Tempers rise in Sierra Leone over palm oil 'investments' to some, 'land grabs' to others

by Simon Akam

In a remote corner of Sierra Leone, signs of a bonanza are evident. New corrugated zinc roofs have replaced simple thatch on houses, motorbikes ply the streets and market stalls are well-stocked.
The new wealth of the villagers in Pujehun district is thanks to a land lease deal with a European investor for an oil palm plantation that has backing from the national government in Freetown right down to the local "paramount chief."

But not everybody is happy.

"The chief brought the company here. He is the one supposed for talk to us," 28-year-old Eddie Amara, who led local protests against the project last month, said in hesitant English in the village of Kortumahun.
"He's not treat us good, fair," said Amara, adding that pledges of local employment had yet to fully materialize and giving voice to local claims that villagers felt they had little choice but to hand over land.

The Sierra Leone plantation of Lichtenstein-based Socfin is one of many such projects in Africa, spurred by global demand for food and biofuel but criticized by some as "land grabs."

Police arrested 39 local people in last month's protests, and the row has become a political hot potato. A German aid group withdrew one of its workers from Sierra Leone earlier this year following a dispute over the case.

The saga highlights the tensions surfacing as Africa is drawn further into the global economy, triggering hope that the continent's people will one day benefit but also concern that precious local resources will be lost with little gain.

The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture office last month warned African governments not to rush into big land lease deals for risk of deepening poverty or heightening social tensions.

Sierra Leone is one of the world's poorest countries and desperately needs foreign investment. Pujehun District suffered heavily during Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war, a conflict that left some 50,000 dead.


The Socfin deal was completed earlier this year. The Sierra Leonean government leased land from local landowners, and the company in turn has its own lease with the government. It is adamant that the project is a win-win proposition.

"You cannot start a project like this in Africa against the will of the people," said Gerben Haringsma, general manager of Socfin Agricultural Company Sierra Leone Ltd.

"When there is no harmony there is no profit," adding that if all goes well the initial stage of the project will stretch to a total 12,500 hectares and could be expanded further to include rubber cultivation.

The project currently employs 1,500 Africans, many on a temporary basis and not all of them locals. When production begins, the headcount is due to rise to 3,000. The daily rate is $2.30. That compares to Sierra Leone's national income of $340 a head, as measured on the World Bank's Atlas scale -- just under a dollar a day.

The row has been fueled by the fact that in Sierra Leone, as in other African countries, there is an uneasy co-existence of traditional chiefdom structures with Western-style government that has muddied key issues such as land ownership.

Local paramount chief Brima Victor Sedi Kebbie has championed the deal in contrast to the local member of parliament who opposes it. People in Malen chiefdom accuse Kebbie of having pressurised them into giving up their land.

"The chief said whether you agree or don't agree they will take the plantation by force," said Brima Lappia, a 42-year-old from the village of Semabu who chairs an association recently formed by disgruntled landowners.

Kebbie was not in the area and did not reply to messages left on his phone. His deputy, "chiefdom speaker" Shemgbe Robert Moiguah, strongly defends the deal. "If we know it cannot develop our people, we would not go in for it," he said.

A 2004 government document stipulates that land in provincial areas is "held in communal ownership under customary tenure and is controlled by traditional rulers who administer it on behalf of their communities in accordance with customary principles and usage."

However, Francis Sankoh, director of Sierra Leone's ministry of agriculture, said that does not give paramount chiefs the right to force farmers to give up their land.

"They are not supposed to. It is not in the laws of Sierra Leone," he said.

A particular bone of contention is the compensation the company is paying for crops destroyed when they took over land. Locals rejected an initial offer of 500,000 leones per acre but later accepted 1,000,000 ($224). Much of it seems to have gone on the new houses, motorbikes and stocking market stalls and, following the spending spree, locals now say the compensation was insufficient.

In response, the company claims they do not appreciate that the 1,000,000 leones is not the only money they will receive, as Socfin is also paying an annual rent of $12.50 per hectare (2.47 acres). Sankoh said between 40 and 50 percent of that amount should go to local landowners.

It is in this atmosphere that protest took off in October, when local people blocked a road to the Socfin site.
A few weeks later in Kortumahun, where Socfin has leased much of the land previously used by villagers, Amara brandished a photo of arrested protesters taken by Shiaka Musa Sama, the local member of parliament.

Detractors say Sama, a member of the opposition Peoples' Movement for Democratic Change party, is trying to make hay the year before an election by inciting local trouble and feuding with his old enemy Paramount Chief Kebbie.

Sama says he is merely standing up for his constituents.

"It's not about my reelection, it's about the land," he told Reuters. "It's about thieving," he added in an assertion which is categorically denied by both Socfin and Kebbie's deputy.

The project is going ahead despite the protests, yet the episode has given some in Sierra Leone pause for thought.

Sankoh at the agriculture ministry concedes the agreed rent of $12.50 a hectare may have been too small, and signals that such projects are going to require careful handling by governments across Africa.

"It's possible that it was done too fast, too quick, and it did not give time to the landowners," he said. "The land ministry should have done more work."

Reuters

Sierra Leone arrests 39 in oil palm land lease dispute

by Simon Akam

Sierra Leone authorities have arrested 39 protesters in the south of the West African nation, following tensions between the local population and a unit of international agro-investor Socfin.

The locals were protesting a land deal in which the government is leasing to Societe Financiere des Caoutchoucs (Socfin) 12,500 hectares for oil palm production in the Pujehun district. The initial phase of the deal is worth $112 million.

Green Scenery, an NGO in Sierra Leone, said some locals have complained they were not properly consulted and were not given information concerning the deal, signed in April.

Farmland in many developing countries has attracted foreign investors in recent years, but a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation official last year warned some big land lease deals might risk deepening poverty and ramping up social tensions.
Green Scenery said in a statement locals had blocked Socfin operations in the area since Oct. 3 because they were angry about not receiving information on the lease agreement, in which a local chief was involved. The statement did not give details of what information the farmers said they were deprived of.
Gerben Haringsma, the general manager of Socfin Agricultural Company Sierra Leone Ltd, said the company was investing in social projects and the protesters were in the minority.
"We tried for weeks to reason with these guys (the protesters). The government decided to stop it, saying this was getting out of hand," he added.

Socfin, part of France's Bollore Group , owns more than 51,000 hectares of palm estates in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Cameroon.

David Sesay, assistant inspector general of police for the southern region of Sierra Leone, said officers arrested 39 people and took 27 to the country's second city of Bo for questioning.

"The people were continually rioting, blocking the road, and impeding people from going to work," he said.
Sierra Leone was devastated by civil war between 1991 and 2002, and held presidential elections in 2007. Since the end of hostilities the minerals-rich country with abundant resources such as iron ore, bauxite, diamonds and titanium ore, has attracted a number of foreign investors.

