Obama Urged to Reassess Ethiopian Relations Over Land Evictions - Businessweek

The U.S. should reassess its support for the government of Ethiopia, amid concern that more than half a million people are being evicted to make land available for foreign investment in agriculture, advocacy groups including the Oakland Institute said.

A meeting tomorrow between President Barack Obama and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, among other African leaders, presents an opportunity for the U.S. to address the issue, the California-based group said in a joint statement with the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia, or SMNE. The U.S. has provided aid worth more than $1 billion a year since 2007 to Ethiopia, according to the statement.

Foreign investment in commercial farming may be the “single largest man-made contributor to food insecurity on the continent today,” they said. “We hope that you will take leadership in responding to an international call asking you to put the brakes on this impending and present-day catastrophe.”

Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous nation, is leasing out land to investors to grow cash crops and generate foreign exchange. The government leased 350,096 hectares (865,106 acres) of land to 24 companies, including 10 foreign ones, according to the Agriculture Ministry’s website. Oakland puts the amount of leased land at 3.6 million hectares.

The government denies any connection between land leasing and resettlement programs. The relocation of about 20,000 households in the southwestern Gambella region last year was voluntary and aimed at providing people with access to farmland and public services, Federal Affairs Minister Shiferaw Teklemariam said in an interview in March.

Ambassador Criticized

Oakland and SMNE criticized U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia Donald E. Booth, citing him as saying people in Gambella benefit from the government’s policies.

“Mr. Booth seems unwilling to acknowledge any of the abuse, violence, or coercion that human rights groups and the media have reported,” they said. The U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia is awaiting approval from Washington for its response to the statement, Diane Brandt, a spokeswoman for the embassy, said by phone today from Addis Ababa.

SMNE, which has branches in the U.K., the U.S. and Canada, advocates “rule of law, respect for human rights, equal opportunity and good governance” in Ethiopia, according to its website. The group’s executive director, Obang Metho, is being tried in absentia in Ethiopia for terrorism.

Horizon Plantations, an Ethiopian company majority owned by Saudi billionaire Mohamed al-Amoudi, criticized Oakland’s association with SMNE. Horizon has leased 20,000 hectares in Ethiopia’s western region of Benishangul-Gumuz to grow groundnuts for edible oil.

“All of the land being given to international investors is the land which is not developed at all,” Horizon General Manager Jemal Ahmed said in a phone interview. “Oakland Institute does not care for Ethiopia. They are doing their best to stop the development taking place by allying themselves with violent and hate-advocating diaspora opposition.”

To contact the reporter on this story: William Davison in Addis Ababa via Nairobi at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.

Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure - 1 - YouTube

Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure - 1 - YouTube: ""

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Bill Gates Exciting Innovations in Agriculture and Health

 

I’ve made many trips to Africa, but my recent visit to Ethiopia was definitely one of the most exciting. With effective governance and coordinated support from our foundation and other donors, the advances I saw in health and agriculture may be the key to unleashing Ethiopia’s potential and that of other African countries.

Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world and has faced enormous challenges feeding its people and providing critical health services to mothers and their children. Yet, I returned from a recent visit excited about advances the country is making in agriculture and health.

If these innovations—which are a top priority for our foundation—succeed, they can be replicated in other African countries that also face big challenges in health and agriculture.

One factor in Ethiopia’s progress is Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and his leadership team, who have played a key role in reinventing the country’s agricultural and health systems. Making changes to either would be a big challenge in any country, so it’s even more impressive in Ethiopia, which has the second largest population of any country in Africa but a limited economic infrastructure.

Around 85 percent of the country’s population survives by growing crops on small plots of less than five acres. But frequent droughts and soils that have been depleted of nutrients often led to low crop yields and considerable food insecurity. More than half of the country’s population of 83 million is malnourished and more than 5 million households receive food aid each year.

Our foundation has been working with the Ministry of Agriculture, the county’s new Agricultural Transformation Agency, and other partners to help farmers plant higher-yielding, drought-tolerant seeds, improve soil health and fertility, and get higher prices for their crops by selling to global markets.

