"Leasing or giving away a huge chunk of land to foreigners, who will produce food to be shipped to their own people, and to hope that the money gained in profits will feed the local people is the height of naivete," Gathuru Mburu of ABN said
A planned large-scale commercial farming or food estate project in Merauke, Papua, is expected to trigger fresh investment of up to US$5.3 billion in the area in the next five years.
After signing a 25-year lease from Kenya's Lands Ministry in Nairobi, Burgess made auxiliary payments to various groups to ensure that the plan could continue unhindered. Unfortunately, the people of the Luo tribe and members of other tribes in similar situations are unhappy.
Mineks has withdrawn from Vision3, the strategic alliance between three major Gulf banks to bring a $9 billion investment trust to Turkey, particularly in the Southeastern Anatolia Project, which hit the rocks when the banks were affected by the continued spiral of the financial crisis.
Official statement of the Oromo Liberation Front declaring the Oromo farmland deals between the Ethiopian government and third parties "null and void".
An illustrated overview of the global land grabbing trend, with tables and figures.
In Mali the government has approved long-term leases for outside investors to develop more than 160,000 hectares of land. Local farmers say they fear being pushed out.
This paper examines two failed land acquisition processes for food and biofuels production in Africa (SEKAB-Tanzania and Daewoo-Madagascar) with the aim to establishing more equitable governance strategies.
"Mauritius cannot depend on [Mozambique and Madagascar] for sustainable agricultural development. It’s better for us to cultivate our own land to produce more food and leave some land for future generations."
"I think it is not right to sell or give your land to foreigners... until you have exhausted every local possibility," said Osama Daoud, chief executive of the Sudanese DAL group which runs large agricultural projects.
According to researcher, Loro Horta, the technological centres project is the result of a growing Chinese interest in African agricultural resources.
"Foreign governments and institutional investors have only recently been moving into the space and in a very limited way and yet they have already generated considerable controversy and political backlash where they have deployed capital into the emerging markets. We believe that this will only become worse over time," says Agcapita's Stephen Johnston.