African Minerals is developing a site at Tonkolili in the centre of the country which it has said is potentially the world's largest deposit of the iron ore magnetite.

In the agricultural sector, alongside Socfin Swiss commodities trader Addax, has leased a large area for sugarcane for biofuel use near the town of Makeni.

"In some ways the renewed interest in agriculture is a welcome reversal of decades of underinvestment in the agricultural sector that has contributed to rural poverty and urban migration," Oli Brown, environmental affairs officer with the United Nations in Freetown, said in an email.

"However agricultural investment needs to be carefully managed and designed to ensure that it contributes to rural development and does not exacerbate food insecurity."

Reuters

Italian investor to quadruple Sierra Leone rubber output

by Silas Gbandia

The Italian Agricultural Co., a closely held producer of rubber in Sierra Leone, plans to quadruple output in five years by planting new trees in a bid to revitalize the industry.

The company’s current output of 250 metric tons a month, from both its own plantations and rubber bought from small-scale farmers, will rise to 1,000 tons, said Cheick Barrie, finance administrator of the company,  in an interview Aug. 15 in the eastern town of Small Bo.

Italian Agricultural has a three-year lease on two state- owned plantations and a 50-year lease on another 10,000-acre (4,045-hectare) plot, he said. The company will plant two million trees over the next four to five years, he said.

The West African nation carved out rubber plantations totaling 53,559 acres in the 1960s to develop the industry, said Thomas Dickson Kallon, forest officer for Kenema District, in the country’s east. Less than 10 percent of the land was cultivated, he said. In 1991, a plan to hand over control of the state-owned rubber farms to the Sierra Leone Rubber Co. was halted by the outbreak of a rebel uprising that led to a devastating 11-year civil war.

Italian Agricultural sends its raw rubber to the Firestone Natural Rubber Co. in neighboring Liberia to be processed, said Barrie. The company plans to build stations in towns in the east to buy rubber from farmers and its own processing plant, he said.

Business Week

Sierra Leone cocoa farmers in post-war recovery

For the first time since the start of a civil war two decades ago, Sierra Leone's cocoa farmers have earned a profit, marking a revival of what was once the country's biggest agricultural export.

The country's Kayeigoma cocoa export company announced a profit of 200 million Leones (32,000 euros, $50,000) for the fiscal year ended in July 2011, a small but significant boost for the industry which is trying to rebuild after the brutal decade-long conflict ended in 2002.

"The board of directors of the company gave a share of profit to each and every farmer based on cocoa supplied to the company," accountant Usif Rahman Sesay said.

The civil war destroyed roads and infrastructure, with plantations in terrible condition and farming skills scarce but the World Bank in 2006 urged Sierra Leone to focus on cocoa as a sector with promising growth potential.

West Africa supplies 70% of the world's cocoa, with nearby Ivory Coast and Ghana the top two cocoa producers.

Agriculture Minister Sam Sesay called the profit the best thing to have happened to the cocoa industry in two decades.

"In the past, we had the repercussions of our products being sent back and the country blacklisted for exporting poor quality commodities," Sesay said. "Now we are making a breakthrough in improving ... the quality of our exports."

To try to compete with large companies, farmers in the eastern districts of Kaliahun, Kenema and Kono formed three cooperatives which were each given a working capital of 200 million Leones from the World Bank's Rural Private Sector Development Programme.

"Although co-op members have yet to meet their target export volume of 3,000 metric tons of cocoa per harvest season in 2011, up from 1,000 in 2010, the sense of ownership has boosted pride among the farmers," the World Bank says on its website.

"We've been able to succeed because of our common desire to be united for a common purpose," said Simon Bendu, a farmer and senior member of Kayeigoma, which is 70% owned by the three co-operatives.

He said that in the past farmers would swap their cocoa for rice and other commodities, and the cocoa would then be taken across the border by traders from neighbouring countries such as Liberia.

"Now all that is over. There is a high degree of transparency and we know the daily cost of a pound of cocoa and we are present at the weighing process."

One of the most important steps has been training farmers to improve the quality under a training programme by Kpeya Agriculture Enterprise.

"In the quest for quick cash in the past, many farmers ignored the need for quality cocoa beans and shipped out sub-standard produce which led to the country being blacklisted and the produce dumped. Now many farmers are trained to get the best product ... The produce is closely examined in their presence and the faults brought to their notice in their presence. So nobody feels cheated," said Kpeya project officer Aiah Konneh.

With the land having been unused for so long, the country is also benefiting by marketing organic and Fairtrade cocoa.

"Another breakthrough is the export of organic cocoa for which we did not use agricultural agro-chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides and yet we had high yields as well as good qualities that are fetching high premium," Agriculture Minister Sesay said.

Retail trader Samuel Williams (35) said he looks forward to the day when "companies here would make chocolate as is done in Ghana at cheap prices ... as we are now purchasing imported chocolates."

Cocoa prices have been volatile in 2011, reaching a 30-year high in February as post-election violence led to a ban on cocoa exports in Ivory Coast and remaining high after exports resumed in April.

AFP

Sierra Leone denies selling lands ‘illegally’

by Peter Clottey

Sierra Leone’s information minister is denying accusations that government land sales to international investors are illegal.

Ibrahim Ben Kargbo said, “It is not true that we gave this land to people illegally. We also have protected our people by insisting that each company that operates in this country in the area of agriculture for the purposes of producing biofuels must also meet certain cooperate responsibilities.”

Kargbo said the sales will encourage investment, leading to more jobs and lower youth unemployment.

But the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) expressed concern that the sales are hurting peasant farmers, who it says will lose their land and their livelihoods.

The government denies its policies will hurt them. Kargbo said that over the last 100 years, Sierra Leone has used only 11 percent of its five million hectares of arable land.

Addax and Oryx, a Swiss-based energy group, announced it has acquired about 50,000 hectares for a renewable energy plant. The project, the energy group said, will also include a sugarcane plantation and an ethanol refinery plant.

At a meeting with reporters, opposition spokesman Mohamed Bah, demanded the government “cancel those agreements and appoint local committees to oversee the transfer of the lands back to the people in the community.”

Some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) say the project could cause food shortages, a charge Kargbo denies.

“The government thought as a way of bringing in investment, we could encourage those people who are interested in biofuels to invest in the agricultural sector,” said Kargbo. “We have made very certain that we did not give them inland swamps, which are very suitable for crop production

VOA

Agriterra acquires cocoa business in Sierra Leone

Agriterra Ltd, the AIM listed company focussed on the agricultural sector in Africa, has entered into an agreement to acquire the entire issued share capital of Tropical Farms Ltd (TFL), a cocoa company based in Sierra Leone.

