Ethiopia

To lure investment dollars, the Sudan government has removed import duties on agricultural equipment being imported into the country.

Sur les concessions proprement dites, le Soudan a mis à la disposition de notre pays 4200 hectares ce projet sera financé par la Banque Islamique (BI), quant à l’Ethiopie, elle devra délivrer 5000 hectares mais par étapes et cette partie du projet sera financé par la Banque Africaine de Développement (BAD).

Dependence on oil imports may be influencing the Ethiopian government’s decision to lease farmland to Saudi Arabia

The Ethiopian government’s ambitious target of harvesting 28 million tonnes of cereals in the first three quarters of the 2007/2008 budget year has failed. Authorities seem determined to change this situation by leasing huge chunks of land to other sovereign states for mechanised farming.

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Saudi billionaire Mohammed Al Amoudi is finalizing plans for a $300 million sugar plantation in northwestern Ethiopia, the Walta Information Center reported.

La Corée du Sud vient de louer la moitié des terres cultivables de Madagascar. Sur le continent noir, ce type de transaction se multiplie.

Rich governments and corporations are triggering alarm for the poor as they buy up the rights to millions of hectares of agricultural land in developing countries in an effort to secure their own long-term food supplies.

The initial welcome given to rich countries’ investment in African farmland by agricultural and development officials has faded as the first ventures prove to be heavily weighted in favour of the investors. The FAO warned of such a trend when it said this year that the race to secure farmland overseas risked creating a “neo-colonial” system.

Daewoo Logistics of South Korea has secured farmland in Madagascar to grow food crops for Seoul, in a deal that diplomats and consultants said was the largest of its kind.

Due to the lack of arable land in its home market, Savola must look abroad for agricultural land and has named Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia and Ukraine as target countries where it plans to buy the land necessary to grow seeds such as sunflower and corn seeds.

Some of the world's richest nations are coming to grow crops and export the yields, hoping to turn the global epicenter of malnutrition into a breadbasket for themselves.