Stigende priser på fødevarer og manglende landbrugsjord i hjemlandet får regeringen i Bangladesh til at støtte både private og offentlige projekter med at skaffe landbrugsjord i andre lande.
Det skal samtidig give arbejde til folk fra Bangladesh i udlandet. Udvandrere bidrager i forvejen massivt til landets økonomi.
DHAKA, 15th November 2011: The government of Bangladesh is looking near and far – from Ukraine to South Sudan – to bolster food security at home, according to the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management.
– Whether from the public sector or the private sector, the government of Bangladesh is fully behind any attempts to seek out unused land beyond its borders, Minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque told IRIN.
Bangladesh officials are in preliminary talks with Ukraine for wheat production, considering Cambodia for rice and visiting parts of sub-Saharan Africa to explore similar ventures, Razzaque added.
The country of 160 million people is seeking land to serve the country’s food needs, as well as to create jobs for migrants who sent home 11 billion US dollar in both 2009 and 2010, 12 percent of the 90 billion dollar GDP in 2009, according to the government.
It is a way to cushion Bangladesh, where farmland is scarce and malnourishment a concern, against volatile global food prices, said Razzaque.
Bangladesh has one of the lowest rates of arable land per resident in the world, at about 54 hectares per 1.000 people in 2008, according to the World Bank.
Meanwhile, demographic pressures and urbanization have caused cultivated land to decline at a rate of 1 percent a year, as the population grows 1,6 percent annually, according to the World Bank.
At 175 percent usage, cropping intensity has also approached its limit.
As a result, the government has begun exploring various land-use deals abroad, from directly acquiring or leasing land to supporting private ventures that do so.
Pros and cons
Læs videre på http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94208