This acquisition represents the first stage of establishing a substantial cocoa business in West Africa. The board is focussed on achieving security of supply through the forging of long term relationships with farmers and out-grower schemes, in addition to the implementation of farm management initiatives and eventually, the development of the company’s own cocoa plantations.

TFL’s business model complements Agriterra’s established maize buying and processing operations in Mozambique and is in line with the company’s strategy of building a pan-African agricultural company with other divisions already including maize farming and milling, cattle ranching and feedlot facilities and imminently abattoir services.

TFL was established in 2008 to provide a cocoa buying operation head quartered in Kenema in the eastern region of Sierra Leone. With four buying centres currently in operation and a direct buying register of approximately 2,000 farmers across Sierra Leone, Agriterra believes that TFL has established a valuable base of ‘out-growers’ which can now be rapidly expanded under the Agriterra umbrella. It is the company’s intention to develop additional community buying centres across the district, whilst also providing additional solar drying and fermentation facilities, in order to increase total buying capacity and guarantee sources of supply. This model will provide TFL with security of supply at farm level with traceability without the need for local agents.

As immediate cash flow from cocoa sales to the established major international cocoa buyers increases, it is Agriterra’s objective to expand the buying operations into Liberia and also to develop its own cocoa plantations in the region, effectively establishing a “tree to market-place” business model for rapid growth and expansion.

The board believes that cocoa represents an exciting opportunity for the company. Global demand is strengthening and security of supply and traceability is becoming increasingly important. Cocoa production in Sierra Leone is improving at farm level, with new techniques being applied and yields and cultivation expected to increase. This provides TFL a significant opportunity to leverage its first mover advantage, both through its existing base of out growers but thereafter through its own plantations.

Biofuel deal sparks land debate in Sierra Leone

Hailed as the biggest ever investment in Sierra Leone's agriculture, a plan to grow thousands of hectares of sugarcane to produce ethanol has raised fears over food security and land rights.

Swiss group Addax & Oryx announced on June 17 that it had signed a 258 million euro ($368 million) deal with seven European and African development banks to finance the bioenergy project near Makeni in the north of the country. The hot and rainy west African nation, recovering from a brutal civil war which ended in 2002, has the ideal climate to grow sugarcane, much like that of ethanol powerhouse Brazil which has led the way in using the crop for biofuel.

Sierra Leone's agriculture ministry says the company has leased 57,000 hectares (141,000 acres) of land for a period of 50 years...

The project, according to the Geneva-based Addax group, will include "development of a sugarcane plantation, the construction of an ethanol refinery and a biomass power station."

Construction is expected to begin this year, and operations are set to start in 2013, eventually employing up to 2,000 people.

Most of the ethanol -- which can be blended with gasoline and diesel to reduce dependence on harmful fossil fuels -- will be exported to European markets. The biomass power station is expected to eventually produce a fifth of Sierra Leone's electricity.

While Addax has outlined a raft of measures to boost food security and train farmers, some remain unconvinced and say farmers risk losing fertile land or have been caught up in dodgy land deals.

A study commissioned by Swiss group Bread for All released on June 15 said that "many farmers in project-affected communities have already lost their access to fertile lands."

While Addax provided alternative, often smaller farmland, their promises to plough and harrow the lands materialised too late in 2010. "This led to very low yield on these fields and local communities are reported to now face growing food insecurity and hunger," it added.

Beat Dietschy, who heads the NGO, said landowners "have given consent to Addax based on verbal promises which have not been realised."

Addax managing director Nikolai Germann said this study was a campaign of misinformation. "Not only is Addax Bioenergy bound to respect the laws of Sierra Leone, it has also signed agreements with seven European and African development banks which require the company to comply with the highest environmental and social standards," he said.

Addax, which plans to develop a plantation of 10,000 hectares of sugarcane, says large areas of land are available for communities to use as the project uses up less than a third of the total land leased. It has also set up a programme to help small farmers become self-sufficient, offering over 2,000 farmers a 30-week training course and has ploughed over 2,000 hectares of community fields. "This is today the largest food production programme in the country," said Germann.

However a group of landowners in Makeni say they are "angry over the deal"

"When Addax visited the area, they promised us schools, boreholes, hospitals because of the chemicals they would be using, and jobs," said Ali Bangura, a representative of the Landowners Committee of Makeni. "But nothing has materialised since 2008."

Germann said the company had taken care not to create unrealistic expectations and considered that "providing education and health services to the general public are the responsibility of the government and not of private investors." Two clinics have however been set up for local workers and their families.

Sierra Leone's Agriculture Minister Sam Sesay has defended the investment.

"Large scale investors are not the slash-and-burn type. What land they have they can make use of year round and for many years unlike the small holders who move here and there," he said. "So taking part of the land to give to large investors is worth doing."


Expatica

Swiss trader expands into ethanol in Sierra Leone

by Matthew Saltmarsh

Jean Claude Gandur, a Swiss commodities trader, made a fortune during the 1990s buying oil concessions in Africa that others did not want or could not hold. Now a billionaire, he is poised to swim against the tide again with a major expansion into ethanol in Sierra Leone, the West African country still recovering from a decade-long civil war that ended in 2002.

One of his companies, Addax Bioenergy, was set to sign a loan agreement with six international lenders including the African Development Bank, the Netherlands Development Finance Company and the German Investment Corporation. The 258 million euro ($366 million) project near Makeni, in central Sierra Leone, will convert sugar cane into bioethanol for European and domestic markets.

The move again has stirred controversy as ethanol is being partly blamed for rising food prices. And it comes at a time of renewed criticism from advocacy groups worried about an exploitation of developing countries amid the global scramble for resources as food prices climb.

The Oakland Institute, a social development group based in California, warned this month in a report of a “land grab” under way, whereby investors including hedge funds are driving farmers off their land in Africa to make way for new industrial farming projects to profit from rising food prices.

Mr. Gandur said that despite concerns about the effects on farm markets, he thought that ethanol had a viable and profitable future, if managed properly.

The Addax project will be the largest investment so far in Sierra Leone’s agricultural sector and includes a new sugar cane estate, an ethanol refinery and a biomass power plant for the refinery and the national electricity grid. Construction begins this year, and the project is expected to be operational in 2013. It employs over 500 people and will create more than 2,000 jobs, according to Addax. The land will be leased from local landowners and tribal chiefs.

Mr. Gandur is no stranger to controversy....

He built his oil unit, Addax Petroleum, from scratch before selling it in 2009 to Sinopec, the Chinese oil company, for 8.4 billion Canadian dollars, or $8.6 billion at current exchange rates, taking $3.5 billion himself.

Addax says that it complies with social and environmental standards ...

“That’s why I don’t feel guilty of doing anything immoral,” he said. “On the contrary, if other countries cope with the same model, we can give a chance to Africa to employ people. Without being naïve, it’s a good way to bring back agriculture in Africa.”

