South Africa

Provisional authorization for land exploitation (1 000 ha) in the Gaza province and Terms of authorization of project "Emvest Limpopo Project (Matuba Farm)"

South Africa is joining a “green rush” for the African continent. The Republic of the Congo has offered Agri SA 10-million hectares for South African farmers to produce maize and soya beans as well as to establish dairy and poultry farms.

Congo Republic wants to amend the terms of a multi-million hectare land deal with South African farmers, a top aide told Reuters on Wednesday, saying the current accord would deprive its own farmers of land.

For investors like Susan Payne, the chief executive of Emergent Asset Management, farmland in sub-Saharan Africa is a hot bet.

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.

When people are using lands under customary tenure arrangements, there is an inequality in bargaining power where no formal titles to the land exist if a foreign investor is interested in purchasing the land.

South Africa's government will not stand in the way of its farmers investing in other African countries but cannot help protect their investments, its agriculture minister said on Tuesday.

Yes Bank expects a $150 million Tanzanian rice and wheat project to reach full production by 2011, the first of several large African farms it is funding. "We are looking at a more inclusive model wherein the local farmers can be organised into a producers company, and they would be the suppliers to the processing facility. It's predominantly not to acquire huge tracts of land."

"At this stage, we have not sold a single square metre to the South Africans," Rigobert Maboundou, Congo Republic's minister of agriculture said over the weekend.

For a growing number of South African farmers, the Republic of Congo is the Promised Land. They’re scrambling to get on board an ambitious venture to reclaim farmland in Congo’s interior and help relieve that country of a reliance on food imports. Already some 70 farmers have booked a Congo tour and more than 3,000 have expressed interest, said Agri-SA, the South African farming group organizing the venture.

A number of African countries are inviting South African farmers to come over to their countries and ply their trade, and Libya is included.

Private equity used to stay away from anything to do with agriculture, put off by the uncontrollable risks of bad climate and natural disasters. And yet in the last three years some big funds have been launched in the agribusiness space, and they are busy trying different ways of mitigating the risks.