Kenya

Proposals to sell off around 16,200 hectares of land in the Tana River delta to Qatar to grow vegetables and fruit in return for a new port in Lamu have again raised concerns for the future of the environmentally important area.

It has now emerged that the land in question is part of the fertile Tana River delta in Coast Province, the same stretch where plans by Mumias Sugar Company to build a sugar factory have raised objections from pastoralists claiming that their animals will lack pasture and the environment will be destroyed.

Stephen Marks looks at the latest rush by China and countries in the middle east to sign lease agreements in poor countries for agricultural production, and what this trend means in terms of food security and access to arable land for local populations.

One-hour audio debate on the BBC

The Kenyan President, Mwai Kibaki, returned from a visit to Qatar on Monday. His spokesman said the request for land in the Tana River delta, south of Lamu, was being seriously considered. “Nothing comes for free. If you want people to invest in your country then you have to make concessions,” the spokesman said.

Qatar has asked Kenya to lease it 40,000 hectares of land to grow crops as part of a proposed package that would also see the Gulf state fund a new £2.4bn port on the popular tourist island of Lamu off the east African country.

Chinese investors, who have lately gained a strong presence in Kenya’s telecoms and heavy industry, are now eyeing the country’s farmland as a source of useful raw materials and employment opportunity

Liu Jianjun, a former Chinese government official who runs the Baoding-Africa business council, has contracts to farm 10,000 acres in Uganda, to build a cornflour processing factory in Kenya and for a farm project in the Ivory Coast.

“There’s no harm in allowing [Chinese] farmers to leave the country to become farm owners [in Africa],” the head of China’s Export-Import Bank, Li Ruogu, says.

“MPs want ActionAid to keep off”, screams the caption of a story in the East African Standard of January 3, 2006. The story is attributed to MPs Oburu Odinga and Ayiecho Olweny who claim that the NGO is inciting residents of trouble ridden Yala Swamp rice scheme in which American investor Dominion Group of Companies has been embroiled in a tussle with the community over issues of land dispossession