$\"Ethiopian$
Ethiopian farmers are now painted as part of the problem, rather than a potential solution.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
BAKO, Ethiopia\/JOHANNESBURG, Nov 12 (Reuters) \u2013 For centuries, farmers like Berhanu Gudina have eked out a living in Ethiopia\u2019s central lowlands, tending tiny plots of maize, wheat or barley amid the vastness of the lush green plains.<\/p>\n
Now, they find themselves working cheek by jowl with high-tech commercial farms stretching over thousands of hectares tilled by state-of-the-art tractors \u2014 and owned and operated by foreigners.<\/p>\n
With memories of Ethiopia\u2019s devastating 1984 famine still fresh in the minds of its leaders, the government has been enticing well-heeled foreigners to invest in the nation\u2019s underperforming agriculture sector. It is part of an economic development push they say will help the Horn of Africa nation ensure it has enough food for its 80 million people.<\/p>\n
Many small Ethopian farmers do not share their leaders\u2019 enthusiasm for the policy, eyeing the outsiders with a suspicion that has crept across Africa as millions of hectares have been placed, with varying degrees of transparency, in foreign hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we see Indians coming, Chinese coming. Before, we were just Ethiopian,\u201d 54-year-old Gudina said in Bako, a small farming town 280 km (170 miles) west of Addis Ababa. \u201cWhat do they want here? The same as the British in Kenya? To steal everything? Our government is selling our country to the Asians so they can make money for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Xenophobia aside, a number of organizations \u2014 including the foundation started by Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates \u2014 argue that Africa should support its own farmers.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of African countries giving away their best lands, they should invest in their own farmers,\u201d said Akin Adesina, vice president of the Nairobi-based Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). \u201cWhat\u2019s needed is a small-holder, farmer-based revolution. African land should not be up for garage sale.\u201d<\/p>\n
FOOD FOR THOUGHT<\/strong><\/p>\n
Both sides of the debate agree on this much: a stark reality \u2014 underlined by last year\u2019s food price crisis \u2014 looms large over Ethiopia and beyond. The world is in danger of running out of food.<\/p>\n
By 2050, when its population is likely to be more than 9 billion, up from 6 billion now, the world\u2019s food production needs to increase by 70 percent, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.<\/p>\n
In Africa, which for a variety of reasons was bypassed by the Green Revolution that transformed India and China in the 1960s and 1970s, the numbers are even more bleak. The continent\u2019s population is set to double from 1 billion now.<\/p>\n
In all, the FAO says, feeding those extra mouths is going to take $83 billion in investment every year for the next four decades, increasing both the amount of cultivated land and how much it produces. The estimated investment for Africa alone is $11 billion a year.<\/p>\n
For deeply impoverished Ethiopia, sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s second-most populous nation after Nigeria, even a fraction of those sums is unthinkable.<\/p>\n
Yet with 111 million hectares \u2014 nearly twice the area of Texas \u2014 within its borders, the answer, in the government\u2019s eyes, is simple: Lease \u2019spare\u2019 land to wealthy outsiders to get them to grow the food. One unfortunate consequence of that thinking is Gudina and his little plot of maize are painted as part of the problem, rather than a potential solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe small-scale farmers are not producing the quality they should, because they don\u2019t have the technology,\u201d said Esayas Kebede, head of the Agricultural Investment Agency, a body founded only in February but already talking about offering foreign farmers 3 million hectares in the next two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are 12 million households in Ethiopia. We can\u2019t afford to give new technology to all of them,\u201d he said, sitting in an office adorned with maps showing possible sites for commercial farms.<\/p>\n
Indian agro-conglomerate Karuturi Global, whose involvement in Ethiopia so far has been exporting cut-flowers to Europe, has taken the hint, branching out into food production with a sprawling maize farm in Bako. Unlike with similar land deals elsewhere in Africa, the company insists crops will be exported only after demand is met in Ethiopia \u2014 where 6.2 million people are said to be in need of emergency food aid because of poor seasonal rains.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur main aim is to feed the Ethiopian people,\u201d Karuturi\u2019s Ethiopia general manager, Hanumatha Rao, told Reuters, sitting under an awning at the Bako farm as hundreds of labourers harvested maize in the fields stretching up nearby hillsides. \u201cWhatever we produce will go to the stomachs of the Ethiopian people before it goes to the international market.\u201d<\/p>\n
ANOTHER AFRICAN REVOLUTION<\/strong><\/p>\n
While many governments have been busy courting foreigners, in most cases from Asia or the Middle East, to increase Africa\u2019s food output, small farmers like Gudina are not totally without friends.<\/p>\n
