Äthiopien zwischen Überbevölkerung und großem Sprung nach vorn
Äthiopien zeigt viele verwirrende Seiten: Die bittere Armut eines Entwicklungslandes und den nicht nur spirituellen Reichtum einer afrikanischen Hochkultur, Überbevölkerung und ökologische Katastrophen, Verletzung von Menschenrechten und touristische Attraktionen. Dem Versuch eines großen Sprungs nach vorn in Technik und Bildung steht die Skepsis der Helfer gegenüber, ob dafür die Grundlagen gegeben sind. All ethiopioans are invited to attend the Conference.
Date: Saturday: From 19-02.10 to 21.02.10 Time: 9 AM Town: Bad Boll
Speakers among others: 1-Dr. Asfawossen assrate - Consultant 2-Seyoum Habtemariam - Ethiopian Human Rights
More info.
www.ev-akademie-boll.de/programm
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 17 February 2010 )
1 Hectar land for only $1.18
Saturday, 23 January 2010
The Indian Company (Karuturi) sees $100m gains from 3000 Hecktar FREE farmland,dirt-cheap labour in Ethiopia.
HOW KARUTURI WILL EARN $100M/YEAR Karuturi pays no rent for the land for the first six years After that, it will pay 15 birr ($1.18) per hectare per year for the next 84 years. Land of similar quality in Malaysia and Indonesia would cost about $350 per hectare per year, and tracts of that size aren't available in India Labour costs of less than $50 a month per worker and there is also a duty-free treaty Karuturi hopes to earn $100 million annual profit from export of food crops, including corn, rice and palm oil
Jason McLure Until last year, people in the Ethiopian settlement of Elliah earned a living by farming their land and fishing. Now, they are employees. Dozens of women and children pack dirt into bags for palm seedlings along the banks of the Baro River, seedlings whose oil will be exported to India and China. They work for Bangalore-based Karuturi Global Ltd., which is leasing 300,000 hectares (741,000 acres) of local land, an area larger than Luxembourg. The jobs pay less than the World Bank's $1.25-per-day poverty threshold, even as the project has the potential to enrich international investors with annual earnings that the company expects to exceed $100 million by 2013. "My business is the third wave of outsourcing," Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, the 44-year-old managing director of Karuturi Global, said at the company's dusty office in the western town of Gambella. "Everyone is investing in China for manufacturing; everyone is investing in India for services. Everybody needs to invest in Africa for food." "African agricultural land is cheap relative to similar land elsewhere; it is probably the last frontier," said Paul Christie, marketing director at Emergent Asset Management in London. The hedge fund manager has farm holdings in South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. "I am amazed it has taken this long for people to realise the opportunities of investing in African agriculture," Christie said. Monsoon Capital of Bethesda, Maryland, and Boston-based Sandstone Capital are among the shareholders of Karuturi Global, Karuturi said. The company is also the world's largest producer of roses, with flower farms in India, Kenya and Ethiopia. One advantage to starting a plantation 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the border with war-torn Southern Sudan and a four-day drive to the nearest port: The land is free. Under the agreement with Ethiopia's government, Karuturi pays no rent for the land for the first six years. After that, it will pay 15 birr (U.S. $1.18) per hectare per year for the next 84 years. Land of similar quality in Malaysia and Indonesia would cost about $350 per hectare per year, and tracts of that size aren't available in Karuturi Global's native India, Karuturi said. Labour costs of less than $50 a month per worker and duty-free treaties with China and India also attracted Karuturi Global, he said. The $100 million projected annual profit will come from the export of food crops, including corn, rice and palm oil, he said. The company is also ploughing land on a 10,900-hectare spread near the central Ethiopian town of Bako. The project will give the government revenue from corporate income taxes and from future leases, as well as from job creation, said Omod Obang Olom, president of Ethiopia's Gambella region and an ally of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's ruling party. "This strategy will build up capitalism," he said in an interview in Gambella. "The message I want to convey is there is room for any investor. We have very fertile land, there is good labor here, we can support them." The government plans to allot 3 million hectares, or about 4% of its arable land, to foreign investors over the next three years. Workers in Elliah say they weren't consulted on the deal to lease land around the village, and that not much of the money is trickling down. At a Karuturi site 20 kilometers from Elliah, more than a dozen tractors clear newly burned savannah for a corn crop to be planted in June. Omeud