Ethiopia

Saudi Star has begun rice cultivation on 10,000ha of land in Gambella and a 10,000ha irrigation project along the already-compromised Alwero River. Only grain that does not meet export requirements will be sold locally.

“There is no villagization programme,” Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, founder of Karuturi Global, told Mint via telephone. “This is a completely jaundiced western vision. They assume anything in Africa has to be done by the whites and the Chinese and Indians should have businesses only in their own countries.”

Ethiopia has forced at least 70,000 people off their land so it can lease fertile fields to foreign investors, a move that has left some locals starving in barren, remote villages.

BBC radio investigates report by Human Rights Watch that claims Britain is indirectly funding a brutally enforced resettlement programme in Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian government has denied forcibly relocating tens of thousands of people off their land to make way for foreign investors.

Le gouvernement éthiopien contraint actuellement par la force plusieurs dizaines de milliers de personnes à quitter leurs terres pour mettre ces dernières à la disposition d'investisseurs fonciers étrangers, provoquant une crise humanitaire au sein des populations déplacées, rapporte, mardi 17 janvier, Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Many of the areas from which people are being moved are slated for leasing by the Ethiopian government for commercial agricultural development, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch.

Le ministère éthiopien de l'agriculture s'oppose à ce que la compagnie Karuturi installe des milliers de fermiers indiens sur les terres qu'elle loue dans la région de Gambela.

The Ethiopian ministry of agriculture is against the firm Karuturi’s plan to install thousands of Indian farmers in land it has leased in the Gambela region.

Gilles van Kote, envoyé spécial du Monde, et Jiro Ose, photographe japonais basé à Addis-Abeba, se sont rendus dans la région de Gambela, à la pointe occidentale de l'Ethiopie, pour enquêter sur le phénomène de location de terres.

Rich soil, a tropical climate, and an abundance of water: the region of Gambela in the west of the country is fertile. Foreign investors are renting thousands of hectares of it to develop intensive agriculture without regard for the environment and the population, reports Le Monde.

Channel4News Jonathan Rugman has special report from Ethiopia on the revolution in agricultural production - but small tenant farmers say they now have less food to eat than before the changes began.