On the morning of December 7, 2023, confetti rained down on Alan Kessler, the CEO of African Agriculture, as he rang the opening bell at the NASDAQ stock exchange and the company started trading publicly. The US-based firm’s claimed mission: “secure food and protein for the coming century” while delivering “significant value for its shareholders.” Towards this goal, it touted lofty plans to produce animal feed for export and sell carbon credits on a staggering over 2.9 million hectares of land across Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal.
In just under a year, however, African Agriculture’s future is in peril. In September 2024, it was suspended from the NASDAQ after its share price failed to stay above the minimum US$1 threshold. The dismal performance on the public market signals serious financial troubles for the company that had sought to raise US$40 million by going public. In another dubious sign about the company’s health, farmworkers in Senegal report(link is external) they have not been paid in months and management has fled the company in droves.
The downfall of the US-based firm is being closely watched by Senegalese communities who have struggled for years for the return of their lands. African Agriculture’s operations began in Senegal in 2018, when it acquired a lease of 25,000 hectares of disputed land, formerly controlled by an Italian venture, Senhuile. The land is located on the Ndiaël Nature Reserve – a protected wetland that was partially declassified by a Presidential Decree for the Italian project in 2012. The decree was justified as serving “public interest,” to improve food security and lead to sustainable development; but the reality over the past 12 years has instead been one of misery and dispossession of the local communities.
Speaking on behalf of the Collectif pour la Défense du Ndiaël, which represents 37 villages and over 10,000 people in Senegal, Elhadji Samba Sow explains that the land concession had a “devastating impact on our people. It was granted against the will and without the consent of our communities, which have used this land for generations for wood, food, medicinal plants, and most crucially for pasture, given that we are agro-pastoralists whose livelihoods depend on livestock.” The project also blocked passage along customary routes between villages and water sources while the irrigation canals caused the death of at least three children by drowning.
Senegalese communities were outraged to see their land used to grow cattle feed for exports while they struggle for water access and food security at home. In January 2024, African Agriculture announced a supply agreement to export alfalfa to South Korea from its farm in Senegal. The company also detailed plans to take over a large share of the feed market in Saudi Arabia and UAE, after water supplies in the southwestern US, their current source, run dry.
To potential investors, African Agriculture boasted about the cheap water it accessed from the Senegal River at “1/100th of the cost of its foreign competitors.” It failed to mention that the Lac De Guiers is the only water reservoir in the lower Senegal River basin, supplying a significant share of water to several cities – including the capital, Dakar, whose population already faces major challenges to access water. The company’s promises that its water usage would not impact local communities were unconvincing as it reportedly did not have an up-to-date certificate of environmental compliance.
African Agriculture initially ignored the Senegalese communities’ decade-plus struggle to reclaim their land, despite extensive documentation by the Oakland Institute, GRAIN, and Action Aid. In May 2022, the Ndiaël Collective wrote to the company demanding the immediate return of their land as well as adequate remediation and compensation. After unrelenting advocacy by the communities, the company’s updated October 2023 prospectus finally acknowledged these land claims, which African Agriculture conceded could be “adjudicated to be valid.” The increased attention on the legitimacy of its land claims did not likely help attract investors.
Despite turmoil with its Senegalese operation, African Agriculture planned to expand its holdings across the Sahel. In December 2022, the firm announced a deal in Mauritania to farm alfalfa on 1,600 hectares with the potential to expand to 500,000 hectares, which represents the entire amount of arable land in the country. In Niger, African Agriculture also signed deals for 2.9 million hectares for agriculture and carbon off-setting. Plans in Niger ignored the abundant research that has exposed carbon credit projects in Africa to be deeply flawed, as they fail to reduce carbon emissions. Instead, they have been repeatedly shown to wreak social havoc by causing forced evictions, loss of livelihoods, and violence – to generate profits for investors. Legitimate questions remained around the degree of community consent for these plans in both countries given the size of the land deals.
The uncertain future of African Agriculture deals a blow to the firm’s investors and board members seeking to profit from these schemes. Romanian-born energy and mining tycoon Frank Timis’ firm, Global Commodities & Investments Ltd. is the largest shareholder in African Agriculture. Timis, who has been involved in scandals of fraud, corruption, and accused of misleading investors, is notorious in Senegal for flipping an offshore energy project that implicated public officials. The company’s Board of Directors also includes two former US diplomats: Bisa Williams, the former US Ambassador to Niger and Daphne Michelle Titus, a career Foreign Service Officer with the US Department of State. Koch Industries – the second largest private US company and rightwing political puppet master – is also invested in the company through a subsidiary.
In April 2024, Kessler departed African Agriculture, jumping ship to become the CEO of a new venture called African Food Security. The new firm has an ambitious goal to “revolutionize food production in Africa by leveraging the continent's vast resources and untapped potential” by growing maize on 305,000 hectares in Cameroon and 335,000 hectares in the DRC. Kessler claims(link is external) they will raise over US$875 million to expand to East Africa and eventually operate on one million hectares of land within the next three to five years. African Food Security has also already signed a partnership for a carbon dioxide removal project on 205,000 hectares in Cameroon.
Kessler has stressed that African Food Security’s operations will help achieve all 17 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and be a company “that is one with our communities.” Given African Agriculture’s contentious relations with local villagers in Senegal, communities in Cameroon should be skeptical of Kessler’s promises. Even more troubling, in Cameroon the company is partnering with the family of Baba Danpullo, an infamous billionaire rancher and plantation owner accused of(link is external) land grabs, corruption, and brutal repression of land rights defenders(link is external).
While executives like Kessler can swiftly move on from their past failed ventures without consequence, villagers in Senegal continue to suffer from African Agriculture’s land grab and financial unraveling. After years of struggling for the return of their land and left with no other option, some community members took jobs on African Agriculture’s farm. Today, they are desperate. One worker explained, “We have not been paid in over three months…now we cannot afford our children’s school fees and our families are going hungry. We are suffering direly and I may have to leave for Europe to look for work. This is our last resort.”
By now, it is clear African Agriculture will not deliver on its promises of bringing “development” to the region. On its death bed, the company must return the land to communities in Senegal, Niger, and Mauritania. African governments must learn from this debacle and stop ceding valuable land and water resources to foreign companies run by the “Kesslers” of the world, who make extravagant promises but only plunder the local communities.