Obank, 50, guards the site 24 hours a day, six days a week. The job helps support his family of 10 on a salary of 600 birr per month, more than the 450 birr he earned monthly as a soldier in the Ethiopian army. Obank said it isn't enough to adequately feed and clothe his family. "These Indians do not have any humanity," he said, speaking of his employers. "Just because we are poor it doesn't make us less human." Obang Moe, a 13-year-old who earns 10 birr per day working part-time in a nursery with 105,000 palm seedlings, calls her work "a tough job." While the cash income supplements her family's income from their corn plot, she said that many days they still only have enough food for one meal. The fact that the project is based on a wage level below the World Bank's poverty limit is "quite remarkable," said Lorenzo Cotula, a researcher with the London-based IIED. Karuturi said his company pays its workers at least Ethiopia's minimum wage of 8 birr, and abides by Ethiopia's labor and environmental laws. "We have to be very, very cognisant of the fact that we are dealing with people who are easily exploitable," he said, adding that the company will create up to 20,000 jobs and has plans to build a hospital, a cinema, a school and a day-care center in the settlement. "We're going to have a very healthy township that we will build. We are creating jobs where there were none." The project may help cover part of the $44 billion a year that the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation says must be invested in agriculture in poor nations to halve the number of the world's hungry people by 2015. "We keep saying the big problem is, you need investment in African agriculture; well here are a load of guys who for whatever reason want to invest," David Hallam, deputy director of the FAO's trade and markets division, said in an interview in Rome. "So the question is, is it possible to sort of steer it toward forms of investment that are going to be beneficial?" Buntin Buli, a 21-year-old supervisor at the nursery who earns 600 birr a month, said he hopes Karuturi will use some of its earnings to improve working conditions and provide housing and food. "Otherwise we would have been better off working on our own lands," he said. "This is a society that has been very primitive. We want development." Bloomberg
Last Updated ( Saturday, 23 January 2010 )
Ethiopian Lands sold to Foreigners
Sunday, 03 January 2010
Ethiopia Leases Land for Agriculture.
By Jason McLure
Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Ethiopia plans to lease 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of land to foreign and domestic investors for agriculture over the next three years to increase productivity and earn foreign exchange, the government said.
The state has already leased land for 15 birr (U.S. $1.19) per hectare per year in some parts of the country in an effort to attract foreign investment, said Eyesus Kebede, an agricultural-investment coordinator in the ministry. The government is also attempting to woo investors by offering incentives such as grace periods on payment.
“There is ample amount of land which is not cultivated yet,” Eyesus said in an interview in his office in Addis Ababa, the capital, yesterday. “We are preparing the land and we have given the comprehensive support for the agricultural investors.”
Foreign investment in agriculture in Africa has drawn criticism from aid groups, including Oxfam International, that are concerned about the use of farmland to produce food for export from countries with widespread hunger. In Ethiopia, an estimated 13.7 million people, about one-sixth of the population, are dependent on foreign food aid.
Eyesus said such concerns were outweighed by the plantations’ capacity to bring foreign exchange and technology into the Horn of Africa country, as well as creating employment.
Among foreign investors that have acquired land in western Ethiopia are Karuturi Global Ltd., an Indian food processor, and Saudi-based billionaire Sheikh Mohammed al-Amoudi, Eyesus said.
Regional governments have already transferred 1.7 million hectares of land to Ethiopia’s central government and surveyors are in the process of delineating additional land, he said.
Feather Dresses
Among the land currently being advertised on the ministry’s Web site is 180,625 hectares along the Omo River in southern Ethiopia. South Omo Zone, as it is known, is home to pastoralists from the Hamer, Dasenech and Gnangatom ethnic groups, many of whom still dress in feathers and leather garments and are considered among the world’s most threatened indigenous people, according to Survival International, a London-based group that campaigns on behalf of ethnic groups.
Eyesus said the land in South Omo was “empty” and that the government had taken environmental and social considerations into account when allocating land for investors.
“The people and the local governments are very happy,” he said. “We have not seen any conflict between investors and the community.”
