Land grabbing in Ethiopia. An eldorado for investors

Abstract

Around the world, fertile land is being made available to investors, often in longterm leases and at giveaway prices. This trend is often referred to as "land-grabbing". Private investors, corporations, investment funds and nations anxious to secure their own future food security have been securing large land holdings for offshore farms for the production and export of food crops as well as bio-fuels or just for speculation. The land deals stand to benefit the investors at the expense of host countries and their populations. By the end of 2009, such investment deals covered 56 million hectares of farmland around the world. Although Ethiopia has been known to the outside world as a country among the poorest in the world (famine, food shortages, and chronic dependency on foreign aid), it is negotiating long-term leases of its most productive agricultural lands to foreign investors at bargain prices. The Ethiopian government has embarked on a process to award millions of hectares of land to foreign and national agricultural investors. While there is undoubted need for foreign direct investment in Ethiopia, there are widespread concerns that these land investments are not being undertaken in a manner that safeguards the social, environmental and food needs of local populations. At the same time, through its 'villagisation' program, the Ethiopian government is displacing hundreds of thousands of indigenous people in order to free up their land to the transnational agro-industry to grow cash crops and bio-fuels for export. Starting with the problem of land grabbing, the economic, social, political, and food security contexts of Ethiopia and the importance of agriculture are described. This is followed by a discussion of the access to land (land is state property), systems of land rights, the land certification policy, the awarding of land to investors, the main regions of the investment and the development strategies of the government, concluding with arguments for and against land grabbing.