Agricultural experts have called for a halt to moves by Gulf investors to snap up foreign land, amid claims that poor nations are losing much-needed farmland in a calculated land grab.
Estados e inversores privados compiten por comprar superficies en África, Asia y Latinoamérica
Land buying firms no longer disclose their identities to avoid tarnishing their image
Hassad Food's priority in business partnership and export will be given to Arabic and Islamic countries. “A big project will be launched in the near future between Qatar and Sudan. The budget is open as no minimum or maximum limit has been considered so it will be a big project.”
Egypt's Beltone Private Equity and Sudan's Kenana Sugar Company have agreed to set up a firm to invest up to $1 billion in large-scale agriculture projects in both countries, Beltone said in a statement on Wednesday.
Gulf states buying farmland in developing nations for food security face the risk of damaging their reputation as international investors as the deals are seen as land grabs, a Rothschild executive said yesterday.
The wheat farms in Sudan & Uganda are not Egypt’s first foray into overseas farming — the government operates a corn farm in Zambia, a rice farm in Niger, a vegetable farm in Tanzania and plans 14 more farms across Africa — but they are significant because they are among the first efforts to address wheat scarcity after the instability of 2008.
The $1bn project, dubbed 7X7, aims at developing 700,000 ha of farmland to produce within 7 years 7 million tonnes of rice in Mali, Senegal and maybe Sudan and Uganda.
Because of the political sensitivity of the modern-day land grab, it is often only the country's head of state who knows the details. Der Spiegel investigates.
Many governments in the region have been trying to address the food security concern by investing in farmlands overseas such as Sudan and Malaysia. John W Power, president, LSC International, feels this is unlikely to solve the problem in the long term, especially if the indigenous population is short of food.
Regierungen und Investmentfonds erwerben in Afrika und Asien Ackerland, um Nahrungsmittel anzubauen – ein lohnendes Geschäft, weil die Preise rasch steigen. Das Milliarden-Monopoly führt zu einem modernen Kolonialismus, dem sich viele arme Länder notgedrungen unterwerfen.
As for the Chinese delegation and those of them who had the chance to state their minds one did not get the impression at all as regards purchase of land
