was a great respecter of ‘human rights, democracy and good governance.’

Zenawi’s government’s forced mass villagisation campaign has received a lot of negative coverage, but at no time did that seem to threaten to stop the foreign aid taps from gushing their largesse.

One victim of the villagisation program has tried to get recourse in an innovative way-by suing the British government’s main aid-dispensing arm. The un-named farmer has reportedly engaged British lawyers to sue the UK Department for International Development for providing part of the funding for the program in Ethiopia.

Of course the DFID denies it specifically funds any such program, which may not be the farmer’s precise point anyway. That the Ethiopian government has in place such a controversial, much criticised scheme, or that the DFID gives it generous amounts of aid are not denied.

Question: putting aside the specifics of this case, in the whole aid-and-‘human rights, democracy and good governance’ discourse, which governments are ‘good’ enough to pat on the head with aid, and which ones are so ‘bad’ that they must be slapped on the wrist by being denied it? When is a despot an alright guy, and when is a despot a very bad boy?

Looking around at the world today, there seems no clear, consistent answer to the question! Perhaps the closest answer to the riddle is ‘when the despot is our friend he is okay, when he’s not, he’s not.’

Oh well, so much for the link between aid and respect for ‘human rights, democracy and good governance.’

African Agriculture

When foreign aid, investment props up unpopular regimes

Ethiopian blogger Keffyalew Gebremedhin makes some important points about the possible pitfalls of the various efforts of foreign parties to participate in the transformation of agriculture in countries like his. He writes generally favorably about these initiatives by private investors and 'development partner' (aid), but warns that these programs' chances of success are imperiled from the start when they are instituted in countries where there  is tension between the government and significant sections of the population.

Gebremedhin tackles the recently announced plan by the G8 group of nations to target increased agricultural production in a number of African countries through supporting various private sector efforts. He points out that the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition fist in very well with the pet project of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the 'African-led' Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA.) Ethiopia is going to be one of the testing grounds for the new G8 plan announced in May by U.S.president Barack Obama.

The Ethiopian government of prime minister Meles Zenawi is considered to be an African government in good standing in Western capitals, but is the object of much more, passionately mixed feelings amongst the country's citizens   

According to Gebremedhin, there is ''huge distrust of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s regime'' by Ethiopians. Two other major concerns are ''worries about the dangers of foreign companies serving their own interests at the expense of Ethiopia’s. There is also the fear of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), crops in general and if it results in possible loss of native crops, their consequences to human health and the environment in

particular.''

He continues, ''fears have been also been repeatedly expressed if Meles Zenawi succeeds in enlisting Bill Gates, as a famous person, to provide his tyrannical regime with international approval and support.''

Of course, one person's 'tyrannical regime' may be another person's dynamic reformer. The latter seems to be the view preferred by G8, if the presence of Zenawi at the May meeting was any indication. And if Gate's foundation has any problems with the current Ethiopian government, that certainly hasn't stopped its experiments in that country. So the fear expressed by Gebremedhin that powerful foreigners are giving support and succor to a ruler he and other Ethiopians may consider a ruthless despot is almost a moot point. 

Obama, G8, Gates & Co. have no problems with Zenawi, even if many Ethiopians do. As Gebremedhin writes in answer to his own earlier expressed worry, ''In his 8 May update, Bill Gates has responded to that extolling praises on Meles Zenawi, without addressing his human rights records.''

If the international agricultural interventions in Ethiopia are generally successful, the government will inevitably benefit politically. But if they fail, the various investors will also inevitably be tarred with the brush of association with a highly controversial government. 

Mentioned several times in the article is the perceived lack of information and transparency on the government's part to the citizens. If this feeling is widespread amongst Ethiopians, it is an issue of practical concern for all involved, including foreign investors, because of the particularly emotive rise evoked by the impression that their country is being hocked out to foreigners while they helplessly look on. The recent spate of fatal armed attacks on a Saudi rice farm is an early warning sign of the depth of local unhappiness about this.

Would more information prevent such feeling? Perhaps, but not if it revealed that foreign investors (and local politicians?) really were getting a much better deal than from the new deals than the country is doing.

Gebremedhin writes, ''The problem is not about what the foreign companies could and could not do. It is about the government failing to inform the public what is underway. The problem with this is that rightly or wrongly all companies may end up being associated with the regime, as its promoters and bank rollers it and its Machiavellian approaches, especially the end justifies the means the prime minister employs. In a country where the excesses of government have reached astounding levels, such reaction is inevitable and may impede the companies’ activities.''

Complicating the issue is that into the information vacuum have stepped in foreign NGOs and non-profits. These have tended to paint the wave of land/farming investment deals in Ethiopia in negative, sometimes even calamitous terms. In the absence of clear information from their own government, it is hardly surprising that a sense builds up amongst many Ethiopians that both the foreign investors and their own government have only contempt for their concerns. One result is that the various agricultural schemes are greeted by automatic cynicism and resentment, rather than on any merits they may have. 

His blog post is somewhat rambling, but Gebremedhin brings up important points that should occupy both the Ethiopian government, foreign investors and 'development partners' but probably don't, with consequences that will only become clear in the coming years.    

Given the wealth of information that there now is particularly about how not to engage in 'development,' it is astonishing how people who really should know better keep on sabotaging by poor implementation what might otherwise be very good plans. How a plan is perceived can be as important to its success as how well it is conceived or funded.  

African Agriculture 

    

   

A second wave of formal commodities trading takes hold in Africa

African countries are often urged to open up their agricultural markets by their 'development partners', but this is not as straightforward as it must seem to those dispensing this advice. Particularly for key 'political' food security crops like maize, there are times when there are very strong pressures for governments to be involved in their pricing and marketing.

In the 1990s, when the religion of 'structural adjustment' as defined by the International Monetary Fund reigned, many African countries established commodity exchanges. Among the positives they were designed to deliver were greater market information, more transparency in pricing and better prices and terms for farmers.

Almost none of the countries that seriously tried to have functioning commodity exchanges then still do. The reasons for the experiment not working quite as intended are many and varied, and depend on who you ask. The result is that there are sectoral auctions held (e.g. tea at Mombasa, Kenya or tobacco in Harare, Zimbabwe) but almost no countries with all-encompassing commodity exchanges. In particular, government price controls on maize are the norm rather than the exception.

Ethiopia is a recent exception to the rule. For a few years it has run a much-hyped commodity exchange. The  positive hype seems to mainly emanate from the exchange itself, so it is difficult to say whether it will in the long-run avoid the problems previous efforts in other countries have encountered.

But for now, other African countries are impressed and several seem eager to apply the Ethiopian example to their own circumstances.          

That is what 'Africa takes a second shot at commodities trading' in the Financial Times (UK) is about.

Writes Eleanor Whitehead, 'The ECX has been credited with giving farmers access to real time pricing information, improving profits and productivity, reducing market segmentation and boosting export quality. The stabilisation of domestic supply chains is also supporting agro-processors and exporters, diminishing concerns about once rampant contract default. All since its launch in 2008.'

Tanzania is just one country that has gone to the ECX to learn its secrets. others said to be in talks to have the Ethiopians help them set up their own exchanges are Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda and Nigeria.

The article says 'Hopes for greater success this time around are higher because – unlike before – countries are learning from an African success rather than trying to transplant exchange models wholesale from more sophisticated Western economies.'

Eleni Gabre-Madhin, CEO of the ECX, is quoted as already excitedly looking at the possibilities of collaboration with other African exchanges.

“If more African countries build commodity markets we can start to cross-list and create regional indices: an African coffee index, a West African cocoa index, an East African coffee index, a cotton market – and
develop an African presence in global markets,” Eleni Gabre-Madhin says.

It sounds good but caution is required. Cross-border exchanges are an excellent idea given African countries' small and scattered production of many agricultural commodities, but it it is not difficult to foresee some of the structural problems that would prove daunting, as well as the political ones. Certainly there are a lot of in-country marketing problems that national exchanges could play a big role in helping ameliorate.