At the Melkassa Research Station, one of 13 government-run agricultural outposts, Dr. Markus Walsh, Sr. showed me a new, state-of-the-art technology called NIR spectroscopy that’s part of a digital revolution in agriculture. This portable device, which quickly and cheaply analyzes soil conditions, is a fantastic breakthrough that will help farmers everywhere. But it’s especially valuable in countries like Ethiopia, where farmers haven’t been able to afford laboratory tests but need to know how to amend soils to grow better crops. The spectroscopy is part of an even bigger agricultural digital information system that will provide a comprehensive and detailed map of soil properties across the country.

I also met with a number of farmers to talk about new varieties of sorghum (a grain) and beans they are growing. Beans are very important because they provide protein and people need a combination of protein and grain to have a reasonable diet.

Helping small farmers sell their crops in world markets is another important part of the work we’re supporting in Ethiopia. It’s currently a big challenge because poor farmers may not be growing the right crops for world markets and they often lack the roads, trucks, and other infrastructure necessary to enable exports. And getting foreign investors to help build this “value chain” can be difficult. But I visited one agricultural processing facility called ACOS, that is processing and shipping a variety of beans to European markets. It is jointly owned by an Italian company and Ethiopian investors and is a great example of private investment in developing countries.

What Ethiopia is doing in health is really a model system because it reaches everyone in the country. I visited the Germana Gale Health Post, where I talked to several of the more than 30,000 health extension workers who have been trained in recent years to deliver basic health education, prevention, and treatment. Most of the health workers are women, and those I met were energetic and well-trained.

These kinds of primary health services—giving vaccines, educating women about family health, and promoting hygiene and environmental sanitation—is the foundation for building good health systems in poor countries. Ethiopia’s health system also includes district health centers like the Dalocha Health Center I visited. There, they do a little bit of surgery and have more expertise and a wider variety of drugs. There are also primary hospitals that focus on higher level treatment and some emergency surgery, and general hospitals that deal with serious emergencies and high-risk and specialized care.

Ethiopia still faces some big problems. But the people I met and what I saw re-energized me and increased my optimism that the big investments we and other donors are making in health and agriculture will pay off for the people of Ethiopia and can serve as model activities in other African countries. Improving agricultural productivity and the quality of life through better health services is the key to unleashing the potential of Ethiopia and other poor countries and getting them on the road to self-sufficiency.

Prof. Muse Tegegne
This is a great beginning to our people. Dear, I can see hope in the eyes of my people happy at your presence. It takes me back the day of Point Four an American cooperation for development in Ethiopia in 1960’s.  
Ethiopians have been victim of famine drought, traditional method of farming, and worst of all land grabbing today. Your personality and humanitarian engagement in agricultural development areas will lead to self reliance in many other African countries.  
 
Today the very people you have visited are menaced to become workers in their own ancestral land by the developers of intensive agro business. Ethiopian regime has made more than 4 million hectares fertile land available for international land grabbers. The regime has already sold over 300,000 hectares. They say it is “unutilized land” but it is a nomadic land.  
Ethiopia has three kind of land and three mode of agro nomadic production. Firstly the highlanders you visited their main production is cereal and pulses leguminous. The second the rift valley mainly root plants like false Banana (Kocho). The last is the periphery land mainly nomadic cattle headmen mode of production.  
 
Today the land of the third mode is sold as a free unused land. And these systematic land grapping will continue up unto the highland in the coming years. 
I advise you to enlarge your model of development to the three areas as a token of hope of for the rest of African farmers. The Ethiopian three land escape is the representative of the rest of African terrain where it can be transposed easily as a prototype. At the same time it will give a whole round experience on the field and your model could be a shield for our people in this day of hardship… 
Prof. Muse Tegegne