But according to the Oakland Institute, by early 2011, close to 500,000 hectares, or 1.2 million acres, of farmland in Sierra Leone had been leased to or were under negotiation for lease by foreign investors, representing almost 10 percent of 5.4 million hectares of land suitable for farming by small landholders, which employs about half the population. It also cited food security risks and questioned the level of genuine interaction between the project and illiterate local farmers.

“The conditions surrounding agricultural investments in Sierra Leone are ripe for exploitation and conflict,” the institute said.

Duncan Pruett, an adviser on land rights at Oxfam, said that generally, biofuel production in poor countries “is a double blow for poor and hungry communities.” Land, he said, was often given away to investors or governments on abusive or unfair terms, and large-scale plantations often created little employment or food for local consumption. And diverting food into biofuel production “is also a key driver of high and volatile food prices, which spell hunger for millions of men, women and children,” he said.

Gandur has been wounded by insinuations that he had to grease dictators’ palms to succeed. “I didn’t build Addax on getting acreages from governments under the table,” he said. “We have never paid money to anyone to get acreage in Africa, never.”

full article...New York Times

Controversy, mixed reactions in Sierra Leone to new biofuel investment

by African Agriculture

The news of a new biofuels venture in Sierra Leone by a Swiss investor has stirred controversy and a bitter war of words between opponents and supporters.

The chairman of a human rights group in the district in which it is to be based, Bombali, is reported as saying in 2010 that ''the issue of the multinational companies including Magbass Sugar Complex, Addax Bio Energy and African Minerals Limited, are violating the rights of private land owners and their workers.''

A German environmental group, Rainforest Rescue, in February 2010 began a 'protest action' on its website against the investment. 'Addax’s ethanol project is likely to worsen the situation' of widespread hunger, malnutrition and low life expectancy, says the group. It continues, 'Cassava is the country’s staple food and a conflict between food and cars will be created. Small farmers are to be paid the meager compensation of $6 per hectare per year for the loss of their land. Very few jobs will be created because the harvest will be mechanized. Furthermore, sugar cane plantations and ethanol refining require large quantities of water, which will be taken from the nearby Rokel River.'

Various sectors of government and other groups in eager support of the investment reacted in alarm and anger at reports they feared would jeorpadise it. A Sierra Leonine contributor to the debate wrote that the chairman of the Bombali district council 'described Rain Forest Rescue’s claims as unfounded and baseless and aimed at destroying the intentions...to turn-around the economy of this poverty-stricken nation.' The article cites many other local groups as condemning the German environmental group's petition and citing the various benefits they hoped the project would bring to the area.

An online article dated June 15 2011 said a local civil society organisation in the geographical region of the investment released a report into an investigation it said it conducted into allegations that 'some non-governmental organizations with western background had accused Addax Bioenergy of entering into an unfair deal with land owners in their operational areas, and that the land the people had used for food production has been taken away with no clear option for food production, the other allegation is that the people are not consulted in the entire process.'

The article says the group 'found no evidence of any land grabbing in their investigation, but rather it find out that Addax did have on-going consultations with all land owning families...the land lease documentation was indeed made public one year before signing and that the project ESHIA was also publicly made available for three months which included the Land lease documents.'

The report of the civic group reportedly also, 'described recent reports about Addax Bioenergy as being non-factual, outdated, incorrect, falsified and that all the authors of such report failed to propose viable or sustainable solutions as how to lift the people of the country out of poverty.'

African Agriculture

Sierra Leone to assist small scale farmers increase production

by Silas Gbandia

Sierra Leone will spend $403 million over the next five years to help small-scale farmers boost crop production, said Sam Sesay, the West African nation’s minister of agriculture, forestry and food security. He said the country is also trying to attract large agricultural projects.

Sierra Leone is turning to agriculture to help rebuild its economy after an 11 year-long civil war that ended in 2002. Farmers are being encouraged to plant crops including rice and cassava through the government’s program, which has so far distributed $28 million, Sesay said.

“The combined approach of supporting small-holder farmers with support from donor partners and encouraging large scale investment in agriculture will promote economic growth,” he said.

The World Bank gave two agriculture grants worth $42 million to Sierra Leone, the Washington-based lender said on its website May 29.

Small-scale farmers are using 12 percent of the country’s arable land, leaving room for the larger companies the government hopes to lure, Sesay said.

Geneva-based Addax & Oryx Group Ltd.’s Addax Bioenergy began a 10,000-hectare sugar-cane plantation in Makeni, 137 kilometers (85 miles) east of Freetown, and expects to begin producing ethanol by 2013, the company said on its website.

The government will spend $30.6 million on agriculture in its budget this year, or 8.9 percent of the state’s total spending plans...

full article...Bloomberg

African countries getting a raw deal in land leases

by Bruce Krasting

Everyone who eats is aware that agricultural prices have been on a tear the past few years. With this has come a sharp increase in the value of arable land. Deep topsoil farmland in Iowa has changed hands as high as $11,000 an acre recently. That’s up from about $6,000 just a few years ago.

The shortage of arable land has gone global. Africa has seen an explosion of activity since 2008. How big is the land grab? Who’s doing the grabbing? It’s hard to tell as there is no central source of information and many of the transactions are not made public. An outfit called the Oakland Group has been compiling information on this. From their June 8 press release:

The scale, rate and negative impact of land deals is alarming. In 2009 alone nearly 60 million ha– an area the size of France – was purchased or leased in comparison to an average annual expansion of global agricultural land of less than 4 million ha before 2008.

Consider these three maps. They describe the scope of what has happened in Mali, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia.







The total in these two countries alone is 460k HA or 1.14 million acres. How big is that? Big. This is an area the size of Rhode Island, It is about 80Xs the size of Manhattan. But this is small beer. Consider what is going on in one of the poorest countries in the world, Ethiopia:




The total of 5.3mm acres in just this one country is equal to the size of New Jersey. It’s the same as the combined area of both Connecticut and Delaware. If you’re thinking of a European comparison this is equal in size to about half the land of Switzerland, Denmark or the Netherlands. It’s equal to all of Israel.

Who’s playing in this big land grab? Hedge funds and other speculators are big, so are a number of US Universities. From The Oakland report:

Western firms, wealthy US and European individuals, and investment funds with ties to major banks such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.

Surprised that Goldie and JP are involved? I’m not. Some other players:

Several Texas-based interests are associated with a major 600,000 ha South Sudan deal which involves Kinyeti Development, LLC, an Austin, Texas-based “global business development partnership and holding company,” managed by Howard Eugene Douglas, a former United States Ambassador at Large and Coordinator for Refugee Affairs.