An initiative backed by the Melinda and Bill Gates and Rockefeller foundations is aiming to kick-start an African Green Revolution, carefully avoiding the pitfalls that had engulfed previous such attempts.<\/p>\n
In particular, Africa boasts a dazzling array of soil types, climates and crops that have defied the one-size-fits-all solution of better seed, fertilizer and irrigation that worked in Asia half a century ago.<\/p>\n
Its perennial tendency to corruption and official incompetence has also played its part in keeping average grain yields on the continent at just 1.2 tonnes per hectare, compared with 3.5 tonnes in Europe and 5.5 tonnes in the United States.<\/p>\n
AGRA\u2019s Adesina says sub-Saharan governments are slowly realising the importance of small farmers, who account for 70 percent of the region\u2019s population and 60 percent of its agricultural output. But he urges governments to make good on a pledge six years ago to raise farm spending to 10 percent of their national budgets.<\/p>\n
For its part, AGRA is pouring money into research institutes from Burkina Faso in the west to Tanzania in the east to breed higher yielding and more drought- and pest-resistant strains of everything from maize and cassava to sorghum and sweet potato.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
Activists worried about African land grab<\/span><\/h2>\n
BY SAEED SHABAZZ -STAFF WRITER- | LAST UPDATED: DEC 21, 2009 – 9:19:54 AM<\/p>\n
NEW YORK (FinalCall.com) – A large and enthusiastic crowd recently gathered in the atrium at York College in Queens for a round-table discussion about the \u201c New Scramble for Africa<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dec. 12 event was sponsored by the Institute of the Black World 21st Century, under the leadership of Dr. Ron Daniels and his wife Mary France-Daniels, and the World African Diaspora Union chaired by former Ambassador Dudley Thompson of Jamaica.<\/p>\n
The York College forum is a continuation of the work by Institute for the Black World and World African Diaspora Union to forge mutually beneficial bonds amongst people of African descent by encouraging Pan Africanism, which essentially calls for Black efforts to support Africa and each other regardless of geographic locale. Both organizations work diligently in building bridges to promote operational unity between the Black community and continental Africans.<\/p>\n
Presenters included Dr. Shelby F. Lewis, professor emeritus, Clark Atlanta University; Dr. Chika Onyeani, a former Nigerian diplomat, newspaper editor and widely recognized advocate of Pan Africanism; Sidique Wai, president of the New York-based United African Congress, an organization that works to preserve and promote the image, heritage and culture of the African continent; Dr. Leonard Jeffries, professor at the City University of New York in the Africana Studies Department and a Diaspora Union vice president; Dr. Adelaide Sanford, a Pan African educator who serves as vice chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents; and Amb. Thompson.<\/p>\n
The overview for the dialogue was presented by Dr. Lewis, who serves as an African adviser and consultant to the Diaspora Union. She began by explaining the legacy of imperialism, slavery and colonialism and how these institutions played a role in the modern day \u201cscramble for Africa\u201d to acquire her resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt started back in ancient times, with the theft of Africa’s intellectual property,\u201d Dr. Lewis said, adding, \u201cAgain African people are pawns in the scramble for their gold and diamonds. But, more important is the scramble for Africa’s hottest commodity today, Africa’s farmland.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Lewis pointed a finger directly at the government of China as a leading nation leasing African farm land. \u201cWhat is in it for Africans?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
Critics say the Asian nation has grabbed huge amounts of Africa’s natural resources while at the same time dumping cheaply manufactured products and indulging in an unequal trade policy.<\/p>\n
China is not alone in the African farmland grab. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, in May, reported that since 2004, over one million acres of African land has been allocated to foreign entities.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the land claimed by foreign acquisition was already in use by local people, who were mostly driven out. The results are disheartening as people end up in over-populated urban centers,\u201d the report said. In June, news stories circulated accusing India of \u201cneo-colonialism\u201d in Africa, joining China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and several Arab nations. These nations are being called \u201cfood pirates\u201d who use African land to grow crops such as rice, sugar cane, maize and lentils for domestic markets.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe sit on gold and yet we are begging for gold,\u201d said Mr. Wai. He echoed Dr. Lewis’ observation that some of African nations leasing farmland are receiving international food aid and the agriculture output of African farmers is the lowest in the world.<\/p>\n