However, African governments are very unlikely to completely leave political food security crops like maize (or rice, even though most is imported, and mostly by private players) to the vagaries of the market.  And even in Ethiopia, if there is global glut of its economically key coffee crop, don't expect the government to just shrug and say, ''Oh well, the depressed prices for our main export crop is just a symptom of how the market works.'' Expect strong attempts by government to interfere with production/pricing to try to firm up those prices, ECX or no ECX.

Whitehead points out that one British purchaser of coffee through the ECX has cautioned its customers that it cannot vouch for the exact origins of the coffee (traceability). So clearly there is a lot of work still to be done for purchase through the ECX to be considered a seal of approval, but it is fairly early days yet.

African Agriculture

Has Saudi Star learned right lessons from deadly anti-'land grab' attacks on its Ethiopian farm?

Chido Makunike

Major agricultural investor in Ethiopia, Saudi Star, has bigger problems there than it might have expected.

Negative publicity regarding Ethiopia’s aggressive drive to attract foreign investors into its agricultural sector has been relentless in recent years. The government is accused of brutally relocating communities to make way for the foreign investors, a charge it denies.

But now the local resentment has boiled over. In recent weeks there have been a number of reports of fatal armed attacks against Saudi Star. Ethiopian employees and Pakistan sub-contractors of the company are said to have been killed by groups thought to be opposed to the land give-aways, the government, or to both.

In a statement in response to what it said was the killing in late April by armed men of at least six Pakistanis and four Ethiopians, the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) summarized the reasons for ill-will against Saudi Star and other big investors, and against the government.

The SMNE statement said the assailants attacked a group of workers being dropped off at their company residential compound at the end of the day, as well as the Pakistanis (‘‘allegedly agricultural experts hired by Saudi Star’’) working in the offices. The statement claims that soldiers guarding the site ran away rather than confronting the armed gunmen, and only returned later to pick up the dead and wounded. A few policemen who tried to resist the 15-minute attack were apparently overwhelmed, one of them also being killed, and the gunmen were able to escape.

Says the SMNE, ‘‘These deaths could have been prevented. Since 2009, we have been calling for transparency and inclusion of the local people in the decision-making surrounding the long term leasing of agricultural land in Ethiopia to foreign investors and regime cronies for next to nothing.”

It then goes on to mention human rights abuses many other reports and organizations have alleged are associated with the Ethiopian’ government’s relocations and the land-leasing drive.

Getting to the crux of the matter, SMNE says, ‘‘Neither the Meles regime, Al Amoudi (the owner of Saudi Star) nor any other investor should expect there to be no reaction to these “takeovers” of land and water sources from the people whose ancestors have claimed this indigenous land for centuries. When they take away land and water, they take away the means to sustain life for the people. Some Anuak (the predominant ethnic group of the area in question) have said they now are waiting to die; others will fight. This should not come as a shock to anyone.’’

The presence of soldiers and policemen shows there was a realization of the potential for trouble. Other investors have almost boasted about the government’s protection of their farms, and the implied sense of security that provides. Yet the very need for these farms to also be armed camps, probably more so from now on than before, is a big part of the investors' problem. If feelings against them are so strong that there are groups willing to go as far as to confront the government’s on-site security forces and to commit mass murder, this is a heightened element of investment risk. It needs going back to the drawing board to think of how to relate to and engage with the locals, rather than merely to hire more guns and effect more ruthless security measures.

Yet the latter is exactly what the SMNE fears. It says, ‘‘Indigenous people fear collective retaliation by security forces…(prime minister Zenawi) Meles will crack down on all the people. It is the blueprint of their regime and they have done it many times before. They will try to hunt down the rebels in the bush, but they will be hard to find so in their frustration and in order to teach a “collective lesson” they will target the local people.’’

The ‘rebels’ may have other long-standing grievances with the government, but the deep unpopularity of the ‘land grabs’ has given them a powerful, emotive new issue to champion. In an already volatile situation, a foreign investor who makes no effort to respect and engage with the local communities becomes a very easy target for pent-up frustrations. This is especially so when the locals are dispossessed and treated with contempt, when no significant local benefits from the investment are apparent, and when they become thought of as allies and enablers of central government authorities the locals may consider as a significant part of their woes.

It is not a good way for a foreign entity to start a long-term investment!

If they didn’t know it before, Saudi Star seems to be slowly waking up to the fact that they might have a problem that will not go away simply because they have the protection of the government.

A May 30 Bloomberg report, ‘Saudi Star Offers Jobs to Overcome Criticism of Ethiopia Project,’ says offering ‘jobs and training’ to locals will be a key part of how it counters opposition.

‘Jobs and training’ are almost always mentioned as some of the major benefits that will accrue to locals as part of the controversial new wave of farmland investments. The locals perhaps weren’t told about this in this case, didn’t believe it or haven’t seen those jobs materialize since 2009, when Saudi Star’s rice project began.

But apart from that, it may be too late to easily appease the locals with promises of future ‘jobs and training.’ The importation of foreign ‘agricultural experts’ in the absence of accompanying training of locals will only have inflamed feelings even further. Local suspicions and resentments of investors and the central government are likely to be much higher and harder to overcome now than would have been the case if both parties had taken local sensibilities into account right from the conception and initial implementation stages of the project, rather than as an afterthought of an attempted public relations exercise three years later.

Besides, ‘jobs and training’ are not the only concerns now. They cannot compensate for the humiliation and resentment at alleged forcible relocations to make way for companies like Saudi Star. All over the world, governments often have to move people for reasons of what can be broadly considered the common or national good. But there is ample evidence,also from all over the world; that there are right, good and effective ways to do it, and that there ways to do it that only cause many short and long  term problems. These are the kind of big issues of ‘development’ that once poorly done cannot simply be corrected by offering some ‘jobs and training.’

According to the Bloomberg article, Saudi Star’s Chief Executive Officer Fikru Desalegn believes that ‘providing employment for residents of the Gambella will “definitely teach the public it is very useful for them,” Fikru said. Other benefits for the 13,000 residents of the area will include investment in infrastructure such as roads and vocational education by the company, he said.’

All this remains to be seen, not only in whether it materializes, but also in whether it will be sufficient to assuage the deep local grievances about the manner in which foreign investors have been suddenly thrust among them.

Meanwhile, ‘Work has resumed on the Saudi Star project and the federal police are guarding the area, Fikru said,’ Bloomberg tells us. “All the culprits were caught,” Fikru said. “Things are normalized. All our contractors are back to work.”

But are things really ‘‘normalized,’’ or are more soldiers and police simply going to cover up the many abnormalities for a while, until the next flare up of violence?

The style and manner of ‘land grabs’ or investments (take your pick) unfolding in Ethiopia has precedent in other parts of Africa, and indeed elsewhere. So much attention is paid to the potential benefits for investors and central government that little attention is paid to the sensibilities of communities. But land grabbing history in Africa and elsewhere has shown that these local communities, typically thought of as ‘backward’ and against outside efforts to ‘develop’ them, can get their comeuppance in unexpected ways, at a loss to all concerned.

It didn’t have to be this way. More humility and sensitivity to local concerns from the beginning by both the host government and sometimes just as arrogant investors could have resulted prevented some of the predictable but still alarming backlash against companies like Saudi Star.

In the recent land rush, it is astonishing how often it appears that otherwise smart people with millions of investment dollars at their disposal fail to ask some important basic questions before sinking their teeth into big projects.

It will be fascinating to watch how things develop with the Saudi Star and other investments in Ethiopia in the in the near and long term.

African Agriculture

Ethiopia resumes banana exports to Saudi Arabia after 50 years

After a 50 year suspension for undisclosed reasons, Ethiopia has resumed banana exports to Saudi Arabia.

Exports initially targeted at 200 tonnes a week began with a shipment from Gamo Gofa, a banana growing region of southern Ethiopia.

The Africa Report said the Ethiopian Horticulture Development Agency announced that 3100 hectares of land is to be devoted to the growing of bananas.

Ethiopia is said to have 11,400 banana farmers.