Today, 09:58:39

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Elias Kifle
Dear Bill Gates, the places you visited and the individuals you spoke with have been carefully selected by the ruling junta led by genocidal dictator Meles Zenawi who pays $50,000 per month to a PR firm in Washington DC named DLA Piper to polish his image. After 20 years of rule by Meles Zenawi and his ethnic-apartheid regime, Ethiopia remains among the top ten countries in poverty, human rights violations, corruption, child malnutrition, lack of press freedom, regime-sanction human trafficking, etc. My online journal, EthiopianReview.com and many other media have been banned in Ethiopia, and 100s of Ethiopian journalists and human rights advocates have been forced into exile. Private TV and radio stations are not allowed. I can go on listing the crimes of Meles Zenawi for several hours. While I admire your humanitarian works, in Ethiopia's case you are unknowingly helping the brutal despot by painting a rosy picture of him and his regime. Please try to get in touch with any of the well-known international human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty Int'l, Committee to Protect Journalists and others if you want to really find out what is going on in Ethiopia. Thank you, Elias Kifle (ethrev@gmail.com)

Yesterday, 20:23:43

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Elias Kifle

Leon v. Rijckevorsel
Ethiopia has the aim to grow within five years from a low-income country to a midlle-income country. This realy is an Ethiopian Renaissance!  
It's time to invest in Africa!  

Yesterday, 10:57:59

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J T Paul
Interesting information. Good to see this philanthropic work.

Ethiopia Makes 4 Million Hectares of Land Available to Investors - Bloomberg

Ethiopia has made more than 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) of “fertile and unutilized” land available for agriculture companies that meet government requirements, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said.

About 300,000 hectares has been leased for commercial farming so far, he said at an Ethiopian investment forum today in the capital, Addis Ababa.

“There has been a significant flow into large-scale state- type commercial farming in our country and we seek even more in the future,” he said

Investors in Ethiopian land include Bangalore-based Karuturi Global Ltd. (KARG), the world’s largest rose grower, which is developing 100,000 hectares in Ethiopia’s southwestern Gambella region. The farm will have its first harvest in October, Managing Director Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi told the forum today.

Horizon Plantations Ethiopia, which is majority owned by Saudi billionaire Mohamed al-Amoudi, leased a 20,000-hectare plot in the western Benishangul-Gumuz region in March to grow groundnuts to produce cooking oil.

New land will only be allocated to applicants who submit “proper” business and land-use plans, manage the environment and provide jobs for local citizens, Meles said.

Inadequate applications are “perhaps one of the reasons we’ve not succeeded in allocating more than 10 percent of land that has been allocated for investment,” he said. The government has repossessed land from inactive operators, Meles said.

Meles denied accusations by advocacy groups including the California-based Oakland Institutethat communities in western Ethiopia are being forcibly evicted to make way for investors. “The bulk of resettlement is happening on the opposite end of where the private sector investment in agriculture is happening,” he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: William Davison in Addis Ababa via Nairobi atpmrichardson@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Richardson in Nairobi atpmrichardson@bloomberg.net.

Ethiopia's pastoralist tribes fight for survival against 'land grabbing' and climate change - The Ecologist

Special report Crisis or rebirth? The future of Ethiopia's pastoralist tribes

Tom Levitt

3rd May, 2012

Pastoralism is in crisis across Africa. But it could yet survive as the best available defence against climate change and famine. Tom Levitt reports from southern Ethiopia

In the scorching midday heat, less than 100 kilometres from the Kenyan border, there is a chorus of voices singing as water is hauled in buckets out of a borehole and passed along the line to fill up a trough for livestock. A cluster of women and older men gather in the shade of two trees, preparing and later sharing a pot of Buna Qale, a traditional drink made by boiling up a mixture of coffee beans, butter, milk, oil and sugar. The majority of people here in the Borena region of southern Ethiopia are pastoralists, nomadic people who move with their livestock in search of good pasture. But their way of life is under ever-increasing threat from loss of grazing land, worsening drought and government attempts to resettle them.


Life here today seems good with a parade of healthy looking camels, cows and goats coming forward to quench their thirst, while the young male herders stop to share a drink in the shade. But rewind seven months and the story was very different. Two successive failed rainy seasons had led to severe drought. Thousands of animals perished and more than 4.5 million people across Ethiopia needed food aid. The situation in neighbouring Somalia was even worse with widespread famine leading to tens of thousands of human deaths. 


