Al Amoudi

Farms were bought from govt for 1.1b birr ($59.4m), General Manager of Horizon Plantations Ethiopia Jemal Ahmed tells reporters in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa.

L’Inde, autre puissante émergente, a elle-aussi pigé l’aubaine des appels du pied de Zenawi. Mais plutôt que de miser sur la production manufacturière où il est difficile de concurrencer l’atelier chinois, New Delhi s’est rabattu sur le gâteau agricole.

The Ethiopian military responded to an attack on a farm in Gambella region owned by Saudi Star Agricultural Development Plc with arbitrary arrests, rape, and other abuses against scores of local villagers, says Human Rights Watch.

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

Indigenous people fear collective retaliation by government security forces.

Gunmen attacked the camp of an agricultural company owned by a Saudi billionaire in southwest Ethiopia, Federal Affairs Minister Shiferaw Teklemariam said.

Ethiopia’s Agriculture Ministry has transferred 100,000 hectares in Benishangul to commercial farmers, and is offering a further 981,000 hectares, about one-fifth of the state’s land.

Two MIDROC-affiliated companies, largely owned by the Saudi tycoon Mohammed Hussein Ali Al-Amoudi, are Saudi Star Agricultural Plc and Horizon Plantations Plc. Both offered tens of millions of Birr to acquire state-owned plantations last week.

Al-Amoudi’s Saudi Star Agricultural Development Plc, which is primarily growing rice to export to Saudi Arabia, has leased 10,000 hectares in Gambella region and is in the “process of leasing an additional 290,000 hectares”.

The growing insecurity and violence in Gambela, seen in the recent loss of human lives and attacks on government institutions, should be seen as a clear warning to investors about the dangers involved in large scale agricultural investments, says the Anywaa Survival Organisation.

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.

Saudi Star Agricultural Development is being sued by an Ethiopian state company for failure to pay for the clearing of land in the Gambella Regional State.