Dr. Lewis, Mr. Wai and Amb. Thompson, accused African leaders of mortgaging the continent’s future. \u201cIn a sense we in the Diaspora have to go and rescue Africa,\u201d Amb. Thompson said.<\/p>\n
Dr. Jeffries told the audience the institute’s call to create a think tank must be further developed. \u201cAfricans all over the world are asking where is our plan?\u201d he said. \u201cWe can put together our own $100 billion plan. Do not sit here and look at the Chinese action as a negative; they do what they do. We are in the best place we can be strategically. What are we going to do?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we are going to do is recommend that a committee be created to develop a preamble and statement of guiding principles for African nations entering into contracts with foreign powers for the utilization of land and resources,\u201d Dr. Daniels told\u00a0The Final Call<\/em>.<\/p>\n
The goal is to \u201coffer principles which ensure that the vast wealth and resources of Africa are used first and foremost for the development of the people and that contracts for the use of land and resources are based on fair and equitable exchange of value,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
———————————<\/p>\n
Alamudis and Melese’s pretext to Sell the land nationalized \u00a0from the farmers .<\/span><\/h2>\nEthiopia leases land for agriculture to earn foreign exchange<\/a><\/h2>\n
Bloomberg | 10 November 2009<\/p>\n
By Jason McLure<\/p>\n
Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) \u2014 Ethiopia plans to lease 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of land to foreign and domestic investors for agriculture over the next three years to increase productivity and earn foreign exchange, the government said.<\/p>\n
The state has already leased land for 15 birr (U.S. $1.19) per hectare per year in some parts of the country in an effort to attract foreign investment, said Eyesus Kebede, an agricultural-investment coordinator in the ministry. The government is also attempting to woo investors by offering incentives such as grace periods on payment.<\/p>\n
$\"Razack$
Razack Munboadan (C), senior manager with Karuturi, an Indian company with four commercial farms in Ethiopia, supervises workers at Karuturi's farm in Bako, central Ethiopia November 6, 2009. (Reuters)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u201cThere is ample amount of land which is not cultivated yet,\u201d Eyesus said in an interview in his office in Addis Ababa, the capital, yesterday. \u201cWe are preparing the land and we have given the comprehensive support for the agricultural investors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foreign investment in agriculture in Africa has drawn criticism from aid groups, including Oxfam International, that are concerned about the use of farmland to produce food for export from countries with widespread hunger. In Ethiopia, an estimated 13.7 million people, about one-sixth of the population, are dependent on foreign food aid.<\/p>\n
Eyesus said such concerns were outweighed by the plantations\u2019 capacity to bring foreign exchange and technology into the Horn of Africa country, as well as creating employment.<\/p>\n
Among foreign investors that have acquired land in western Ethiopia are Karuturi Global Ltd., an Indian food processor, and Saudi-based billionaire Sheikh Mohammed al-Amoudi, Eyesus said.<\/p>\n
Regional governments have already transferred 1.7 million hectares of land to Ethiopia\u2019s central government and surveyors are in the process of delineating additional land, he said.<\/p>\n
Feather Dresses<\/strong><\/p>\n
Among the land currently being advertised on the ministry\u2019s Web site is 180,625 hectares along the Omo River in southern Ethiopia. South Omo Zone, as it is known, is home to pastoralists from the Hamer, Dasenech and Gnangatom ethnic groups, many of whom still dress in feathers and leather garments and are considered among the world\u2019s most threatened indigenous people, according to Survival International, a London-based group that campaigns on behalf of ethnic groups.<\/p>\n
Eyesus said the land in South Omo was \u201cempty\u201d and that the government had taken environmental and social considerations into account when allocating land for investors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people and the local governments are very happy,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have not seen any conflict between investors and the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
———————————————————————–<\/p>\n
Wealthy nations outsource crops to Ethiopia\u2019s farmland<\/span><\/h2>\n
Trend is driven in part by last year\u2019s global food crisis<\/h2>\n
$\"Two$ <\/p>\n
Two managers (second from left, center) with Karuturi, an Indian company with commercial farms in Ethiopia, checked the corn harvested by workers at Karuturi\u2019s farm in Bako, Ethiopia. (Food\/Africa Reuters\/ Barry Malone)<\/em><\/p>\n
BAKO, Ethiopia – In recent months, the Ethiopian government began marketing abroad one of the hottest commodities in an increasingly crowded and hungry world: farmland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\u201cWhy Attractive?\u2019\u2019 reads one glossy poster with photos of green fields and a map outlining swaths of the country available at bargain-basement prices. \u201cVast, fertile, irrigable land at low rent. Abundant water resources. Cheap labor. Warmest hospitality.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