A key player in the largest land deal in Tanzania is Iowa agribusiness entrepreneur and Republican Party stalwart, Bruce Rastetter, who concurrently serves as CEO of Pharos Ag, co-founder and Managing Director of AgriSol Energy, CEO of Summit Farms, and is an important donor to the Iowa State University.

Major investors in Sierra Leone include Addax Bioenergy from Switzerland and Quifel International Holdings (QIH) from Portugal. Sierra Leone Agriculture (SLA) is actually a subsidiary of the UK based Crad-l (CAPARO Renewable Agriculture Developments Ltd.), associated with the Tony Blair African Governance Initiative.

Are the African countries getting a square deal? Not even close:

In Sierra Leone official regulation requires investors to pay $5 per acre, or $12 per ha, per year.

In Ethiopia, Karuturi initially received land for just $1.25 per ha, the rate was later raised to $ 6.75 per ha. In comparison, rates for Brazil or Argentina are $5,000-6,000 per ha.

I loved this quote from Oakland:

“The research exposed investors who said it’s easy to make a land deal – that they could usually get what they want in exchange for giving a poor, tribal chief a bottle of Johnny Walker.”

I suppose that some good could come from all of this. Clearly there is going to be a very big push for agribusiness in Africa in the coming years. This would suggest that a new food supply is coming to a hungry world. It also suggests that there are going to be jobs and opportunity in the countries involved. I doubt that this will happen in the way the land grabbers are thinking. I’m sure that the likes of Tony Blair and Bruce Rastetter will do just fine, but the pensioners and LP interest are going to get clobbered when history repeats itself in Africa. At some point the locals are going to say “No”. At $2 an acre and a tax holiday to boot I wouldn’t blame them.

Wall Street Pit

Cannabis trumps rice as cash crop in Sierra Leone

Farmers in Sierra Leone are increasingly cultivating cannabis instead of rice, which is denting food production in the country, Vice-President Sam Sumana said on February 17.

Speaking during a one-day meeting where regional ministers pledged to jointly fight drug traffickin, Sumana said "the cultivation of cannabis has a negative effect on (Sierra Leone's) food production capacity."

"During and after the war, in some parts of the country, more and more of our people are developing interest and diverting their energies into the cultivation and trade of cannabis in place of our staple food, rice."

A decade-long civil conflict in which 120,000 people died ended in 2002.

"The government is dismayed at this appalling situation and we are committed to do all we can to mitigate this threat and redivert the interest of our people to legitimate farming."

At Wednesday's meeting Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau and Liberia formed the West Africa Coast Initiative to deal with "threats posed by organised crime, illicit drug trafficking and drug abuse," according to a declaration.

United Nations data presented to the meeting indicated the West African sub-region was a hub for cocaine and other narcotics trafficking from Latin America into Europe, worth one billion dollars/euros annually.

Sierra Leone refocuses on agriculture

by Mohamed Fofanah

They call her "Marie Nerica", after a new breed of rice.

But when the new strain of rice - developed by award-winning Sierra Leonean researcher Monty Jones - was introduced in her area by the ministry of agriculture, Marie Kamara wanted nothing to do with it. She eventually tried a few bushels alongside the local varieties and she is delighted with the results.

"I am now cultivating a five-hectare plot and I am producing so much that I am selling (rice) back to government for seed for other farmers. I also sell to the public and pay other farmers that are working in my farm," Kamara says.

"We all resisted the new rice because we were worried that we would not have the expertise to cultivate it, moreover we did not want to waste a whole planting season on a trial crop especially if it turn out to do badly."

Kamara is one of thousands of Sierra Leonean farmers benefiting from a renewed emphasis on agricultural extension work by Sierra Leone's agriculture ministry.
 
The minister of agriculture, Dr Sam Sesay, is attempting to steer the ministry's work in line with the four pillars of the African Union's Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP): agricultural research, improved market access, raising small-holder farmers' productivity and extending better land management and reliable water distribution systems.

The country recently signed a CAADP compact, formally adopting the African Union initiative, drafted in Maputo in 2003, which aims to ensure Africa's agricultural development as a catalyst for socio-economic growth. Overall, CAADP's goal is to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty through agriculture.

The ministry's implementation of CAADP, Sesay says, will be carried out through the National Sustainable Agriculture Development Plan. "The good thing about the NSADP is that it mainstreams cross-cutting themes like gender and youth."   In an interview with IPS, Sesay pointed out that women are being prioritised because in Sierra Leone they are the majority of farmers, producing the bulk of the food in the country using traditional tools and methods, while their male counterparts generally control income-generating cultivation of export crops.



"This means that (women) were being disadvantaged," the agriculture minister said, "so that was why mechanisation was embedded in our NSADP sub program one, which is to increase productivity through appropriate technologies."

Brima J Bangura, the agriculture ministry's assistant director of extension and field operations, said Kamara and others in her area are not the only ones targeted by the ministry.

"We have targeted 195 farmer-based organisations (FBOs) from all over the country and these organisations are mainly women's groups. We have supplied them with tractors, power tillers, transplanters, food crops like rice, maize and cassava; export crops like cashew nuts, coffee and cocoa. And we are also giving them fertilisers and insecticide," Bangura said.
 
Marie Kargbo, who grows rice on six hectares in the Kambia district, said she has recently started receiving full government support.

"Government sent a tractor that tilled my farm and the farms of the members in our association; they also gave us two bushels of seed rice, fertilizers and pesticides."

Kargbo is head of a 54-member FBO, and chairs the women's wing of the All Peoples Congress Women's Wing in Kambia.   "Before now life for women farmers was very difficult but now rice production has been fruitful as we have been receiving supply for the government ranging from seed rice, power tillers, fertilisers and pesticides."

But although she lives in the same district, Marie Kamara's experience has been somewhat different.

"I was given a tractor last year after pressuring the ministry. By the time they came with the tractor, I had already hired people to plough, since I was of the opinion that the tractor was not forthcoming and the rain had already started coming," she explains. "We were promised a tractor, but when the tractors came to the district I was not given, and only a few people were selected and given (use of the) tractors."

She has another complaint. "I now need a store where I will keep the rice after harvest. I also want a thresher as Nerica is difficult to thresh. There are heavy post-harvest losses which I can not continue to contend with if I am to be a sustainable commercial farmer."

 
Kamara's observations highlight the care with which successful agricultural support must be delivered to farmers.

Maseray Conteh, a rice farmer in Makeni said that in her area are indeed getting technical assistance from the ministry. Earlier this year, tractors cleared her three-hectare plot to prepare it for cultivation.

"The rice did very well, and when it was harvest time I was able to get the combined harvester machine from the ministry, but sadly the machine spoilt my rice. I was only able to save about 40 bushels of rice, as opposed to 70- 80 bushels when I harvest manually," she lamented. "They said that if I had planted the rice in rows, the harvester would not have spoilt it. I hope that they will show us how to plant in rows."