African Agriculture

Bad weather reduces Ethiopian Valentine's Day flower exports

Officials at the Ethiopian Flowers and Vegetables Exporters Association say that cold weather saw the late cutting of flowers, affecting exports to European market for Valentine's Day.

The association said that the country failed to reach an expected 30 percent increase in exports as the bad weather delayed flower cutting by up to 15 days.

Horticultural products have, in recent years become one of Ethiopia’s major export products along with traditional coffee. In 2011, the country made US$220 million from the horticulture industry, making it one of Ethiopia's biggest foreign currency earners.

Flower growers are benefiting from financial incentives as they mount a challenge to Kenya – the current African leader in flower exports.

"This year, the flower price was up in Europe and we were expecting to get more income from the sector. But we are unable to achieve the goal," the association said in a statement.

Prices of flowers in Europe have risen significantly, with some flowers fetching 0.60 euro, up from 0.25 euro.

Ethiopia began exporting flowers in 2001-02, earning US$159 000, exports soared to US$2.9 million the following year.

In the past six months, Ethiopia has earned US$156 million and is expecting to get more than US$300 million from annual exports.

Africa Report

For many Ethiopian farmers, sustainable farming more realistic, accessible than external inputs-based farming

Laura Rance, editor of the Manitoba Co-operator, Canada, recently went to Ethiopia on a media food study tour with the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. She found that many of the farming methods that are taken for granted in Canada, and advocated in Africa by some, are simply not within the realm of possibility for many Ethiopian farmers.

For some poor farmers, lack of access to hybrid seed, fertilizer and mechanization means poverty and hunger. But training in various sustainable farming methods can make a big difference in the livelihoods of farmers, giving them independence over their operations, improved food security and chances for surpluses to sell.

Many African countries have over the decades embarked on various ambitious agricultural ‘modernization’ programmes involving hybrid seed, fertilizer and agrochemicals and modern farm equipment. Usually funded by external donors or with expensive foreign debts, few countries are able to sustain them.

“A row of derelict tractors on an abandoned state farm is a fitting reminder that industrialized agriculture has a checkered future in this populous East African country,” begins Rance. “With their faded red paint, gutted engines and rotting tires gradually being swallowed by the prickly underbrush, these 1970s-vintage symbols of progressive agriculture represent a technology that has little application for the majority of Ethiopian farmers who use oxen and hoe on plots of two hectares or less.”

Despite modernization projects that are conceived and much-hyped every few years, Rance is on target to say that “it is highly unlikely that high input agriculture will do much – at least not directly - to improve the economic welfare of the small holder farmers or for the 10 to 20 per cent of the population that is chronically food insecure.”

This is as true in most of Africa as is it is in Ethiopia. The reasons for these failures have been mentioned exhaustively, and do not need repeating here in any great detail.

Once a big loan or grant has brought tractors or combine harvesters in, who will maintain them? Are there qualified mechanics to do so? If so, are they available out in the rural areas where the tractors are, or hundreds of kilometers away in the capital city? Are the spare parts available? Are they affordable? The tractor carcasses Rance mentions are probably the remnant of some previous ‘modernization’ effort where such basic questions were not asked.

Rance mentions some of the other impediments to well-intentioned but poorly, unrealistically conceived and implemented modern farming efforts all over Africa.

Tractors don’t much help farmers who can’t afford fuel, maintenance, repairs. Rain-dependent farming places severe limitations, as does limited, insecure land access.

The advice to farmers to use hybrid seed and fertilizer has often been accompanied by drought. In particularly stressed environments (low rain, high heat, depleted soil, etc) the results are particularly disastrous; perhaps even worse than if the farmers had relied on their own adapted seed and on improving intrinsic soil fertility.

“Many producers have come to associate commercial fertilizer with their parched, eroded soil’s declining fertility,” writes Rance.

To cope with their environmentally and climate-stressed environments, farmers are being encouraged to take up well-known sustainable farming methods which many farmers have over the years lost knowledge of, with encouraging results: no till, mulching, use of manure. Previously desperate farmers have seen their maize yields as much as double from these simple but effective techniques.

Many agricultural modernists are scornful of these humble methods. But they are unable to come up with a sustainable modernization model that addresses the many inter-linked causes of the failure of many such previous efforts.

The obstacles to the success of ‘modern farming’ in many African settings has been/is basic questions like: After you donate the tractor, how is it kept running? When you provide subsidized seed and fertilizer, how much good will they do where farmers depend on declining rain for their production?

Humble, accessible sustainable farming methods will for many African farmers continue to be a much more realistic option for avoiding starvation than theoretically good interventions that are for them merely pie in the sky.

African Agriculture

Is Ethiopia repeating Zimbabwe’s colonial-era land tenure mistakes?

by Chido Makunike

Ethiopia seems to feature more than any other African country in the charges of accommodating large land deals or land ‘grabs’ (choose depending on your bias) by foreign farming investors.

There is controversy about almost every aspect of them. Are the terms of the deals not too much in favor of the investors? What are those terms exactly? Will the host countries benefit much from them, or will they mostly be another type of resource plunder? How can Africa’s mostly communal land tenure systems be made compatible with commercial land leasing and ownership systems? Does the big new role of foreigners in answering that long outstanding question not create resentment and foster resistance to these deals?

Controversial as the deals may be, is it not necessary and unavoidable that at least some communal land gives way to high-intensity commercial use of one type or another? Has this not happened everywhere else in the course of ‘development?’ In respecting traditional communal land tenure indefinitely, would governments not actually be condemning many of their most vulnerable citizens to perpetual poverty, given declining soil fertility, increasing population pressures, climate unpredictability and so on; all factors that increasingly threaten the viability of rural life?

But then again, in countries where many have little else on which to sustain themselves except subsistence farming, is removing rural communities from their lands and livelihoods, no matter how basic, to make way for commercial farming not condemning them to an even more uncertain fate in new, unfamiliar territory?

These are just a few of the questions that face nearly all African countries, even those not currently in the news for ‘land grabs.’ These are issues that long preceded the current wave of land deals. None of the range of answers is as easy or straightforward as either supporters or opponents of the current deals would suggest.

Governments, investors and many others in between have often taken very simplistic positions on the land deals that leave out many of the complicated nuances. Media and various non-government organizations with their own rigid ideological or commercial interests at stake in supporting or opposing the land deals have only added to the confusion.

In making aggressive moves to develop a commercial agriculture sector, in many ways Ethiopia is going where Zimbabwe has been.

In certain media, any mention of Zimbabwe must automatically go hand in hand with phrases such as ‘Mugabe’s land grabs’ and the country ‘went from regional farming breadbasket to basket case.’ The idea is to emphasize the recent disruption of a system of title deeds-based farmland tenure that was long taken for granted, and a sophisticated, thriving commercial farming sector that was widely admired. ‘Mugabe’s land grabs’ from white farmers from about the year 2000 changed much of this. The country experienced several years of economic decline which it only arrested a few years ago, and is still  battling to rise from.

As successful as the ‘breadbasket’ was, the considerable emotion that events in Zimbabwe elicit in a surprising number of people even far removed, means that there is little interest in going back a little in history to see the roots of the eventual dismantling of the land tenure system that gave rise to it. How did that commercial, Western-style farmland tenure system come about?

It came about in ways somewhat similar to what is being alleged the present Ethiopian government is doing in displacing rural communities to make way for foreign farm investors.

From the early 1900s, white settlers in the then Rhodesia were given by the colonial governments huge parcels of land from which Africans had been uprooted. The ‘villagization’ that the Ethiopian government is said/accused to be embarking on today sounds vaguely similar to the ‘tribal trust lands’ to which Africans were forcibly moved by colonial governments from the early days of Rhodesia.

In both cases, the main reason was to give prime land to the favored elite of the time, whether white settlers then in Rhodesia or investors in Ethiopia today. However, incidental benefits for the displaced communities were also cited as justifications for the land grabs. In Rhodesia, it was said that the concentration of once widely scattered communities into fewer, smaller areas would make it easier for the colonial government to provide them various services, such as agricultural extension, schools and so on. In Ethiopia today, relocations which critics say are forced and violent, but which the government insists are voluntary, are explained as being to better enable access to schools, clinics and other basic social services.