This impoverished and chronically food-insecure Horn of Africa nation is rapidly becoming one of the world\u2019s leading destinations for the booming business of land leasing, by which relatively rich countries and investment firms are securing 40- to 99-year contracts to farm vast tracts of land.<\/p>\n
Governments across Southeast Asia, Latin America, and especially Africa are seizing the chance to attract this new breed of investors, wining and dining executives, creating land-leasing agencies and land catalogs to showcase their offerings of earth. In Africa alone, experts estimate that about 50 million acres – roughly the size of Nebraska – have been leased in the past two years.<\/p>\n
The trend is driven in part by last year\u2019s global food crisis. Relatively wealthy countries are shoring up their food supplies by growing staple crops abroad. The desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for instance, is shifting wheat production to Africa. The government of India, where land is crowded and overfarmed, is offering incentives to companies to carve out mega farms across the continent.<\/p>\n
Increasingly, though, purely profit-seeking companies are snatching up land, making a simple, if somewhat grim, calculation. As one Saudi-backed businessman here put it, \u201cThe population of the world is increasing dramatically, so land and food supplies will be short, demand will be higher, and prices will rise.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The scale and pace of the land scramble has alarmed policymakers and others concerned about the implications for food security in countries such as Ethiopia, where officials recently appealed for food aid for about 6 million people as drought devastates parts of East Africa. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization is in the midst of a food security summit in Rome where some of the 62 heads of state attending are to discuss a code of conduct to govern land deals, which are being struck with little public input.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese contracts are pretty thin,\u2019\u2019 said David Hallam, a deputy director at the UN organization. \u201cYou see statements from ministers where they\u2019re basically promising everything with no controls, no conditions.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The harshest critics of the practice conjure bleak images of poor Africans starving as food is hauled off to rich countries. Some express concern that decades of industrial farming will leave good land spoiled even as local populations surge. And skeptics also say the political contexts cannot be ignored.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t trust this government,\u2019\u2019 said Merera Gudina, a leading opposition figure here who accuses Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia of using the land policy to hold on to power. \u201cWe are afraid this government is buying diplomatic support by giving away land.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
But many experts are cautiously hopeful, saying that big agribusiness could feed millions by industrializing agriculture in countries such as Ethiopia, where about 80 percent of its 75 million people are farmers who plow their fields with oxen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf these deals are negotiated well, I tell you, it will change the dynamics of the food economy in this country,\u2019\u2019 said Mafa Chipeta, the UN group\u2019s representative in Ethiopia, dismissing the worst-case scenarios. \u201cI can\u2019t believe Ethiopia or any other government would allow their country to be used like an empty womb. The human spirit would not allow it.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Few countries have embraced the trend as zealously as Ethiopia, where hard-baked eastern deserts fade into spectacularly lush and green western valleys fed by the Blue Nile. Only a quarter of the country\u2019s estimated 175 million fertile acres is being farmed.<\/p>\n
Desperate for foreign currency, the government of former Marxist rebels who once proclaimed \u201cland to the tiller!\u2019\u2019 has set aside more than 6 million acres for agribusiness. Lured with 40-year leases and tax holidays, investors are going on farm shopping sprees, crisscrossing the country on chartered flights to pick out their swaths of Ethiopian soil.<\/p>\n
Indian companies have committed $4.2 billion. Anand Seth, director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organizations, described Africa as \u201cthe next big thing\u2019\u2019 in investment opportunities and markets.<\/p>\n
As he stood on a little hill overlooking 30,000 acres of rich, black soil, Hanumantha Rao, chief general manager of the Indian company Karuturi Agro Products, agreed. He said the Ethiopian government has imposed few requirements on his company.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom here,\u2019\u2019 Rao said, \u201cyou can see the past and the future of Ethiopian agriculture.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