Agriculture minister Sam Sesay says he is aware of the challenges. "All of these situations have existed for a long time and we are trying to put all of that behind us now," said the minister. "These gaps will soon be dealt with. NSADP is just in its starting phase and when fully implemented it will take care of all the problems the farmers are now facing."

The objectives of NSADP, the minister underlined, are to enhance increased agricultural productivity, promote commercial agriculture through private sector, improve research and extension service delivery, and promote effective and efficient resource management.

In next year's budget, just under $2.5 million dollars will be targeting an increased number of 442 FBOs as opposed to 195 currently in the project."

Sesay added that in line with the NSADP/CAADP they have already developed a smallholder commercialisation scheme, pointing out that "it is a deliberate program to get especially women farmer groups to gradually operate as limited companies and become the backbone of the private sector in Sierra Leone.

"We will soon conduct training for these women in agribusiness so they will be able to operate as legal commercial entities."

"This will have to change. We will focus on irrigation and our framers who are mainly women will be able to farm at least three times a year while we will rehabilitate storage and processing facilities."

Marie Nerica and thousands of Sierra Leone's women farmers will be looking forward to the NSADP being implemented to the letter, and to give agriculture a new face in the country.




IPS

Egyptian, South African investors look for agricultural prospects in Sierra Leone

Egypt's Rice Inter- African Community Exchange has disclosed plans to go into large scale rice production in Sierra Leone.

Briefing Sierra Leone's agriculture minister on a visit to the WestAfrican country, the president of the Exchange, Mohamed Helwa, lauded the government for opening windows of opportunity to private sector involvement in agricultural Development and disclosed their intention to engage in large scale rice production.

The minister, Joseph Sam Sesay said that the decisions taken by the Egyptians to go into large scale rice production in Sierra Leone is a positive move towards achieving food self-sufficiency and assured them of his support.

In another engagement, a two-man delegation from South Africa are on a fact finding mission to Sierra Leone, meeting with the Minister to identify possible areas the two countries can collaborate to boost agricultural development.

While disclosing his vision to the delegation, Dr. Sesay said that agricultural production had in the past been limited to production activities but he has considered agriculture as an engine for socio-economic growth with the aim of creating employment and generating raw materials for industries in Sierra Leone.

Dr. Sesay maintained that his vision would focus on setting up an agricultural sector forum through private sector participation.

He encouraged the South Africans to share their experiences with the Ministry so that strategies would be developed on how South Africa would go into healthy partnership with the Sierra Leonean farmers.

Africa News

Ghana, Sierra Leone sorghum farmers partner with international beer brands

The key ingredient for a successful public-private partnership (PPP) is profit, albeit different kinds of profit for those involved. For private sector businesses profit is economic, whilst for public institutions, profitable outcomes are social. In successful partnerships, however, each brings something of value to the relationship, thereby ensuring that investment is secured and greater efficiency achieved.

In Sierra Leone, a poor post-conflict country, a PPP - which started as a social experiment - has resulted in a sustainable business: brewing.

Sorghum is used in brewing the beer consumed at many African weddings. But until recently, it has not been the grain of choice for international breweries such as Heineken International, a Dutch company, and the third largest brewery in the world. In all the 170 beers that Heineken produces and sells for national and international markets, the key ingredient is malted barley. However, in Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone, barley is now being supplemented by sorghum.

Diageo, the world's largest premium drinks company and owner of stout-brand Guinness, has also become involved. The company has provided its support to sorghum farmers in Sierra Leone and Ghana and, if trials are successful, it plans to brew stout from sorghum in countries across Africa.

The five-year project in Sierra Leone began as a corporate social responsibility initiative, with the two multinationals supporting farmers to grow the high quality sorghum required for brewing. Linking up with the European Co-operative for Rural Development (EUCORD), funding was provided by the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC), as well as by Heineken and Diageo themselves.

Since 2006, EUCORD has trained farmers and organised them into groups, as the drinks companies do not buy from individual farmers. Heineken and Diageo have supported the supply of inputs at discounted rates and bought the sorghum produced at a guaranteed price. During the pilot phase in 2005, the Sierra Leone Brewery Limited (SLBL), a Heineken/Guinness subsidiary, bought local sorghum from 1,500 farm families, who delivered their grain to central collecting points. Since that time, the project has expanded across the country and the number of farmers involved has more than doubled.

Ghana's sorghum farmers have also been benefiting from the Heineken, Diageo and EUCORD partnership. Around 1,000 farmers have been involved and by the end of the first growing season they had surpassed their target of 800 tonnes by more than ten per cent.

At the end of the five year project, the partners believe the sorghum supply chain in Sierra Leone will be sustainable. Indeed John Mbonu, general manager of SLBL, reports that some of the farmer cooperatives are already self-sustaining and no longer require seeds on loan. Within the next two-to-three years, he expects most groups to be self-sufficient.

In less than three years, the economic impacts of the project have been impressive. Almost a quarter of Sierra Leone's population is defined as food-poor, surviving on less than US$0.35 per day. For farmers involved in the project, receiving up to US$15 per 50kg bag of sorghum, has brought about significant improvements in livelihoods. In 2005-6, the 1,500 families involved in the project received a total of US$210,000 for their sorghum. However, the wider impact within the local economy of paying smallholder farmers was estimated at around US$630,000.

For John Mbonu, these figures are particularly encouraging, as they indicate that wealth is being transferred from the non-poor, who buy the beer, to the food-poor who have an opportunity to improve their lives. And he admits that SLBL is also benefiting, particularly as the cost of imported malted barley has recently doubled. Malted barley is still an important constituent of its beers, but with local sorghum now providing a greater proportion of the grain used, the company is looking to expand its activities into other sorghum-producing countries, including Rwanda, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo.

As a result of the project's success, the governments of Ghana and Sierra Leone have become more involved and are now providing farmers with microcredit for seeds and fertilisers. A similar project is now on-going with USAID co-sponsorship in Nigeria, and another one is planned by Winrock International, EUCORD's parent organisation, in Cameroon.

Whilst donors are often uneasy about funding initiatives that they feel multinationals themselves could support, and are aware that bringing together partners with different business objectives is not always easy, this successful PPP has demonstrated that innovative, demand-led agricultural development is possible even in post-conflict countries such as Sierra Leone.

New Agriculturalist

Vietnamese experts to assist with rice growing in Sierra Leone

After achieving success with a farming programme in Sierra Leone, Vietnamese agronomists plan to train African farmers in cultivation techniques to grow a strain of Vietnamese rice.

Vo Tong Xuan, rector of An Giang University, and several agronomists are now in Nigeria and Ghana for a feasibility survey to expand rice cultivation across Africa.

