Et stort indisk agrobusiness-foretagende, Karuturi Global, fra Bangalore, har gjort en helt usædvanlig god handel med de etiopiske myndigheder:
Man har lejet over 2.500 kvadratkilometer (et areal som Fyn) af jomfruelig og frugtbar agerjord i den sydvestlige Gambella-provins for omregnet 150 britiske pund (ca. 1.300 kr.) om ugen. Det skriver det britiske dagblad “The Guardian” mandag.
Aftalen gælder i 50 år og indeholder store skattefordele. The Guardian skriver videre:
Next year the company, one of the world’s top 25 agri-businesses, will export palm oil, sugar, rice and other foods from Gambella province to world markets.
Ethiopia is one of the world’s largest recipients of humanitarian food and development assistance, last year receiving more than 700.000 tonnes of food and 1,8 billion pound in aid, but it has offered three million hectares of virgin land to foreign corporations.
– We have no land like this in India, says Karmjeet Sekhon, project manager for what is expected to be one of Africa’s largest farms.
The Ethiopian government says 36 countries including India, China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have leased farm land there. Gambella has offered investors 1,1 million hectares, nearly a quarter of its best farmland, and 896 companies have come to the region in the last three years.
This month the concessions are being worked at a breakneck pace, with giant tractors and heavy machinery clearing trees, draining swamps and ploughing the land in time to catch the next growing season.
Forests across hundreds of square km are being clear-felled and burned to the dismay of locals and environmentalists concerned about the fate of the region’s rich wildlife.