From there it was possible to see a river designated for irrigating cornfields and rice paddies; it is no longer open for locals to water their cows. Several shiny green tractors bounced across the 6-mile-long field where teff, the local grain, once grew.<\/p>\n: BAKO, Ethiopia\/JOHANNESBURG, Nov 12 (Reuters) \u2013 For centuries, farmers like Berhanu Gudina have eked out a living in Ethiopia\u2019s central lowlands, tending tiny plots of maize, wheat or barley amid the vastness of the lush green plains.<\/p>\n
Now, they find themselves working cheek by jowl with high-tech commercial farms stretching over thousands of hectares tilled by state-of-the-art tractors \u2014 and owned and operated by foreigners.<\/p>\n
With memories of Ethiopia\u2019s devastating 1984 famine still fresh in the minds of its leaders, the government has been enticing well-heeled foreigners to invest in the nation\u2019s underperforming agriculture sector. It is part of an economic development push they say will help the Horn of Africa nation ensure it has enough food for its 80 million people.<\/p>\n
Many small Ethopian farmers do not share their leaders\u2019 enthusiasm for the policy, eyeing the outsiders with a suspicion that has crept across Africa as millions of hectares have been placed, with varying degrees of transparency, in foreign hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we see Indians coming, Chinese coming. Before, we were just Ethiopian,\u201d 54-year-old Gudina said in Bako, a small farming town 280 km (170 miles) west of Addis Ababa. \u201cWhat do they want here? The same as the British in Kenya? To steal everything? Our government is selling our country to the Asians so they can make money for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Xenophobia aside, a number of organizations \u2014 including the foundation started by Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates \u2014 argue that Africa should support its own farmers.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of African countries giving away their best lands, they should invest in their own farmers,\u201d said Akin Adesina, vice president of the Nairobi-based Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). \u201cWhat\u2019s needed is a small-holder, farmer-based revolution. African land should not be up for garage sale.\u201d<\/p>\n
FOOD FOR THOUGHT<\/strong><\/p>\n
Both sides of the debate agree on this much: a stark reality \u2014 underlined by last year\u2019s food price crisis \u2014 looms large over Ethiopia and beyond. The world is in danger of running out of food.<\/p>\n
By 2050, when its population is likely to be more than 9 billion, up from 6 billion now, the world\u2019s food production needs to increase by 70 percent, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.<\/p>\n
In Africa, which for a variety of reasons was bypassed by the Green Revolution that transformed India and China in the 1960s and 1970s, the numbers are even more bleak. The continent\u2019s population is set to double from 1 billion now.<\/p>\n
In all, the FAO says, feeding those extra mouths is going to take $83 billion in investment every year for the next four decades, increasing both the amount of cultivated land and how much it produces. The estimated investment for Africa alone is $11 billion a year.<\/p>\n
For deeply impoverished Ethiopia, sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s second-most populous nation after Nigeria, even a fraction of those sums is unthinkable.<\/p>\n
Yet with 111 million hectares \u2014 nearly twice the area of Texas \u2014 within its borders, the answer, in the government\u2019s eyes, is simple: Lease \u2019spare\u2019 land to wealthy outsiders to get them to grow the food. One unfortunate consequence of that thinking is Gudina and his little plot of maize are painted as part of the problem, rather than a potential solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe small-scale farmers are not producing the quality they should, because they don\u2019t have the technology,\u201d said Esayas Kebede, head of the Agricultural Investment Agency, a body founded only in February but already talking about offering foreign farmers 3 million hectares in the next two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are 12 million households in Ethiopia. We can\u2019t afford to give new technology to all of them,\u201d he said, sitting in an office adorned with maps showing possible sites for commercial farms.<\/p>\n
Indian agro-conglomerate Karuturi Global, whose involvement in Ethiopia so far has been exporting cut-flowers to Europe, has taken the hint, branching out into food production with a sprawling maize farm in Bako. Unlike with similar land deals elsewhere in Africa, the company insists crops will be exported only after demand is met in Ethiopia \u2014 where 6.2 million people are said to be in need of emergency food aid because of poor seasonal rains.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur main aim is to feed the Ethiopian people,\u201d Karuturi\u2019s Ethiopia general manager, Hanumatha Rao, told Reuters, sitting under an awning at the Bako farm as hundreds of labourers harvested maize in the fields stretching up nearby hillsides. \u201cWhatever we produce will go to the stomachs of the Ethiopian people before it goes to the international market.\u201d<\/p>\n
ANOTHER AFRICAN REVOLUTION<\/strong><\/p>\n
While many governments have been busy courting foreigners, in most cases from Asia or the Middle East, to increase Africa\u2019s food output, small farmers like Gudina are not totally without friends.<\/p>\n