The effort is being done at the request of a company from England, which asked the Vietnamese scientists to research the situation in the two countries after learning about the programme in Sierra Leone that began 10 months ago.

With the cultivation of Vietnamese rice, yields doubled or tripled compared with native strains in Sierra Leone.

Professor Vo Tong Xuan said although there were no ploughing machines the group had successfully cultivated two crops a year. Productivity was more than four tonnes a hectare compared to the previous one tonne per ha. Xuan added that the agronomists were storing three tonnes of seed rice for sowing on land, which is similar to the soil in Viet Nam’s Mekong Delta region.

A group of farmers in the Mekong Delta will be invited to Africa to train local farmers in irrigation and cultivation techniques.

Each Vietnamese farmer will be assigned to help four local farmers who will cultivate rice on five hectares of paddy.

The programme aims to help countries in Africa overcome food shortages.

Vietnam News Service

Sierra Leone receives $10 million Italian aid to boost food production

Italy has extended $10 million dollars to help boost food production over the next three years in Sierra Leone, the Agriculture Minister Sam Sesay said on February 18.

The deal will help "significantly contribute to food security through support for a modern competitive and commercially vibrant agriculture sector," Sesay said.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) will provide the technical back-up to the scheme.

Other states set to benefit from similar Italian-backed projects in the region include Mali, Senegal, Liberia and Guinea-Bissau, according to the Italian fund's representative in Freetown, Arturo Rollo.

Battling to re-build six years after a brutal civil war, Sierra Leone is ranked the least developed country in the world under the UN Human Development Index.

Africasia

Sorghum grows in importance as beer ingredient

When Dutch brewer Heineken and British drinks group Diageo teamed up with a non-profit organisation to help African farmers grow sorghum, little did they realise that their social experiment would turn into a sustainable business. The project aims to establish a sustainable production chain, and to show local farmers that there is a long term future in growing sorghum.

Heineken and Diageo, which owns the stout brand Guinness, started work with Brussels-based European Co-operative for Rural Development more than a year ago on a five-year project to encourage farmers to produce sorghum in Ghana and Sierra Leone.

For both companies, which make beer as well as non-alcoholic drinks from malted barley throughout Africa, the project was a chance to develop local sources of agricultural raw materials and also to help local economies.

Both companies have been importing barley into many of the African countries - the grain traditionally used to brew beer - to make their drinks. Although barley is one of the world's most common grains, it is not widely grown in Africa since it grows best in countries with cooler climates such as Russia and Canada.

But transportation costs and the rocketing price of malting barley, because of strong global demand, have made importing barley to Africa more expensive than ever. Hence the appeal of making beer with locally produced grains such as sorghum.

Henk Knipscheer, managing director of Eucord, says the rise in malting barley prices was not anticipated by the companies when they became involved in the project: "What started as a social responsibility project is now commercially rather attractive."

Although African farmers have long grown sorghum, a hardy crop that grows easily in poor soils and is used in porridge and beer, big brewers such as Heineken and Diageo have been reluctant to become reliant on local farmers. They were unsure whether farmers could produce the right variety, and whether they could ensure consistent supply.

The project, which has received some $2.8m in funding from the Common Fund for Commodities - a branch of the United Nations - as well as Heineken and Diageo, aims to establish a sustainable production chain so the companies can rely on getting supplies from local farmers. It also aims to show farmers that there is a long-term future in growing sorghum. "Farmers need to build confidence that the market is there," Mr Knipscheer says.

Eucord has been training farmers in cultivation methods aimed at increasing yields and arranging access to finance so they can buy seeds and fertilisers. It has also organised the farmers into groups since grain traders do not like buying grain from individual farmers.

In Ghana, where some 1,000 farmers are involved in the project, the group surpassed its initial target of 800 tonnes of sorghum by 100 tonnes at the end of the first growing season. Sierra Leone had 2,000 farmers in the project but produced only 40 tonnes. However, this year Sierra Leone expects to produce 150 tonnes.

Heineken is delighted with the results of the project, particularly in Sierra Leone, where expectations had been lower. Thomas de Man, Heineken's regional president for Africa and the Middle East, says: "You see an economy growing around farming."

Heineken first made beer with sorghum in Nigeria in the early 1990s after the country banned imports of malt barley, and two years ago it started building a sorghum malting plant in Nigeria. The plant will be up and running shortly.

It now makes beer wholly or partly with sorghum in five African countries - Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Burundi - selling it under brands such as Star or Gulder, and sees potential for making beer with sorghum in other parts of Africa and possibly on other continents.

"This is a technology that will fit us in countries where it is an important crop or where we see a similar opportunity," Mr de Man says. Heineken does not sell sorghum-brewed beer under its core Heineken brand.

Diageo, which brews Guinness Foreign Extra Stout in some 28 locations around Africa, only makes it with sorghum in Nigeria (and now Ghana and Sierra Leone). But if the trial in Sierra Leone is successful it will try to brew the stout with sorghum in as many African countries as possible. It claims local consumers cannot taste the difference between Guinness brewed with sorghum and Guinness brewed with barley.

Beer brewed with sorghum is also becoming more popular in other parts of the world. Anheuser-Busch introduced what it said was the first "nationally available" sorghum-brewed beer, called Redbridge, in the US a year ago to provide a beer for people allergic to wheat or barley.

Redbridge follows other sorghum beers from microbreweries, such as the Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee, which started production of New Grist sorghum beer more than two years ago.

Lakefront created the beer for people with wheat allergies, but found that it was liked by all kinds of people - particularly women, who appreciate the beer's sweeter taste. New Grist is now Lakefront's best-selling brand, finding a niche as so-called craft beer become more popular in the US.

Russ Klisch, president of Lakefront, says: "With craft beer, the movement is to different ingredients and different tastes and flavours . . sorghum is now becoming one of the many ingredients home brewers want to experiment with."

Financial Times

African farmers contracted to grow sorghum for beer

When Dutch brewer Heineken and British drinks group Diageo teamed up with a non-profit organisation to help African farmers grow sorghum, little did they realise that their social experiment would turn into a sustainable business. The project aims to establish a sustainable production chain, and to show local farmers that there is a long term future in growing sorghum.

Heineken and Diageo, which owns the stout brand Guinness, started work with Brussels-based European Co-operative for Rural Development more than a year ago on a five-year project to encourage farmers to produce sorghum in Ghana and Sierra Leone.

For both companies, which make beer as well as non-alcoholic drinks from malted barley throughout Africa, the project was a chance to develop local sources of agricultural raw materials and also to help local economies.

Both companies have been importing barley into many of the African countries - the grain traditionally used to brew beer - to make their drinks. Although barley is one of the world's most common grains, it is not widely grown in Africa since it grows best in countries with cooler climates such as Russia and Canada.

