Karuturi Global on farming in Ethiopia

Karuturi Global management says - "To start with there will be 20,000 hectares of oil palm, 15,000 hectares of sugar cane and 40,000 hectares of rice, edible oils and maize and cotton. We are building reservoirs, dykes, roads, towns of 15,000 people. "This is phase one. In three years time we will have 300,000 hectares cultivated and maybe 60,000 workers. We could feed a nation here."

It's the deal of the century: £150 a week to lease more than 2,500 sq km (1,000 sq miles) of virgin, fertile land -- an area the size of Dorset -- for 50 years. Bangalore-based food company Karuturi Global says it had not even seen the land when it was offered by the Ethiopian government with tax breaks thrown in.

Karuturi snapped it up, and 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 -- a remote region near the Sudan border -- 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 £1.8bn in aid, but it has offered three million hectares (7.4 million acres) of virgin land to foreign corporations such as Karuturi.

"It's very good land. It's quite cheap. In fact it is very cheap. 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. "There you are lucky to get 1% of organic matter in the soil. Here it is more than 5%. We don't need fertiliser or herbicides. There is absolutely nothing that will not grow on it.

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[illuminated95]

Are you the one that made this video?

[Samket Gebre]

I totally feel you :) Indians think they can colonize the world with their stinky ass corrupt business tactics! They are like rats! The world's plague...they are everywhere! Everywhere you look, there's a stinky, towel-head Indian with a nasal accent! They claim to have a vision to develop every country BUT their own! That's the reason India is so poor. If only they were that aggressive in developing their country India would kiss poverty goodbye! Indians get out of Ethiopia! India needs you!

[Raj Thind]

sardar ji

[Prabhat mallick]

hay,babes this is going to may be happened but can you thought what will be happened with the Ethiopian peoples.It is going to very sad.

[dowlad100]

a new way of colony , the people should be given homes and jobs first, the so called Ethiopian government is silenced with Indian money , the government does not care about the people .

[ferajuheleena]

get lost from our land

[Sparr0w777]

it is bold step for the karaturi's. there are lots of hurdles to cross like cleaning the land, building dykes to keep away the flood waters, deers and other wild animals, human right groups. It is not a bed of roses for foreign investors.

[JusticeNature]

...important controls are not in place due not wanting to discourage investors.