An initiative backed by the Melinda and Bill Gates and Rockefeller foundations is aiming to kick-start an African Green Revolution, carefully avoiding the pitfalls that had engulfed previous such attempts.<\/p>\n
In particular, Africa boasts a dazzling array of soil types, climates and crops that have defied the one-size-fits-all solution of better seed, fertilizer and irrigation that worked in Asia half a century ago.<\/p>\n
Its perennial tendency to corruption and official incompetence has also played its part in keeping average grain yields on the continent at just 1.2 tonnes per hectare, compared with 3.5 tonnes in Europe and 5.5 tonnes in the United States.<\/p>\n
AGRA\u2019s Adesina says sub-Saharan governments are slowly realising the importance of small farmers, who account for 70 percent of the region\u2019s population and 60 percent of its agricultural output. But he urges governments to make good on a pledge six years ago to raise farm spending to 10 percent of their national budgets.<\/p>\n
For its part, AGRA is pouring money into research institutes from Burkina Faso in the west to Tanzania in the east to breed higher yielding and more drought- and pest-resistant strains of everything from maize and cassava to sorghum and sweet potato.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
Activists worried about African land grab<\/span><\/h2>\n
BY SAEED SHABAZZ -STAFF WRITER- | LAST UPDATED: DEC 21, 2009 – 9:19:54 AM<\/p>\n
NEW YORK (FinalCall.com) – A large and enthusiastic crowd recently gathered in the atrium at York College in Queens for a round-table discussion about the \u201c New Scramble for Africa<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dec. 12 event was sponsored by the Institute of the Black World 21st Century, under the leadership of Dr. Ron Daniels and his wife Mary France-Daniels, and the World African Diaspora Union chaired by former Ambassador Dudley Thompson of Jamaica.<\/p>\n
The York College forum is a continuation of the work by Institute for the Black World and World African Diaspora Union to forge mutually beneficial bonds amongst people of African descent by encouraging Pan Africanism, which essentially calls for Black efforts to support Africa and each other regardless of geographic locale. Both organizations work diligently in building bridges to promote operational unity between the Black community and continental Africans.<\/p>\n
Presenters included Dr. Shelby F. Lewis, professor emeritus, Clark Atlanta University; Dr. Chika Onyeani, a former Nigerian diplomat, newspaper editor and widely recognized advocate of Pan Africanism; Sidique Wai, president of the New York-based United African Congress, an organization that works to preserve and promote the image, heritage and culture of the African continent; Dr. Leonard Jeffries, professor at the City University of New York in the Africana Studies Department and a Diaspora Union vice president; Dr. Adelaide Sanford, a Pan African educator who serves as vice chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents; and Amb. Thompson.<\/p>\n
The overview for the dialogue was presented by Dr. Lewis, who serves as an African adviser and consultant to the Diaspora Union. She began by explaining the legacy of imperialism, slavery and colonialism and how these institutions played a role in the modern day \u201cscramble for Africa\u201d to acquire her resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt started back in ancient times, with the theft of Africa’s intellectual property,\u201d Dr. Lewis said, adding, \u201cAgain African people are pawns in the scramble for their gold and diamonds. But, more important is the scramble for Africa’s hottest commodity today, Africa’s farmland.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Lewis pointed a finger directly at the government of China as a leading nation leasing African farm land. \u201cWhat is in it for Africans?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
Critics say the Asian nation has grabbed huge amounts of Africa’s natural resources while at the same time dumping cheaply manufactured products and indulging in an unequal trade policy.<\/p>\n
China is not alone in the African farmland grab. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, in May, reported that since 2004, over one million acres of African land has been allocated to foreign entities.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the land claimed by foreign acquisition was already in use by local people, who were mostly driven out. The results are disheartening as people end up in over-populated urban centers,\u201d the report said. In June, news stories circulated accusing India of \u201cneo-colonialism\u201d in Africa, joining China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and several Arab nations. These nations are being called \u201cfood pirates\u201d who use African land to grow crops such as rice, sugar cane, maize and lentils for domestic markets.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe sit on gold and yet we are begging for gold,\u201d said Mr. Wai. He echoed Dr. Lewis’ observation that some of African nations leasing farmland are receiving international food aid and the agriculture output of African farmers is the lowest in the world.<\/p>\n
Dr. Lewis, Mr. Wai and Amb. Thompson, accused African leaders of mortgaging the continent’s future. \u201cIn a sense we in the Diaspora have to go and rescue Africa,\u201d Amb. Thompson said.<\/p>\n
