There’s a whole school of economic thought that says that Collier is wrong, that big is not necessarily better in agriculture — and that the land deals therefore might be unwise not because they’re wrong but because they’re unprofitable.
Un forum Arabie Saoudite/Afrique de l’Est s’est tenu le 15 novembre à Addis Abeba auquel assistaient le ministre saoudien du Commerce et des représentants d’une cinquantaine de compagnies saoudiennes.
The Ethiopian government says concerns about foreign investors exporting food are outweighed by the plantations’ capacity to bring the country foreign exchange and technology, as well as creating employment.
Ethiopia plans to offer 3 million hectares of land over the next two years for investors to develop large-scale commercial farms, a government official said on Thursday.
Representatives from the Ministries of Agriculture, Commerce and Industry,
Finance, and Transportation will participate in a forum on November 14-15 [2009] in Addis Ababa to officially mark the beginning of a cooperative project under which Ethiopia made one million hectares of land available for Saudi private companies to develop.
This study, published by Misereor and Heinrich Boell Foundation, has given a first regional overview of the development of FDI inflows over the last decade in Ethiopia.
BDFC has already been given 17,400ha of land in 2008 for the production of sugar cane, a year after it came to Ethiopia. It is also getting close to receiving an additional 13,000hct in the same area of the Tana-Beles Basin of Jawi Wereda, Hawi Zone of Amhara Regional State.
Officials in Ethiopia hope that the investment can help improve agriculture, replacing ox-and-plough with tractors, but some are concerned about whether the deals benefit the lessors.
