Availability of warmest hospitality, vast, fertile, irrigable land, abundant water resources and sound agriculture and investment policy enabled Ethiopia to attract investors.
Ethiopia has sound investment policy and conducive situation enabling to draw investment firms and rich countries lacking sufficient arable land to produce staple food crops.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that in order to feed the world’s projected population in 2050 – some nine billion people, up from six billion today – agricultural production must increase by a yearly average of at least 1 per cent.
There is hope that countries and investors engaged in the agriculture sector in Ethiopia will increase agricultural productivity.
Many countries and companies have engaged in the agriculture sector making use of Ethiopia’s conducive investment policy.
“Where there is unutilized land that could be used by commercial farmers, then it makes sense for us to encourage private-sector commercial farming to develop this land,” the website quoted Prime Minister Meles Zenawi as saying.
“Where commercial farming is promoted at the expense of small-scale farming, we believe that would be a disaster,” Meles said.
The website mentioned that Indian and Saudi Arabian companies are some of those engaged in the agriculture sector.
Karuturi Global, an Indian company made an agreement with the Gambella regional government to lease 300,000 hectares to cultivate crops including maize, wheat, and rice.
“Humanity has never come to the brink of such crisis before . . . if there is a potential catastrophe for mankind, it is related to food,” says Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, managing director of Karuturi Global,
Karuturi predicts that, when operating at full capacity, the farm will employ 25,000 people and produce three million tons of cereal per year. Land is also being cultivated on a 10,900-hectare farm the company has leased near the central Ethiopian town of Bako.
Investors such as Karuturi are promising to build infrastructure, including schools and health centres, where little or none exists, in addition to creating jobs and producing food for the Ethiopian and wider African market as well as those overseas.
Chief executive of Saudi Star Agricultural Development Plc, Haile Assegide says the company was given 10,000 hectares in Gambella to farm rice.
He estimates that 45 per cent of the farm’s yield will be sold on the Ethiopian market.
The company aims to increase its agricultural holdings in Gambella to 250,000 hectares; he said, adding, it has similar plans for the expansion of land it has leased in another part of Ethiopia.
Haile argues that the massive investment will result in employment for locals, and corporate tax revenue and foreign currency for the federal government, according to the website. (Irish Times)
|
No comments:
Post a Comment