Few of Rhodesia’s early white settlers had any farming experience at the time of getting land which had been grabbed from Africans. Many were rewarded with land for their role in African conquest, and some as thanks from then colonial power Britain for their service in Europe’s early 20^th century civil wars.

Title deeds-based land tenure on the grabbed land replaced the traditional communal tenure system of the dispossessed Africans. It was on this grabbed land that successive colonial governments supported the new land holders to develop into the impressive commercial farming sector that powered Rhodesia’s economy, and later Zimbabwe’s.

From a distance and from outside, and for a while even in the country itself, all that appeared on the surface was the farming and economic success. Below the surface, the sense of  grievance on which these successes were built was muted as long as the Africans enjoyed some of its crumbs, as farms workers or in the many downstream industries that resulted. But it never went away. It might have appeared as ancient history and finished colonial business for the then well-established descendants of the original white settlers, but it was a quietly present and continuing ‘issue’ for many Africans. The period from the colonial land grabs of the early 1900s to independence in 1980 was short enough that there were still many people alive who had personal memory of how they were chased from family lands, their cattle expropriated; forced labor and various taxes imposed on them. These stories were passed on from generation to generation in every African family.

The sense of African grievance that continued to fester over the land issue meant that all recognized the need for some type of land reform after 1980. One reason mostly polite discussion dragged on about the issue was the difficulty of how to raise the money to compensate the white land owners for any ceding of land to Africans they might agree to. In other words, the title deeds they held on land that had been grabbed from Africans several decades before were by most people seen as inviolate.

There was no talk, or very little, of invalidating the land deeds of black-ruled Zimbabwe because the land had been grabbed from Africans several decades before. It was sort of accepted that land reform negotiations would start on the basis and from the starting point of the colonial, title-based land tenure system, not the traditional African communal system that existed before that.                    

One of the reasons that ‘Mugabe’s land grabs’ have been so controversial, even emotional for many people, including those not directly involved, is that he invoked not the colonial title deed as the basis for land ownership legitimacy, but the land ownership rights of Africans before that; the ones that were grabbed from those Africans by the colonial governments. This was a very new post-colonial precedent that worries and outrages many people for all sorts of reasons not necessary to get into for the purpose of the present discussion.

Zimbabweans of all types were proud of their relatively developed, diversified economy and the ‘breadbasket’ commercial farming sector that underpinned it. All Zimbabweans suffered from the economic crisis that followed the recent land ‘re-grabs’ that were not well thought out. But it is interesting and important to note that there wasn’t/isn’t any  significant African sentiment for those land re-grabs to be reversed. Most Zimbabweans  want the land reform process and commercial agriculture fixed, but probably very few would advocate for the status quo to go back to the system of title deeds that originate in the era of colonial land grabbing.

If the old system of title deeds-based security of tenure is deemed illegitimate on the basis that they were issued on grabbed land, how is a new system of security of tenure to be built to give people the incentive to invest in land and ‘commercial’ farming again? Once today’s communal land has become a fully tradable commodity, how do poor rural farmers gain access to land and avoid being further marginalized by the few who can afford to buy it and acquire title deeds?  Despite the increasingly apparent problems plaguing it, is Africa’s communal land tenure system really outdated and to be discarded, or does it still serve useful functions that no other system can fully do? Could the traditional communal system and a new title-based system co-exist in the same area?

There are many answers proffered, but none that are universally accepted or that address all the related historical, legal, cultural, political and economic issues easily. 

It is easy to see the mess that this presents. For example, suppose you were a white farmer with a title deed in 2000 that lost his farm to the most recent ‘land grab.‘ What about if you had not inherited the land from an early 1900s British settler ancestor, but had bought it from the son or grandson of such a settler? Is ‘Mugabe’s land grab’ not clearly, obviously illegal and unfair to such a title holder? But what about if you were an African farm laborer on that same land, whose grandfather had been the early 1900s land holder from whom the land had been grabbed by the colonial government. It was then given, with title deed, to the white settler whose progeny then eventually sold the land and its title deed to today’s white farmer of my example.

Whose ‘ownership’ and whose ‘justice’ should prevail, and why?

If the colonial land tenure system was widely seen as unjust and illegitimate, clearly it is no longer possible or desirable to go back to the pre-colonial communal system, at least not on what had become ‘commercial’ farms. The people and times have largely changed. The need for that land to remain ‘commercially’ useful is recognized by all. Having demolished the system that existed for decades for its political/historical incorrectness, how do you build a new one that is politically correct while also giving land holders the room and incentive to invest and be productive? It is very far from straightforward.

To get back to today’s Ethiopian ‘land grabs,’ what is or isn’t happening in that country is from a distance very murky. It is almost impossible to accurately gauge the objectivity of the reports of those who slam or support the new land deals.

However, part of the lesson of Zimbabwe is that particularly in mostly agrarian societies, perceived ‘land grabs’ can set up a multiplicity of new problems decades after it appears they have been accepted as irreversible. Regardless of what impressive modern edifice is built upon land that there is majority consensus was unfairly ‘grabbed,’ especially in favor of ‘outsiders,’ there for a very long time will remain the explosive potential for conflict. All it needs is some small spark to set it off. 

Leading Indian agro-investor in Ethiopia, rose grower/exporter Karuturi Global, has been perhaps the most prominent beneficiary of what many people say are the government’s ‘land grabs ’ from its citizens.

Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, the company’s founder, dismisses the attacks. In a recent interview, he gave some of his perspectives on land and farming in his host country.

”Land is an emotive and contentious issue. Of the 300 million hectares of land we have, only one-third is arable. Africa is better in terms of productivity, costs, taxes, duty-free access to European markets because of their least developed country status. A rose from India, when it lands in Europe, will cost about 14 euro cents and it will be about 30% less from East Africa,“ said Karuturi.

Clearly he is a bold entrepreneur, and no doubt that alone rubs some people the wrong way. As he repeatedly points out, his company is doing nothing without the approval of the Ethiopian government. But if the investment is seen by many Ethiopians as being because of a closeness to the sitting government rather than as being of benefit to the country, Karuturi is inevitably breeding long-term local resentment in addition to roses.

As seen in Zimbabwe, the ‘security of tenure’ and economic success that is built on the mistreatment of the local people may not be as secure as it seems, even if the comeuppance is many decades later. If the political situation suddenly changes, land tenure based on a perceived crony relationship with the previous ruling political dispensation will be one of the first things to be reformed.  

Karuturi has also been quoted as scoffing that many of the attacks on his and others’ land investments in Ethiopia and other African countries is by Western critics who have yet to come to terms with how China and India are displacing the West in many areas of engagement in Africa. While this cannot be dismissed entirely, Karuturi is ironically also making some of the same colonial - style moves that created long-standing resentment not only in Africa, but in his country India as well.

For example, it is quite likely that even for Ethiopians who basically support the investment thrust of their government and welcome the contributions of companies like Karuturi, the company’s widely publicized plan to bring in thousands of Indian tenant farmers to its Ethiopian holdings will be seen as a step too far. It suggests thinking and attitudes that are amazingly reminiscent of the origins of the complicated mix of land-related problems that plague Zimbabwe today.

In the land grabs from Africans of a century ago, the colonial governments obviously did not need to worry about the ‘public opinion’ of the dispossessed, disgruntled Africans. Today, no matter how autocratic a government may be, it is neither advisable nor entirely possible to ignore public sentiment. From a distance, in this regard the Ethiopian government seems to have contributed to the negative perception of the current land deals/grabs by poorly explaining them, and riding roughshod over critics. For both investors and host governments, these too are issues that may have an expensive belated political cost.

Zimbabwe is just one and perhaps the best known, most notorious example of the explosive potential of long unresolved land issues that Ethiopia could learn some lessons from on what to do and what not to do as it seeks to develop and ‘modernize’ its agriculture. It will be fascinating to watch how Ethiopia tackles the clash of land-related issues that have defied easy solution in many other African countries.