In Ethiopia, famine is a word the country has struggled to shrug off since the tragedy of the 1980s. Its political leaders blame food insecurity on agricultural backwardness and a dependency on rain-fed agriculture. The country's 10 million or more pastoralists are seen as part of this problem; an increasingly vulnerable relic from the past and not the Western-style agricultural system that the country is trying to install as the future. That new system is one based on irrigation, crop farming and large-scale plantation projects - sugar and wheat. The polar opposite of the livestock-based system currently making up the livelihood of pastoralists - a way of life that has survived for centuries and may, say observers, still provide the best available source of food security for many of Ethiopia's drought-risk population.

Land grabbing and displacement


Although by no means a homogeneous group, pastoralists make up 10 to 15 per cent of Ethiopia's total population and perhaps, more crucially, use 63 per cent of its agricultural land. Land which observers say is being handed over to 'land-grabbing' foreign investors and state-financed irrigation schemes. 

Recent reports have claimed pastoralists in the Gambella Region, in West Ethiopia, are being forcibly relocated as part of the government's settlement plan to move them into areas with improved services like schools, water supplies and healthcare. By doing so the pastoralists are forced to abandon their cattle-based livelihoods in favour of settled crop farming. But according toHuman Rights Watch, the new villages lack adaequate farmland, healthcare or educational facilities.


Many of the areas people are being moved from are earmarked for lease by the government for cash-crop agricultural development, according to the NGO, which adds pastoralists often have no formal title to the land, allowing the government to claim the areas are "uninhabitated" or "under-utilised". Even if they are not resettled, pastoralists are losing access to the best land and water sources, say campaigners and researchers based in Ethiopia. 'We want the world to hear that the government brought us here to die,' one of those relocated told the NGO. 'They brought us no food, they gave away our land to the foreigners so we can’t even move back. On all sides the land is given away, so we will die here in one place.'


According to Human Rights Watch, Ethiopia is planning to resettle 1.5 million people by 2013 in four regions: Gambella, Afar, Somali and Benishangul-Gumuz. Attempts such as these to commercialise formerly pastoral land is nothing new and stretches back to colonial times. But the process of land being given over to overseas investors has accelerated in recent years and seen calls for official recognition of common pastoral lands. However, with pastoralists contributing little or nothing to government revenues, unlike, for example, tax-paying sugar plantations, a change in policy seems unlikely.  


'Civilisation did not come from pastoralists but from agriculture,’ says Ato Muhammad Yusuf, an MP and leading voice on pastoralist affairs in the Ethiopian government, in an interview with the Ecologist. ‘They must work on the land to be good citizens.' Yusuf argues pastoralists need to settle in order for the government to provide them with basic services like healthcare and education and safeguard their future but insists it is only being done voluntarily in the country. 

The pastoralist dilemma


In the far south of Ethiopia, pastoralists in Borena are yet to experience such 'modernisation'. This may in part be to the lack of major rivers flowing through the region to provide a basis for irrigation. Pastoral populations here rely on boreholes, a vulnerable existence exemplified by flash floods late last year that wiped out all but two of the wells relied upon by one of the pastoralist communities we visited in the Arero region of Borena. Like most pastoralists in Borena, the population is semi-settled, with the older men, women and children living together in small communities while young men roam as far as 100km searching for pasture to graze their livestock. During this time they are almost entirely reliant upon milk from the cattle they are herding for their daily food needs. 


While this makes for a lonely and difficult life for herders, it is this mobility that is key to the pastoralist way of life. In the dry rangelands of Ethiopia and other parts of Africa, pastures vary in nutritional content due to erratic rainfall and differing soil types and plant growth. By moving their animals to ensure a constant supply of good pasture, the pastoralists are able to produce comparatively more meat and milk than sedentary animals reared in the same conditions.
 However, across Borana and the rest of Ethiopia, the pastoralists' mobility and independence is being challenged by recurring drought and increased competition for grazing land from a land-squeezed population.