“We frankly told them, we had no land. They insisted we sign a Memorandum of Understating with them, a request we also refused. We only accepted to sign minutes of the meeting we held,” Mr Okasai of Uganda's agriculture ministry said.
If the early reports are anything to go by, the Bangladeshi deals already incorporate many elements that suggest they are being done in a way likely to engender fierce resentment and opposition in the African countries concerned.
Of the produce, 20 percent will go to the government of Uganda, and the remaining will be sent to Bangladesh with a profit of 10 percent plus production cost, says Nitol-Niloy Group
Bangladeshi companies say they have leased thousands of hectares of farmland in Africa as part of their efforts to avoid future food shortages.
Bangladesh has leased tens of thousands of hectares of farmland in Africa as part of a government drive to improve food security in the poverty-stricken South Asian nation, an official said on Tuesday
The government of Bangladesh has also been looking for farmland abroad -- in Burma, Kenya, Uganda
Increasing industrial production of oil palm in sub-Saharan African countries, carried out by foreign corporations, is destroying the livelihoods of thousands of Africans and the biodiversity of ecosystems.
Fallow land in Africa presents a fantastic opportunity for Turkish businesspeople involved in agriculture, a Ugandan member of a cotton delegation visiting western Turkey said Monday.
African governments need to raise their level of accountability and ensure that they improve and protect their own food security through quid pro quo side-agreements negotiated when they lease or sell their arable land to foreign interests, says Keith Mullin of Thompson Reuters
As India looks at avenues beyond its shores to deal with food security, Uganda, which has nearly half the arable land in east Africa, has laid the red carpet for inward investment from India Inc.
SilverStreet is scouting for commercial farms in five countries — Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