AfricanAgriculture

Ethiopia records its first banana exports

The Ethiopian Horticulture Development Agency (EHDA) has celebrated a key milestone as the east African nation began exporting bananas for the first time ever.

In a nation where agriculture is the foundation, Ethiopia’s economy has long heavily relied on thriving coffee yields as its main cash crop. In recent years the EHDA has been encouraging Ethiopian farmers to acquire
new farming techniques and new crops.

This week the country recorded its first shipment of 40 tons of organic banana to Saudi Arabia to meet growing demands for the produce in that market.

According to the EHDA, at least 11,400 farmers are involved in the project covering 3100ha. It added Ethiopia was in the process of exporting 200 tons of bananas per week for the Jeddah market following an agreement with a foreign company interested in exporting.

more...Somaliland Press

Ethiopian coffee exports in sharp decline

Halfway into Ethiopia's fiscal year, only about 20% of the targeted 270,000 tonne coffee export has been shipped.

There is some confusion about the cause of the sharp decline in exports.

About 100 coffee exporters have been suspended from buying coffee from the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange for periods ranging from three to six months by the government, over allegations that they engaged in speculative hoarding of the country's key export.

Analysts say other changes demanded by the government in the trade of coffee, which would effectively require exporters to invest in storage silos, are impractical.

Others maintain the real problem is simply that the US$2.40+/kg price of coffee at the commodity exchange is higher than the international price (New York) of US$2.20/kg. 

According to Addis Fortune website, Ethiopia earned $314 million in the last six months from coffee exports a  6.28 per cent decline over the same period a year ago, quoting figures compiled by the Ethiopian Revenues & Customs Authority (ERCA).

Addis Fortune says Ethiopia exported 196,118 tonnes of coffee valued at $841.7 million dollars in 2010/11, representing more than half of the 370,569 tonne of total production in the country. The rest is used locally.

Talks between government and traders to break the export impasse are on-going, but have yet to yield any concrete results

African Agriculture

Is Indian investment in Ethiopian farms a 'land grab?'

When an Indian company invests hundreds of millions of dollars in Ethiopian commercial farming, is it boosting Ethiopia's food reserves and modernizing agricultural practices? Or is it grabbing land and displacing Ethiopia's poorest citizens?

The debate over Indian-owned Karuturi Global's investments in Ethiopia's Gambella region may sound extreme, but it is representative of the strong emotions one finds across the developing world about the subject of agricultural investment.

In Ethiopia – where critics are aghast at the government for inviting foreign capitalists to grow cash crops for export while millions still rely on handouts – the rancor is hindering much-needed constructive discussion on how to improve a sector of the economy that employs most of the population.

Much coverage of this debate tends to the sensational. A piece by the Guardian, for instance, claimed that there was evidence of displacement because of Karuturi’s rice, palm oil, sugar and cereals operations, but none was provided.

Huffington Post columnist Alemayehu G. Mariam – a vociferous US-based critic of the Ethiopian government – re-reported Karuturi's farm manager's comment that the company had not seen the land before renting it. Managing Director Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi begs to differ. "I stayed in Gambella for 45 days researching the area before narrowing down on the location," he responds.

The tone of these types of critiques – portraying deals merely as agro-imperialism facilitated by a bungling state – enrage officials, sidelining crucial issues and further reducing the already slim chances of engaging the government.

..more...Christain Science Monitor

Foreign farm investors flock to Ethiopia, but food self-sufficiency not in sight

by Keffyalew Gebremedhin

As if it were a rehearsal for year-end message, in early November the ministry of agriculture announced, “Ethiopia is working towards commercializing agriculture and [realizing] its full potential to provide each household surplus and income for its growing population.” As an idea that looks to the future, there is nothing wrong with that — except that the officials preferred to be opaque when it came to linking the anticipated outcome with the means they would employ.

This took place at an important regional conference, whose theme was Productivity and Enhancing food Security in Africa: New Challenges and Opportunities, held in Addis Abeba from 1-3 November. The official who represented the government and launched the conference chose to reiterate the usual set position, especially at a time when Ethiopia has continued to be hit harder by inadequate domestic food production and distribution, against the backdrop of double-digit-inflation. Data released by the government on 13 December indicated that in the last one year, inflation has pushed food prices by a whopping 50.3 percent.

Unfortunately, the agriculture ministry even seemed coy to show a vision behind the plan; as the government’s representative limited himself to iterating, “The government has taken strong policy measures to recognize agriculture as an engine of the economy and a means to fight poverty.” This took many people by surprise, since it sounded as if State Minister for Agriculture Wondirad Mandefro was announcing to the conference a new government strategy two decades after the Meles regime seized power and massive resources have been thrown at agriculture, without any sign of the country becoming self-sufficient in food production now or the likelihood of it at in the foreseeable future.

Instead, the state minister stated that the government has been spending on agriculture more than 14 percent of GDP, in his words, “exceeding the target set by Maputo Declaration to meet the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program targets.” He then recalled how it was foreseen in the government plan to double agricultural GDP to achieve food self-sufficiency at the household and national level through the growth and transformation plan (GTP 2011 – 2014/15). Not only the GTP is treated these days as an all cure; but also he made it the basis of his prediction of agricultural production.

If the news report is accurate, the official chose to rely on economic growth patterns of the past few years. He then boldly asserted that the economy would “continue to grow with a double-digit for subsequent eight years.” If that is the basis on which the future of the country’s goal of food self-sufficiency is being predicated, I lost him there. What else can one say in the face of such a known trouble ahead, save fearing for the state of the nation and future generations!

One person who was not entirely sanguine with everything he heard at the conference was Monty Jones, the Executive Director of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa. He politely took the floor to give a sense of what African countries needed to do. He urged them “to go beyond just research to increase productivity that enables to reduce hunger and poverty.”

As to this year’s harvest, ten days after the conference and in connection with the 2011 harvest season, Ms.Samiya Zekeria, Director-General of Ethiopia’s Central Statistics Agency (CSA), announced that she expected over 218.3 million quintals of output to be harvested from small-scale private farms on over 12.1 million hectares of land this year, according to the Ethiopian News Agency. She reported this represented an increase of 15 million quintals, compared with that of same period last year.

Tentative as this data is, it is difficult to establish whether the increases reflects productivity gains or mere expansion of land under crops. Last year’s CSA data indicated that crop land increased by about 200,000 hectares. Already on the face of this forecast, one is inclined to think that a great deal of work and appropriate policies are badly needed to guide Ethiopia’s agriculture to a better future.

Not long ago FAO’s Assistant Director General Hafez Ghanem alerted African journalists as to the what culprits are lurking behind the rise in food prices the world over. While he emphasized that agricultural investments alone are not sufficient conditions in and of their own, he urged each country to examine its particular conditions more seriously and adopt appropriate polices, instead of clinging to everything that is being presented as causes for the rising food prices.

The need for such an approach, he said, should be given sufficient consideration since “The available data show that the situation is different in each country. In some countries, price rises have meant higher prices for farmers, while in others this is not the case, which is generally the result of the fact that governments are hindering the transfer from the global market to the farmers.”

To the thinking of the assistant director-general, Ghana represented an example of a successful country regarding agricultural development. He observed in that regard:

Notwithstanding the fact that Africa still has a long way to go in the battle against hunger, even so, despite everything, [the region] has recorded some successes in this area. Take the case of Ghana in particular. This country has succeeded in achieving its Millennium Development Goal 
(MDG) aiming to cut the proportion of its population suffering hunger by half between 1990 and 2015. It did so by supporting its farmers in two important and priority sectors: public investment, particularly in research and development (RD), and ad-hoc policies, which specifically allowed farmers access to seed and the market. These were measures which had been adopted in other countries and explain their relative success.

This reminded me of a news item I read in late August from the association of coffee producers in southern Ethiopia, which wrote a letter to the prime minister and the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) urging them to take urgent measures to tide the growing shift by his members to the production of khat, a stimulant crop in young nation, for lack of bank loans and credits.

