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From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Mon Mar 21 2011 - 14:12:41 EST
http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/families-forced-from-homes-as-big-firms-buy-up-ethiopia
Families
forced from homes as big firms buy up Ethiopia
Mar 21, 2011 04:46 PM
Tens of thousands of families are being moved out of their homes in Ethiopia
as rich countries buy up huge chunks of its farmland to grow food for
themselves.
Across the world's poorest countries, rich governments and businesses are
turning the lives of poor families upside down as they buy up the rights to
millions of hectares of farmland.
The controversial rise in land deals could mean poor countries growing food
for rich countries at the expense of their own hungry people, the United
Nations Food and Agriculture's Jacques Diouf, has warned.
In Ethiopia, where about 40 per cent of the population live below the
poverty line, an Indian food company has just snapped up a £150 a week 50
year lease on a patch of land the size of Dorset.
Bangalore-based Karuturi Global was offered the land deal in Gambella
province near the Sudan border by the Ethiopian government. And next year it
will start to export palm oil, sugar, rice and other foods from there across
the world.
Ethiopia is one of the world's biggest receivers of international aid. Last
year the central East African country took more than 700,000 tonnes of food
and £1.8bn in aid. But it has offered three million hectares of its
farmland to foreign businesses such as Karuturi.
The Gambella region is at the forefront of a global rush for cheap land,
triggered by the oil price rise in 2008, when food riots hit. But Gambella's
government denies claims that families are being forced from their homes and
land to make space for foreign businesses.
"*This year we will relocate 15,000 people to give them better access to
water, schools and transport,*” said Kassahun Zerrfu from Gambella's
department for investment.” *[But] it is a coincidence that the investors
are coming at the same time as the villages are being relocated,*" he told
the Guardian newspaper.
The government is moving three or four villages a time closer to roads and
services, but many families said they were too scared to complain, or that
they weren't getting compensation and are still waiting for the promised
services. "*We were promised a school, a health clinic and fresh water eight
months ago. We only have one water pump so far,*" said Udul Ujulu, chief of
Karmi village, a new village on the edge of Gambella town.
Across the world, the cheapest land prices are in Africa, where at least 35
million hectares of land has been bought or leased to 36 different
countries.
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