Dr. Jeffries told the audience the institute’s call to create a think tank must be further developed. \u201cAfricans all over the world are asking where is our plan?\u201d he said. \u201cWe can put together our own $100 billion plan. Do not sit here and look at the Chinese action as a negative; they do what they do. We are in the best place we can be strategically. What are we going to do?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we are going to do is recommend that a committee be created to develop a preamble and statement of guiding principles for African nations entering into contracts with foreign powers for the utilization of land and resources,\u201d Dr. Daniels told\u00a0The Final Call<\/em>.<\/p>\n
The goal is to \u201coffer principles which ensure that the vast wealth and resources of Africa are used first and foremost for the development of the people and that contracts for the use of land and resources are based on fair and equitable exchange of value,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
———————————<\/p>\n
Alamudis and Melese’s pretext to Sell the land nationalized \u00a0from the farmers .<\/span><\/h2>\nEthiopia leases land for agriculture to earn foreign exchange<\/a><\/h2>\n
Bloomberg | 10 November 2009<\/p>\n
By Jason McLure<\/p>\n
Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) \u2014 Ethiopia plans to lease 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of land to foreign and domestic investors for agriculture over the next three years to increase productivity and earn foreign exchange, the government said.<\/p>\n
The state has already leased land for 15 birr (U.S. $1.19) per hectare per year in some parts of the country in an effort to attract foreign investment, said Eyesus Kebede, an agricultural-investment coordinator in the ministry. The government is also attempting to woo investors by offering incentives such as grace periods on payment.<\/p>\n
$\"Razack$
Razack Munboadan (C), senior manager with Karuturi, an Indian company with four commercial farms in Ethiopia, supervises workers at Karuturi's farm in Bako, central Ethiopia November 6, 2009. (Reuters)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u201cThere is ample amount of land which is not cultivated yet,\u201d Eyesus said in an interview in his office in Addis Ababa, the capital, yesterday. \u201cWe are preparing the land and we have given the comprehensive support for the agricultural investors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foreign investment in agriculture in Africa has drawn criticism from aid groups, including Oxfam International, that are concerned about the use of farmland to produce food for export from countries with widespread hunger. In Ethiopia, an estimated 13.7 million people, about one-sixth of the population, are dependent on foreign food aid.<\/p>\n
Eyesus said such concerns were outweighed by the plantations\u2019 capacity to bring foreign exchange and technology into the Horn of Africa country, as well as creating employment.<\/p>\n
Among foreign investors that have acquired land in western Ethiopia are Karuturi Global Ltd., an Indian food processor, and Saudi-based billionaire Sheikh Mohammed al-Amoudi, Eyesus said.<\/p>\n
Regional governments have already transferred 1.7 million hectares of land to Ethiopia\u2019s central government and surveyors are in the process of delineating additional land, he said.<\/p>\n
Feather Dresses<\/strong><\/p>\n
Among the land currently being advertised on the ministry\u2019s Web site is 180,625 hectares along the Omo River in southern Ethiopia. South Omo Zone, as it is known, is home to pastoralists from the Hamer, Dasenech and Gnangatom ethnic groups, many of whom still dress in feathers and leather garments and are considered among the world\u2019s most threatened indigenous people, according to Survival International, a London-based group that campaigns on behalf of ethnic groups.<\/p>\n
Eyesus said the land in South Omo was \u201cempty\u201d and that the government had taken environmental and social considerations into account when allocating land for investors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people and the local governments are very happy,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have not seen any conflict between investors and the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
———————————————————————–<\/p>\n
Wealthy nations outsource crops to Ethiopia\u2019s farmland<\/span><\/h2>\n
Trend is driven in part by last year\u2019s global food crisis<\/h2>\n
$\"Two$ <\/p>\n
Two managers (second from left, center) with Karuturi, an Indian company with commercial farms in Ethiopia, checked the corn harvested by workers at Karuturi\u2019s farm in Bako, Ethiopia. (Food\/Africa Reuters\/ Barry Malone)<\/em><\/p>\n
BAKO, Ethiopia – In recent months, the Ethiopian government began marketing abroad one of the hottest commodities in an increasingly crowded and hungry world: farmland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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\u201cWhy Attractive?\u2019\u2019 reads one glossy poster with photos of green fields and a map outlining swaths of the country available at bargain-basement prices. \u201cVast, fertile, irrigable land at low rent. Abundant water resources. Cheap labor. Warmest hospitality.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