Looking at the problem from the economic, financial and land tenure angles, experienced by Ethiopian farmers, Atkilt Admasu and Issac Paul came with new evidence of misguided policies in their ASSESSMENT ON THE MECHANISMS AND CHALLENGES OF SMALL SCALE AGRICULTURAL CREDIT FROM COMMERCIAL BANKS IN ETHIOPIA: THE CASE OF ADA’A LIBEN WOREDA ETHIOPIA, published in the Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa (Vol 12, No.3 2010). Their study found out:

…Agricultural credit in the Woreda [Ada'a Libern] followed a two-tier delivery approach, where input loans were provided to farmers through cooperatives. The main variable to qualify farmers for such loans was their working land size. Nevertheless, due to the shortage of land in the Woreda, the amount of loans, availed in the form of fertilizers, improved seeds, and chemicals, were inadequate. As collateral for the loans, the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia secures federal government guarantee, which is considered as cash substitute collateral from Ministry of Finance and Economic Development( MoFED) on the Oromia Regional Government’s subsidy budget. The main reason for many of the default cases was found to be the lack of farmers’ awareness on repayment terms. In a nut shell, the government’s role in the small-scale farmers’ access to bank loans appeared crucial both during loan origination and collection.

At the same time, this shows that there is strong bias in government toward foreign investors. Thus, on the political side the problem is better summed up by the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI), which in its 2010 report on Ethiopia wrote:

Indian and Chinese companies encouraged by the Ethiopian government have increased their investment in the agricultural, construction and communication sectors, but have not been able to compensate for deficiencies on the Ethiopian side. The further transformation towards a market economy has been slow due to ideological reservations in the political class and the fear that private investment could be used to bolster the political opposition.

Why should we be alarmed by Ethiopia’s present agricultural policy?

There is no doubt that the government has practically abandoned the 13.4 million small holders long ago, not to speak of nomadic pastoralists. The government is more obsessed with production of cash crops and earning more foreign exchange. Their explanation is that with the cash people could buy their food. It seems our leaders live on a different planet, since otherwise they could not have adopted this disastrous policy at a time when even the rich countries, oil producer included, are trying to run away from food imports, despite their healthier balance of payments.

With such a failed policy and dependence on commercial farms that produce cash crops or foods for export, Ethiopia should not expect to dig its way out of hunger. Nor can it develop as an economy, or make headway in this fiercely competitive world, safeguard the pride and dignity of its citizens and maintain the nation’s independence and sovereignty so long as the policies pursued force it into dependence on international food aid. If one of the state of mind that these agricultural investors would abandon their pursuit of profit and become the new food donors, there is a need for sanity tests.As it stands now, this policy is a road to slavery for a proud nation that cherishes its sense of independence for which huge and historic sacrifices have been paid!

Secondly, as I discussed a few days ago in another article in the context of realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), today in Ethiopia there is 15-20 million people facing hunger everyday. At the same time, according to United Nations reports, 46 percent of Ethiopians live on less than a dollar a day; 51 percent of children are stunted.

What this says is that these people are not a part of the new Ethiopia, whose economic growth is compared to a miracle by the investing world. What they do not realize is that these fast growths are servicing the interests of narrower group(s).

As it happens, for that matter even by official admission, today 12.2 million Ethiopians in 290 food insecure woredas (districts of the country) are categorized as incapable of supporting themselves and are dependent on international food aid. Under normal circumstances, i.e., when there is no drought or famine this number goes down to 7 – 8 million. While this is the reality, government leaders boast that no one has died of hunger in Ethiopia, although secret interviews of farmers filtering out of the country are showing that hunger is closer than a neighbor to many, especially in the southern and south-western parts of the country. Bear in mind that in the past, hunger, drought and famine was mainly a northern Ethiopian phenomenon.

The Productive Safety Net Project (PSNP), financed by the international community, has saved lives in the last five years. Unfortunately, its problem is that it has no successful mechanism for the graduation of the dependent people to become productive and self-supporting citizens, a fact which some in the World Bank have also come to realize.

Misguided commercial agriculture, mostly known by its misnomer (in Ethiopia’s case) ‘farmland grab’

While the dependency on international food aid, discussed above, remains a worrying as to the future of Ethiopia’s agriculture, one of the evolving dangers lies in the country’s fertile lands being doled out mostly to foreign investors. This has been criticized roundly. But nothing could convince Prime Minister Meles Zenawi about the errors of his policies. These are, as Stefano Manservisi put it in 2009, pushing local farmers in a wrong direction; he rightly pointed out that intensifying commercial agriculture at the expense of smallholders would only lead to the exploitation of developing countries. The end result is, he stressed, “The poorest countries are selling commodities, they are exporting migrants and now they are selling their land from which they will not take any kind of benefit in terms of food or whatever.”

Standing side by side (from left) are father Surya Rao Karaturi, and son Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, founder and managing director of Karuturi Global Limited; with Anil Tumu, director of Karuturi Agro Products Plc, and Chombe Seyoum, managing director of Gedeb Engineering Plc. Left: a John Deere tractor.

What commercial agriculture could do to a nation, where local farmers are displaced and their lands are taken away by force or threats, is better articulated a few years ago by Devinder Sharma, analyst with the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security in India. Firstly, he predicted discontent of pushed away citizens leading to civil unrest, the undercurrents of which are already being witnessed in Ethiopia.

Secondly and more importantly Sharma looks at the environmental consequences and observes:

Outsourcing food production will ensure food security for investing countries but would leave behind a trail of hunger, starvation and food scarcities for local populations…The environmental tab of highly intensive farming – devastated soils, dry aquifer, and ruined ecology from chemical infestation – will be left for the host country to pick up.

Moreover, there is also the problems of mistreatment and exploitation of the rural population by the investor farmers. The locals are embittered by the exploitation of their labor with payments in some instances of 25 ETB for tractor drivers, which is USD $1.45 a day and less in other areas. Ordinary daily laborers without skills get paid far less than that. Speaking of the exploitation, One Girma Umad, an employee of Saudi Star and who works as machine operator, told Addis Fortune that, although he appreciated the chance to work without having any prior skill sets, he was not happy about the pay. He observed in that regard, “I have managed to develop the skills needed through observation and personal practise…However, the 25 Br I get a day is not even enough for my daily meals.”

How could this be considered an income that should start these people something meaningful for themselves? Most of all, the opportunities for technology transfer are non-existent in most instances, especially in situations where Indian and Chinese investors have brought machine operators from their countries, as happened in Gambella and other leased lands.

Many of the issues surrounding such commercial agriculture remain unresolved. The problem is being felt like fresh wound by literate consumers around the world, because of the dangerous implications of this to food production by smallholder agriculture.

This week the PRI, Public Radio International has become the latest addition to raise a series of unanswered questions about the persistence of the government in Ethiopian in pushing farmers out of their holdings and handing over the most fertile lands to investors. Those who have experienced this misfortune continue to speak out.

On its part, government is denying it has pushed away anyone. It claims the lands were unoccupied as discussed some months back. At that time, Meles said:

What we are doing is putting all unutilized land in this country and we have a lot of unutilized land in the lowlands…What we have done is to build infrastructures in those areas and therefore open up the area for investments both by domestic and foreign private sector on the basis of a clearly set out lease arrangement. That is a win-win arrangement. It is not a land grab. And, therefore, we are very comfortable with the fact that we have put in place all the necessary guidelines, environmental and otherwise, to make sure that everyone benefits from this exercise.

Transforming Ethiopia

Africa succumbs to colonial-style land grab

Jonathan Rugman

It is being dubbed the second scramble for Africa: millions of acres of land are being snapped up by companies from Asia and the Middle East, our foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Rugman reports.

Nations like Ethiopia are desperate for the investment. But critics claim it's at the expense of smallholder farmers - many of whom say they're being thrown off their land to make way for the large multi-nationals.

Think of drought-stricken Ethiopia and you might not expect to see modern machinery owned by a foreign multinational, cultivating vast farms in one of the poorest countries in the world.

