Foreign Farming in Ethiopia | VOA
By Tizita Belachew
Washington, D.C. – VOA Horn of African Service
Horn of Africa reporters have been tracing the aggressive entry of foreign investors who have leased from Ethiopian government large tracts of arable land. Reporter Tizita Belachew gives an overview of what some critics have called the “new colonialism.”
The director of Ethiopia’s farm development program, Tarekenge Tsege, said large farms are bringing in knowledge, technology, job opportunity, economic growth and foreign exchange for Ethiopia. According to Tarekenge foreign investors have provided 375 thousand permanent and 1.8 million temporary jobs so far.
Critics such as Anuradha Mital, director of Oakland Institute charge that these foreign farm companies never bring food security or development to a country.
Mital cites this institute’s figures compiled on Ethiopia and other African countries that illustrate displacement of farmers and threats of land degradation and other environmental threats.
Tizita interviews two farmers in Oromiya who talk about their displaced neighbors.
Hear this overview in Amharic by Tizita Belachew.
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RELATED:
The documentary refers to the following document by Shepard Daniel with Anuradha Mittal of the Oakland Institute: The Great Land Grab: Rush for World’s Farmland Threatens Food Security for the Poor
- How food and water are driving a 21st-century African land grab(The Guardian)
- OSA: Open Letter to the UN Sec-Gen on Land Grab, Evictions and Modern-Day Slavery in Oromia
- Ethiopia leases huge tracts of farmland to foreign companies (VOA News)
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