Vietnam Rubber Group plans to invest in large-scale and high-value agriculture until the end of 2030, covering an area of 36,227ha, including 5,000ha dedicated to banana cultivation.
The Luapula Council of Chiefs has joined other stakeholders in rejecting the proposed US$72 billion Vietnamese rice investment project spearheaded by VietZam Development Corporation Limited that is said to involve 6 million hectares of land.
The Vietnamese conglomerate’s regional expansion will include 11,600 hectares dedicated to intensive banana production across the four new farms, two of which will be in Cambodia.
With the new injection of funds, HAGL intends to expand its total plantation area to 25,000 hectares for bananas, durian and other economically valuable crops across Việt Nam, Laos and Cambodia.
The parties will explore opportunities to valorize residues from agro-industrial value chains to produce vegetable oils, which are not in competition with the food chain, for Eni’s biorefineries.
A massive pig breeding and farming operation in Vietnam is set to expand, aided by $26 million in funding recently granted by the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Colonial and anti-colonial movements’ have deeply shaped the patterns and impacts of concessions in Southeast Asia. In some cases, communities have experienced dispossession through land grabs dressed as concessions. In others, concessions are part of a re-concentration of land holding.
HAGL currently has some 10,000 hectares of fruit trees, including 2,500 ha under banana in Vietnam, 1,500 ha in Laos and 1,000 ha in Cambodia.
AVG Capital Partners will build a pig farm on 1,000 hectares of land in the Nghi Son Economic Zone to raise five million hogs a year.
The agribusiness company, Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL), pledged to World Bank in 2015 to return land within its rubber concessions to local communities. But as residents have sheltered at home due to COVID-19, the company has cleared much of the land.
The funds will be used for the procurement of specific agri-commodities from smallholder farmers in Vietnam, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea and Uganda as well as the expansion of Olam’s cocoa processing facility in Indonesia.
The TH Group has settled a deal to buy three Top End cattle stations in Australia, covering 732,900 hectares and with 60,000 head of cattle, more than 12 months after a contract was signed.