The goal here is simple: to double Ethiopia's agricultural production and to make it self-sufficient. So that handouts from Britain, America and others are no longer required.

Vinay Shekar is on the front line of this agrarian revolution. He's a farm manager from India running an estate in Ethiopia. His company is called Karuturi and these 29,000 acres are a small slice of its empire - with the Ethiopians pledging almost 800,000 acres to the Indian firm so far.

Ethiopia's land is owned by its post-Communist government - and that land can't feed its people. Farming methods are medieval, with the land parcelled up among millions of small scale tenant farmers. So now the country's Agriculture Minister, Ato Wondirad Mande, is giving foreign companies like Karuturi cheap leases to revolutionise food production.

When they first came they told us an investor was coming and we would develop the land alongside one another. They didn't say the land would be taken away from us entirely. He told Channel 4 News: "We give land because we cannot produce on that land. Because of lack of capital and technology, that’s why. They open a big opportunity for employment and of course generation of taxes and other financial gain."

But farmer Gemechu Garbaba talks of loss, not gain. He’s pointing to Karuturi farmland, which he says the government took from him to give to the Indians instead.

"When they first came they told us an investor was coming and we would develop the land alongside one another,"Mr Garbaba told Channel 4 News. "They didn't say the land would be taken away from us entirely. I don't understand why the government took the land."

Mr Garbaba now grows maize on land nearby which he sublets each year from a neighbour. It is precarious, he says. He could lose his tenancy at any moment.

And at the family home his wife complains that the cattle have almost nowhere to graze because their old fields have gone.

"Since the land was taken away from us we are impoverished. Nothing has gone right for us, since these investors came," he added.

Next door Karuturi is beginning to work agricultural wonders. It runs the farm under a 50 year lease, and says it will sell most of its produce inside Ethiopia itself.

Who profits?

With their Indian manager watching them, these women say they are grateful to have a job earning just under fifty pence each per day.

Karuturi can see such good profits that it's investing nearly a billion dollars in Ethiopia. Though in an interview in 2010 the company's founder said it was shameful to accuse the firm of "land grabs" when the country's being transformed.

Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, Managing Director at Karuturi Global, said: "Why do they need to import food? It’s a shame, I sometimes feel like it's a conspiracy - that people want Africa to remain with a begging bowl.

"Here we are creating employment, food, wealth – isn't that what Adam Smith spoke about - isn't that the reason the West is self sufficient? I don't think creating wealth is a crime."


Here we are creating employment, food, wealth – isn't that what Adam Smith spoke about - isn't that the reason the West is self sufficient? I don't think creating wealth is a crime. Karuturi MD, Sai Ramakrishna


Yet in this village hut everyone complains they have less food than before because Karuturi now farms where they once did.

Taresa Agasa helped put together a petition to change the government’s mind. But when that didn't work, he took a job as a security guard for Karuturi for 45 pence a day.

He said: "We wish we could eat three times a day. I know my children want this. But I cannot provide that. We live and survive only if we have land. And we would rather have our land back."

Ethiopia's agriculture minister claims there is no conflict with local communities and no need to provide compensation.

Yet people here speak bitterly of forced evictions, and this is just a snapshot of a story now playing out all over Africa - as multinationals strike land deals with governments desperate for investment.

The risk is colonial style plantations – with local people swept aside. In a world badly in need of more food, costing less.

Channel 4 News

The Indian land grab in Africa

by GOI Monitor

Joining the neo-colonial bandwagon, Indian companies are taking over agricultural land in African nations and exporting produced food at the cost of locals

Indian companies venturing abroad is always regarded as a healthy trend, an indicator of India's new-found economic status. But little is known about how these companies are flexing their imperalistic muscles in poorer countries, grabbing the land and giving little in return. A report ‘India’s Role in the New Global Farmland Grab’ by researcher Rick Rowden brings forth these atrocities which are shockingly similar to what India used to blame rich western countires for.

Joiing the race with China, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, South Korea and the European Union, Indian and Indian-owned companies are acquiring land in Africa at throwaway prices, indulging in enviornmental damange and exporting the food while locals continue to starve. The origin of this unhealthy practice can be traced back to the food crisis of 2008 when rich countries were forced to confront the reality of how fragile the global food scenario can be, especially for those without sufficient cultivable land. To ensure more direct control over food, these countries started acquiring land in poorer African countries and shipping the produce back home. A recent World Bank report found that 45 million hectares of large scale farmland deals had been announced between 2008 and 2009.


The initial support to such forays was based on the belief that the world is facing scarce food supply because of long-term under-investment in the agricultural sectors of many developing countries. However, as stressed by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, "the diagnosis and remedy are incorrect…Hunger and malnutrition are not primarily the result of insufficient food production; they are the result of poverty and inequality, particularly in rural areas, where 75 per cent of the world’s poor still reside.”

Outsourcing farming, the Indian way

There are various factors driving the “outsourcing” of domestic food production in India. Primary among these are stagnation or drop in crop yield due to "green revolution fatigue”, government’s concerns related to long term food security besides the allure of much cheaper land and more abundant water resources in African countries. The subsidies being offered by governments of African countries is another enticement. In many cases, the companies have been offered special incentives, including the offer to lease massive tracts of arable land at very generous terms with access to water and the ability to fully repatriate the profits generated.

According to figures provided by governments of various East African countries in 2010, more than 80 Indian companies have invested around $ 2.4 billion in buying or leasing huge plantations in Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal and Mozambique to grow food grains and other cash crops for the Indian market. The high input cost of farming is also driving these companies to explore Africa. Talking to news agency IANS earlier this year, S.N. Pandey, an executive with Lucky Group, one of the companies which have invested in Africa, stressed on the price factor. “The cost of agricultural production in Africa is almost half that in India. There is less need for fertiliser and pesticides, labour is cheap and overall output is higher,” he was quoted as saying.

Indian agriculture companies also complain that India’s small and fragmented land holdings are unsuitable for large-scale commercial farming, and there are too many bureaucratic hurdles to investment. Recent offers by African governments allow Indian farmers to acquire much larger tracts of contiguous land on lease for 50 years, and in some cases even up to 99 years at throwaway prices. According to a news report in the Indian Express, “The land lease rate in Punjab’s Doaba region is a minimum of Rs 40,000 per acre. In contrast, in most African nations, the land lease rate in terms of Indian currency comes to Rs 700 per acre. This means that for every one acre in Punjab, Indian investors can own 60 acre in Africa. With a per capita land holding of 1.5 acre in Punjab, agriculture is ceasing to be a sustainable activity.”

A sample of Indian companies investing in agricultural land overseas:





Nobody bothers about locals

In some countries such as Ethiopia, where there is a lack of effective governance and democracy, local populations have reportedly suffered evictions with no recourse. Of all the land-grabbing deals in recent years, perhaps none has received as much attention as that of Karuturi Global's massive land leases in Ethiopia’s Gambela region. While the East African country claims the entry of foreign investors would help develop the large tracts of wastelands, experts say there is no such thing as “waste or idle land” in Ethiopia, or anywhere in Africa.

Several studies have shown that local competition for grazing land and access to water bodies are the two most important sources of inter-communal conflict in most parts of Ethiopia populated by pastoralists. Indeed, in almost every case of recent land leases involving foreign enterprises, locals have complained that they lost access to grazing land and water due to these projects. This has also been the case, for example, with foreign investments in both the Bako and Gambela regions of Ethiopia where many Indian firms operate. Proponents of the new land rush also often claim that the foreign investments in land will create jobs for locals, improve living conditions and increase national GDP. In Ethiopia, over 3 lakh families have been potentially displaced but only about 20,000 people are expected to get jobs on the new highly-mechanised farms.