This impoverished and chronically food-insecure Horn of Africa nation is rapidly becoming one of the world\u2019s leading destinations for the booming business of land leasing, by which relatively rich countries and investment firms are securing 40- to 99-year contracts to farm vast tracts of land.<\/p>\n
Governments across Southeast Asia, Latin America, and especially Africa are seizing the chance to attract this new breed of investors, wining and dining executives, creating land-leasing agencies and land catalogs to showcase their offerings of earth. In Africa alone, experts estimate that about 50 million acres – roughly the size of Nebraska – have been leased in the past two years.<\/p>\n
The trend is driven in part by last year\u2019s global food crisis. Relatively wealthy countries are shoring up their food supplies by growing staple crops abroad. The desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for instance, is shifting wheat production to Africa. The government of India, where land is crowded and overfarmed, is offering incentives to companies to carve out mega farms across the continent.<\/p>\n
Increasingly, though, purely profit-seeking companies are snatching up land, making a simple, if somewhat grim, calculation. As one Saudi-backed businessman here put it, \u201cThe population of the world is increasing dramatically, so land and food supplies will be short, demand will be higher, and prices will rise.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The scale and pace of the land scramble has alarmed policymakers and others concerned about the implications for food security in countries such as Ethiopia, where officials recently appealed for food aid for about 6 million people as drought devastates parts of East Africa. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization is in the midst of a food security summit in Rome where some of the 62 heads of state attending are to discuss a code of conduct to govern land deals, which are being struck with little public input.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese contracts are pretty thin,\u2019\u2019 said David Hallam, a deputy director at the UN organization. \u201cYou see statements from ministers where they\u2019re basically promising everything with no controls, no conditions.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The harshest critics of the practice conjure bleak images of poor Africans starving as food is hauled off to rich countries. Some express concern that decades of industrial farming will leave good land spoiled even as local populations surge. And skeptics also say the political contexts cannot be ignored.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t trust this government,\u2019\u2019 said Merera Gudina, a leading opposition figure here who accuses Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia of using the land policy to hold on to power. \u201cWe are afraid this government is buying diplomatic support by giving away land.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
But many experts are cautiously hopeful, saying that big agribusiness could feed millions by industrializing agriculture in countries such as Ethiopia, where about 80 percent of its 75 million people are farmers who plow their fields with oxen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf these deals are negotiated well, I tell you, it will change the dynamics of the food economy in this country,\u2019\u2019 said Mafa Chipeta, the UN group\u2019s representative in Ethiopia, dismissing the worst-case scenarios. \u201cI can\u2019t believe Ethiopia or any other government would allow their country to be used like an empty womb. The human spirit would not allow it.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Few countries have embraced the trend as zealously as Ethiopia, where hard-baked eastern deserts fade into spectacularly lush and green western valleys fed by the Blue Nile. Only a quarter of the country\u2019s estimated 175 million fertile acres is being farmed.<\/p>\n
Desperate for foreign currency, the government of former Marxist rebels who once proclaimed \u201cland to the tiller!\u2019\u2019 has set aside more than 6 million acres for agribusiness. Lured with 40-year leases and tax holidays, investors are going on farm shopping sprees, crisscrossing the country on chartered flights to pick out their swaths of Ethiopian soil.<\/p>\n
Indian companies have committed $4.2 billion. Anand Seth, director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organizations, described Africa as \u201cthe next big thing\u2019\u2019 in investment opportunities and markets.<\/p>\n
As he stood on a little hill overlooking 30,000 acres of rich, black soil, Hanumantha Rao, chief general manager of the Indian company Karuturi Agro Products, agreed. He said the Ethiopian government has imposed few requirements on his company.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom here,\u2019\u2019 Rao said, \u201cyou can see the past and the future of Ethiopian agriculture.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
From there it was possible to see a river designated for irrigating cornfields and rice paddies; it is no longer open for locals to water their cows. Several shiny green tractors bounced across the 6-mile-long field where teff, the local grain, once grew.<\/p>\n

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$\"Neo-gebbar\"$ <\/h2>\n