The Egyptian external agricultural land deals are all the more fragile as a future government or policy change in Ethiopia or Sudan risks destabilizing their external food security strategy.
Egypt will lease at least 200,000 acres of farmland this year for agri-business projects in North Sinai, the North Coast and Upper Egypt, the agriculture minister said on Wednesday.
Egyptian private equity firm Citadel Capital said it was investing $40 million to grow crops in Sudan, where agricultural spending is increasing as the government moves to address food shortages.
Egypt will soon offer to lease, for 49 years, 50,000 feddans [21,000 ha] for agri-business projects in North Sinai, the irrigation minister said -- but only to domestic investors.
Egypt's government signed a deal to allow Egyptian companies access to 400,000 hectares of farm land in Sudan, the first deal of its kind between the two countries
Abu Dhabi’s Al Dahra Agricultural Company is halfway through a plan involving more than 60,700 hectares of farmland in Europe, the US, south Asia and north Africa to boost the UAE’s food security.
Citadel Capital Corp., an Egyptian private-equity firm with $8.3 billion in investments, said one of its companies received a $4.9 million loan from Bank of Khartoum for the plantation of land in Sudan.
Wafra, Citadel Capital’s agriculture platform in Sudan, said its portfolio firm has obtained a $4.9 million loan from Bank of Khartoum to support the farming of its first 2,076 acres of sorghum.