According to a news report on BBC online, “there have allegedly been a number of arrests and killings of local people who oppose the recent land investments.” The indigenous Mazenger people of Gambela have been struggling to protect their ancient forest-covered lands along tributaries to the White Nile that have come into conflict with the lease given to the Indian company Verdanta Harvests Plc., which plans to clear their land and use it for a tea and spice plantation. According to the documents available with Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE), the locals were made aware of the plan to lease out their ancient lands and “secret forests” only in early 2010. They approached the Ethiopian President Girma Wolde-Giorgis, who mostly has representative powers, and won his support. The Environmental Protection Authority of Ethiopia (EPAE) also recommended that the lease project be stopped since the short-term benefits of leasing would not outweigh the long-term costs to the country. However, the local Governor announced that the 3,000 hectare of forests had already been leased out for 50 years. Despite another intervention by the President, the project is moving forward and the forests are being cleared.

“If what is going on in Gambela was happening in New Delhi, India, or in Oxford, England, Bismarck, North Dakota, or in Saskatoon, Canada, this would be unthinkable. If it is not allowed in these places, why is it justified in Ethiopia," asks Obang Metho of SMNE.

Environmental concerns and contracts

One of the most significant concerns about the trend of overseas investors relates to environmental impacts of establishing increasing numbers of large-scale, mechanised mono-cropping farms that are dependent on high levels of water usage besides heavy doses of pesticides and herbicides which impact both the soil and the underground water. “The ecological sustainability of land and water resources is an important concern, especially considering the relatively short-term orientation of the foreign investors versus the long-term outlook needed in considering the environmental impacts of land uses,” says D Byerlee, who presented a paper on “Drivers of Investment in Large-Scale Farming: Evidence and Implications,” at a World Bank conference in 2009.

Amid growing controversy around investments in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development recently made public the 12 Land Rent Contractual Agreements for land leases including five contracts with Indian companies. All these contracts specified that the companies were to ensure that environmental impact assessments were undertaken and submitted to the authorities shortly after assuming operations and that the investors would otherwise abide by current Ethiopian conservation laws. They did not specify who exactly would undertake the environmental impact assessments, the quality and scope of such assessments and transparency of the process by which they are to be undertaken.

Regarding water usage, each of the five contracts specified that the companies had the right to build dams, water boreholes and irrigation systems as they see fit. Only the smallest contract for Verdanta Harvests PLc.’s tea plantation did not mention water rights. Interestingly, only the biggest contract for Karuturi Agro Products Plc. included the additional clause that the company also had the right to “use irrigation water from rivers or ground water.” However, there was no mention of payment for this water usage, the quantity of water to be used and over what period of time.

All five contracts stated that the Indian companies have the “right”- not the obligation- to provide power, health clinics, schools, etc. It was not specified to whom these services might be provided –the local population or just the company workers. Yet, the provision of such facilities had been a high-profile claim made earlier by the government as to why the investors should be allowed to undertake these projects. None of the five contracts of the Indian companies mentioned labour laws or specified any wages or working conditions for their local employees. Nor did the contracts seem to justify the claim made by the companies and government regarding the increase in agricultural productivity and transfer of such new technologies to local farmers. If the omission suggests that the Indian companies alone shall retain the higher value technology, it is unclear how this will help local farmers in Ethiopia in the future.

Indian government's role

Following a 2009 visit by Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba, the then Minister for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said: “We are now in talks with Namibia after their President's visit, to use land for our purposes.”

At the sixth Agriwatch Global Pulses Summit in New Delhi in 2010, India's Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar asked the delegates to ponder over the “viability of Indians leasing land abroad for growing pulses and exporting it back to India.”

Both these statements point towards India's objective to ensure food security by acquiring land in lesser developed countries. The Indian government acts as a facilitator to the whole process rather than the main player. It is supporting the conventional new greenfield foreign direct investments, merger and acquisition purchases of existing firms; public-private partnerships ; specific tariff reductions on agricultural goods imported to India through the negotiation of regional bilateral trade and investment treaties and double taxation (avoidance) agreements.

Another major way the Indian government has financially facilitated the process is by giving concessional lines of credit to various developing country governments, banks, and financial institutions, as well as to regional financial institutions, through the Indian Export- Import (Exim) Bank. Often such lines of credit are for the purpose of national development projects and where these projects involve agricultural development, Indian foreign investors stand ready to win concessions and contracts for agricultural development in the form of their foreign direct investment.

The largest single line of credit approved by the Exim Bank so far has gone to Ethiopia ($ 640 million) for its Tindaho Sugar Project and it is also widely expected to facilitate Indian investments. The soft loans, with an annual interest rate of 1.75 per cent, are to be repaid over 20 years.


In trade policy, a number of economic incentives such as duty-free tariff preference schemes have been put in place by the Indian government in order to encourage private companies to invest in land abroad. For example, Ethiopian farm produce entering Indian markets is now taxed less than produce from India, according to Anand Seth, the deputy director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations.

The defence put up by companies

Indian companies reject their characterisation as neo-colonials and insist they are just doing business. Many companies claim the land acquisitions are simply strategies for their expansion and vertical integration. Raju Poosapati, the vice president of India's Yes Bank, which advises Indian investors in Africa, said a government ban on non-Basmati rice exports had driven Indian companies to go abroad in order to be able to grow and sell it in global markets.


Karuturi Global Ltd. clarified that it pays its workers at least Ethiopia’s minimum wage of 8 birr, and abides by Ethiopia’s labour and environmental laws. Speaking to Bloomberg, Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, founder and head of Karuturi Global Ltd., said, “We have to be very, very cognisant of the fact that we are dealing with people who are easily exploitable,” adding that the company will create up to 20,000 jobs and has plans to build a hospital, a cinema, a school and a day-care center in the settlement. “We’re going to have a very healthy township that we will build. We are creating jobs where there were none,” he said. However, Metho says so far there has been no sign or mention of any of this according to reports from the local people.

The situation seems quite similar to what foreign corporates are doing in tribal areas of Orissa and Chattisgarh in India. Metho believes a close coordination between Indian and African activists can help serve the cause of marginalised communities in both the worlds.

Comments are not moderated. Please be responsible and civil in your postings and stay within the topic discussed in the article too. If you find inappropriate comments, just Flag (Report) them and they will move into moderation que.

Comments

RajMadhavCthakur

Just one word. DRIVE THOSE GREEDY COMPANIES OUT. The Indian MNC's have already riobbed it's own people and now they are on the drive to steal the poor african population.

rosemerry ·

"In many cases, the companies have been offered special incentives, including the offer to lease massive tracts of arable land at very generous terms with access to water and the ability to fully repatriate the profits generated."

What benefit is there to the Africans? India has done enough terrible damage to its own native peoples( eg Dalits, "Maoists", forest people) as well described by Arundhati Roy, with its big dams and removal of poor people to allow the big agricultural firms to make big profits. As always, the rights of corporations, and the needs of obese or even ordinary élites in any country take the place of any care for the land and the incumbent nuisance of victims of poverty.


Dr Fazzur Rahman

Really it was an eye opener and i would like to argue here that if UP or nay other government is grabbing land for some other purpose, it can not be justification for nay firm to go and compensate it by grabbing land of some other countries what seems to be the argument of Professor Joan P. Mencher

Dr Fazzur



Prof. Joan P Mencher


Thanks for publishing this report. One related point needs to be mentioned. When Indian State governments decide that they will evict large numbers of small farmers who are producing excellent crops because they want to build 4-8 lkane highways, fancy upper middle-class housing, malls, etc. Then of course they are limiting the amount of land in India to grow food. In UP, it has been said that 1/3 of the good farm land will be taken away under laws of eminent domain, in order to do then. SO, of course they must look elsewhere. I have seen enormolus amount of fgarm land taken to build highways to very very large airports in places like Bangalore or Hyderabad, with hardly any compensation for the farmer.

One other point, SRI rice or SCI System of Crop intensification, a method which entered India from Madagascar, has led to significant increases in food production on small and medium size farms. In states that [promote it, it has done exceptionally well. Yet, these multinationals are doing everything to claim that India cannot feed its people even if it grows to 2 billion. It uses between 1/3 and 1/2 less water, and no artificial pesticides or fertilizers. IT requires using the weeds as additional fertilizer. It is important to look at these alternatives when we allow investors be they from India, the US, or China or anywhere else, to take over African lands.

Counter Currents