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From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Thu Aug 26 2010 - 08:01:38 EDT
http://www.afrik-news.com/article18146.html
Ethiopia: Fear expressed over India’s massive land grabs in Gambela
Thursday 26 August 2010 / by Desalegn Sisay
Gambela, one of the nine regional states of Ethiopia is fast growing
into what the local media has described as “a land grabbing” hub among
Indian companies.
Gambela’s new tag as a land grabbing hub comes as BHO Agro Plc becomes
the third Indian firm to begin operations in the region after two
other Indian companies, Karuturi and Ruchi Group, moved into Gambela
in 2008 and early 2010, respectively.
Official reports have indicated that Ethiopia’s Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Development, responsible for the regulation of
land acquisition by foreign entities, has allowed the lease of 27,000
hectares of land to BHO Agro Plc.
The size of the property, on which BHO Agro Plc plans to grow bio-fuel
seed, observers say, is almost half the size of the Horn of Africa
country’s capital city, Addis Ababa.
In 2008, Karuturi became the first Indian company to lease 300,000
hectares of land [an area larger than Luxembourg], in Gambela, for the
production of wheat which is to be exported to its home country.
Like BHO Agro, Ruchi Group, the second Indian firm to take advantage
of the Gambela land grab, is expected to cultivate bio-fuel seeds on
its allotted 25,000 hectares of land.
Several companies and governments have so far made land deals with the
central government. Early this year, the Ethiopian Government approved
the lease of 22,000 hectares of land to the National Bank of Egypt
(NBE).
Neighbouring Djibouti has also acquired 3,000 hectares of land in
Bale, whilst Saudi Star Plc, a company established by billionaire
Sheikh Mohamed Al Amudi, an Ethiopian born Saudi national, also
received 10,000 hectares of land in the region to grow and export rice
to Saudi.
According to Ethiopian authorities, the land grabs will have a
significant economic benefit. But critics have slammed the government
for using the Gambela region as a commercial farming center.
Meanwhile, analysts argue that the concentration of foreign companies
in one region could impact local farmers negatively and also risks
whipping up controversy among riparian countries of the Nile basin
owing to the region’s only water resource, Baro river, an important
tributary of the White Nile.
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