Tanzania

In Tanzania, large scale investment is increasing and this has a huge impact on pastoralists’ access to land.

Tanzania has entered into a $US 1 billion partnership agreement on commercialisation of cassava farming and processing with Tanzania Agricultural Export Processing Zone Limited and Epoch Agriculture from China.

According to Tanzania’s Land Affairs minister, William Lukuvi, the new policy responds mainly to the need to secure agricultural lands, which is vital for sustainable socio-economic growth.

Tanzania has adopted a new national land policy which, among others, lowers the ceiling under which foreign investors can lease land from the current 99 to 33 years.

Large-scale agricultural projects are driving people off their land in Tanzania. An example is the case of the Maasai of Mabwegere, who are being dealt with harshly.

The Executive Director of the Kuwait-based company, Africa Relief Organisation, financiers of the project, said his organisation has released 3bn/- to finance cultivation of 300 acres of rice this season alone at the new Rufiji irrigation belt.

The Tanzanian government has held a series of stakeholders meetings to enable different interest groups to present their views on the draft National Land Policy, 2016.

The land rush in southern Africa is often a sugar rush, with the ‘white gold’ promising riches to governments, local elites and large corporates alike.

Une délégation de cinq eurodéputés s’est rendue en Tanzanie du 19 au 22 septembre pour vérifier si les accusations d’accaparement de terre portées par l’ONG Concern contre le Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor (SAGCOT) sont fondées.

In March the World Bank board granted a waiver of its current safeguard policy for indigenous peoples in relation to a loan to the government of Tanzania for SAGCOT, a multi-million dollar public-private partnership agribusiness development project.

Is there such a thing as "responsible large-scale investment in land and agriculture"? asks Prof Marjorie Mbilinyi.

The Tanzanian government has issued an order prohibiting customary lands from being sold on long lease to individuals or institutions, as a large portion of land belonging to villages had turned targets of various local and foreign investors.