But transportation costs and the rocketing price of malting barley, because of strong global demand, have made importing barley to Africa more expensive than ever. Hence the appeal of making beer with locally produced grains such as sorghum.

Henk Knipscheer, managing director of Eucord, says the rise in malting barley prices was not anticipated by the companies when they became involved in the project: "What started as a social responsibility project is now commercially rather attractive."

Although African farmers have long grown sorghum, a hardy crop that grows easily in poor soils and is used in porridge and beer, big brewers such as Heineken and Diageo have been reluctant to become reliant on local farmers. They were unsure whether farmers could produce the right variety, and whether they could ensure consistent supply.

The project, which has received some $2.8m in funding from the Common Fund for Commodities - a branch of the United Nations - as well as Heineken and Diageo, aims to establish a sustainable production chain so the companies can rely on getting supplies from local farmers. It also aims to show farmers that there is a long-term future in growing sorghum. "Farmers need to build confidence that the market is there," Mr Knipscheer says.

Eucord has been training farmers in cultivation methods aimed at increasing yields and arranging access to finance so they can buy seeds and fertilisers. It has also organised the farmers into groups since grain traders do not like buying grain from individual farmers.

In Ghana, where some 1,000 farmers are involved in the project, the group surpassed its initial target of 800 tonnes of sorghum by 100 tonnes at the end of the first growing season. Sierra Leone had 2,000 farmers in the project but produced only 40 tonnes. However, this year Sierra Leone expects to produce 150 tonnes.

Heineken is delighted with the results of the project, particularly in Sierra Leone, where expectations had been lower. Thomas de Man, Heineken's regional president for Africa and the Middle East, says: "You see an economy growing around farming."

Heineken first made beer with sorghum in Nigeria in the early 1990s after the country banned imports of malt barley, and two years ago it started building a sorghum malting plant in Nigeria. The plant will be up and running shortly.

It now makes beer wholly or partly with sorghum in five African countries - Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Burundi - selling it under brands such as Star or Gulder, and sees potential for making beer with sorghum in other parts of Africa and possibly on other continents.

"This is a technology that will fit us in countries where it is an important crop or where we see a similar opportunity," Mr de Man says. Heineken does not sell sorghum-brewed beer under its core Heineken brand.

Diageo, which brews Guinness Foreign Extra Stout in some 28 locations around Africa, only makes it with sorghum in Nigeria (and now Ghana and Sierra Leone). But if the trial in Sierra Leone is successful it will try to brew the stout with sorghum in as many African countries as possible. It claims local consumers cannot taste the difference between Guinness brewed with sorghum and Guinness brewed with barley.

Beer brewed with sorghum is also becoming more popular in other parts of the world. Anheuser-Busch introduced what it said was the first "nationally available" sorghum-brewed beer, called Redbridge, in the US a year ago to provide a beer for people allergic to wheat or barley.

Redbridge follows other sorghum beers from microbreweries, such as the Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee, which started production of New Grist sorghum beer more than two years ago.

Lakefront created the beer for people with wheat allergies, but found that it was liked by all kinds of people - particularly women, who appreciate the beer's sweeter taste. New Grist is now Lakefront's best-selling brand, finding a niche as so-called craft beer become more popular in the US.

Russ Klisch, president of Lakefront, says: "With craft beer, the movement is to different ingredients and different tastes and flavours . . sorghum is now becoming one of the many ingredients home brewers want to experiment with."

Financial Times

Vietnamese rice farmers to assist Sierra Leone

Professor Vo Tong Xuan, rector of An Giang University (Vietnam), will send 20 farmers from the Mekong Delta to work as agriculture experts in Africa. Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper interviewed the professor.

How did the idea for this programme come about?

During a visit to Japan in 2006 I met with the agriculture minister of Sierra Leone, who asked me to co-operate with his country’s agricultural sector. Sierra Leone’s climatic conditions are the same as Viet Nam’s, and I believe that the cultivation techniques of Vietnamese farmers in the Cuu Long Delta region can be applied in Sierra Leone.

Is the programme sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development?

After I failed to get a reply from the ministry, I was afraid to lose this opportunity, so I asked some enterprises to invest in the programme. However, the purpose of this programme has always been to share the talent of Vietnamese farmers with those who can benefit and not to make a profit.

Why are you so determined to realise the programme?

First of all, I want to improve the hard lives of farmers.

Another reason is that Viet Nam is now the second-largest rice exporter in the world, but the country is at risk of losing its competitive edge. This is because alongside the rising productivity of other rice-exporting countries, Viet Nam’s rice cultivation area is faced with reductions due to an exploding population and the growth of industry.

According to deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Bui Ba Bong, in the last five years Viet Nam has lost 300,000 ha of land for rice cultivation. In other words, the Cuu Long Delta will run out of land and natural resources if we continue to use the old methods of land exploitation.

Do you bring any personal experiences into the programme?

Yes, I do. When I was a student in Los Banos University in the Philippines, I successfully organised an agricultural extension programme for the local people. Then, I published a handbook on techniques for high-yield rice cultivation, which was re-published by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

Seven years ago, I was invited by a Japanese professor to conduct a field study of agriculture in Brazil. I visited a museum on Japanese migrants to Brazil. The museum tells the history of Japanese migrants who started their new lives with agricultural production. They were allotted land and applied their experience and techniques of livestock breeding and plant cultivation. They not only became rich people, but also helped train experienced and technically-advanced agricultural experts for Brazil.

The visit inspired my ambition to make Viet Nam succeed in Africa as Japan did in Brazil.

In the past, many countries failed to help Africa. Do you believe in your success?

Definitely.

In the past, European countries and the US sent experts to Africa to help eradicate hunger and poverty. Many projects costing billions of US dollars failed. The reasons were many. But I think the major reason was that the transfer of technology was mismanaged.

So, when accepting the proposal, I carefully considered the methods of implementation.

The farmers of Sierra Leone have little experience in cultivating high-yield rice. Besides, they don’t have irrigation systems or machines, so crops depend totally on nature. We decided to teach them not only how to plant high-yield rice but also build irrigation works. This year, we completed the planning of the irrigation works and succeeded in planting 50 varieties of high-yield rice on a large area in Sierra Leone.

Do you think about sending out more farmers in the future?

Yes, I do. Farmers will be sent not only to Sierra Leone but elsewhere in Africa as well.

Initially, the first batch of farmers to Sierra Leone will train the local farmers in an arrangement wherein one Vietnamese farmers trains four Sierra Leone farmers.

Sponsoring enterprises will set up a stock company here to help duplicate the model in other African countries.

Besides assisting in rice cultivation, the company will also help Sierra Leone tap other potentials such as processing fish and vegetables. So in the long term, we will also be sending over vegetable growers and fish breeders and processors.

Viet Nam News