India

Karuturi Global is now one of the biggest private land owners in the world. They have invested over a quarter of a billion dollars in Ethiopia and Kenya alone. BBC reports.

"We are using knowledge and resources from Latin America and North America, capital from this part of the world (India) and land from Africa to make hopefully a heady cocktail,"says Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi

“We have finalised deals with four big agro companies in India for joint ventures for different crops that we are looking at growing – rice, maize, oil palm and sugarcane,” says Karuturi.

The 19th century had the Great Scramble for Africa, when developed nations raced for several decades to lay claim to new territories and their riches. This century may yet be known as the Great Selloff of Africa.

The State government announced that it would amend relevant laws to enable farmers to use their land as equity in farming collaborations with private companies.

"If we lose our family farmers, we'll lose the diversity in our food supply, and what we eat will be dictated to us by a few large corporations," says Chukki Nanjundaswamy of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha

In an apparent attempt to avoid protests from farmers who have expressed fears that the goverment would acquire their lands to give it to MNCs, Chief Minister urges them not to be carried away by a "misinformation campaign".

Karuturi Agro Products Plc has refuted reports that the company subleased farm land to Indian farmers, claiming instead that the Indian farmers were hired solely for consultancy services.

Indian author and media commentator Anand Giridharadas joins this Al Jazeera programme along with Oakland Institute’s Executive Director, Anuradha Mittal, and Christine L. Adamow, Managing Director of Africa BioFuel, a US company invested in farmland in Kenya and Tanzania.

Especuladores, Gobiernos, bancos y fondos de pensiones se lanzan a comprar

The Ethiopian government has miserably failed to engage and convince citizens about the present and long-term implications of farmland grabbing.

For Gambellans who live as pastoralist and subsistence farmers, massive dispossession and auctioning off their land for pennies will inevitably destroy the very fabric of their society and way of life and threaten them with extinction.