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How food and water are driving a 21st-century African land grab

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A woman tends vegetables at a giant Saudi-financed farm in Ethiopia.

An Observer investigation reveals how rich countries faced by a global food shortage now farm an area double the size of the UK to guarantee supplies for their citizens.

We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia’s largest greenhouse. Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure already stretches over 20 hectares – the size of 20 football pitches.

The farm manager shows us millions of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables being grown in 500m rows in computer controlled conditions. Spanish engineers are building the steel structure, Dutch technology minimises water use from two bore-holes and 1,000 women pick and pack 50 tonnes of food a day. Within 24 hours, it has been driven 200 miles to Addis Ababa and flown 1,000 miles to the shops and restaurants of Dubai, Jeddah and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with 2.8 million people needing food aid, but paradoxically the government is offering at least 3m hectares of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world’s most wealthy individuals to export food for their own populations.

The 1,000 hectares of land which contain the Awassa greenhouses are leased for 99 years to a Saudi billionaire businessman, Ethiopian-born Sheikh Mohammed al-Amoudi, one of the 50 richest men in the world. His Saudi Star company plans to spend up to $2bn acquiring and developing 500,000 hectares of land in Ethiopia in the next few years. So far, it has bought four farms and is already growing wheat, rice, vegetables and flowers for the Saudi market. It expects eventually to employ more than 10,000 people.

But Ethiopia is only one of 20 or more African countries where land is being bought or leased for intensive agriculture on an immense scale in what may be the greatest change of ownership since the colonial era.

An Observer investigation estimates that up to 50m hectares of land – an area more than double the size of the UK – has been acquired in the last few years or is in the process of being negotiated by governments and wealthy investors working with state subsidies. The data used was collected by Grain, the International Institute for Environment and Development, the International Land Coalition, ActionAid and other non-governmental groups.

The land rush, which is still accelerating, has been triggered by the worldwide food shortages which followed the sharp oil price rises in 2008, growing water shortages and the European Union’s insistence that 10% of all transport fuel must come from plant-based biofuels by 2015.

In many areas the deals have led to evictions, civil unrest and complaints of “land grabbing”.

The experience of Nyikaw Ochalla, an indigenous Anuak from the Gambella region of Ethiopia now living in Britain but who is in regular contact with farmers in his region, is typical. He said: “All of the land in the Gambella region is utilised. Each community has and looks after its own territory and the rivers and farmlands within it. It is a myth propagated by the government and investors to say that there is waste land or land that is not utilised in Gambella.

“The foreign companies are arriving in large numbers, depriving people of land they have used for centuries. There is no consultation with the indigenous population. The deals are done secretly. The only thing the local people see is people coming with lots of tractors to invade their lands.

“All the land round my family village of Illia has been taken over and is being cleared. People now have to work for an Indian company. Their land has been compulsorily taken and they have been given no compensation. People cannot believe what is happening. Thousands of people will be affected and people will go hungry.”

It is not known if the acquisitions will improve or worsen food security in Africa, or if they will stimulate separatist conflicts, but a major World Bank report due to be published this month is expected to warn of both the potential benefits and the immense dangers they represent to people and nature.

Leading the rush are international agribusinesses, investment banks, hedge funds, commodity traders, sovereign wealth funds as well as UK pension funds, foundations and individuals attracted by some of the world’s cheapest land.

Together they are scouring Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Malawi, Ethiopia, Congo, Zambia, Uganda, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Mali, Sierra Leone, Ghana and elsewhere. Ethiopia alone has approved 815 foreign-financed agricultural projects since 2007. Any land there, which investors have not been able to buy, is being leased for approximately $1 per year per hectare.

Saudi Arabia, along with other Middle Eastern emirate states such as Qatar, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, is thought to be the biggest buyer. In 2008 the Saudi government, which was one of the Middle East’s largest wheat-growers, announced it was to reduce its domestic cereal production by 12% a year to conserve its water. It earmarked $5bn to provide loans at preferential rates to Saudi companies which wanted to invest in countries with strong agricultural potential .

Meanwhile, the Saudi investment company Foras, backed by the Islamic Development Bank and wealthy Saudi investors, plans to spend $1bn buying land and growing 7m tonnes of rice for the Saudi market within seven years. The company says it is investigating buying land in Mali, Senegal, Sudan and Uganda. By turning to Africa to grow its staple crops, Saudi Arabia is not just acquiring Africa’s land but is securing itself the equivalent of hundreds of millions of gallons of scarce water a year. Water, says the UN, will be the defining resource of the next 100 years.

Since 2008 Saudi investors have bought heavily in Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia and Kenya. Last year the first sacks of wheat grown in Ethiopia for the Saudi market were presented by al-Amoudi to King Abdullah.

Some of the African deals lined up are eye-wateringly large: China has signed a contract with the Democratic Republic of Congo to grow 2.8m hectares of palm oil for biofuels. Before it fell apart after riots, a proposed 1.2m hectares deal between Madagascar and the South Korean company Daewoo would have included nearly half of the country’s arable land.

Land to grow biofuel crops is also in demand. “European biofuel companies have acquired or requested about 3.9m hectares in Africa. This has led to displacement of people, lack of consultation and compensation, broken promises about wages and job opportunities,” said Tim Rice, author of an ActionAid report which estimates that the EU needs to grow crops on 17.5m hectares, well over half the size of Italy, if it is to meet its 10% biofuel target by 2015.

“The biofuel land grab in Africa is already displacing farmers and food production. The number of people going hungry will increase,” he said. British firms have secured tracts of land in Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tanzania to grow flowers and vegetables.

Indian companies, backed by government loans, have bought or leased hundreds of thousands of hectares in Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal and Mozambique, where they are growing rice, sugar cane, maize and lentils to feed their domestic market.

Nowhere is now out of bounds. Sudan, emerging from civil war and mostly bereft of development for a generation, is one of the new hot spots. South Korean companies last year bought 700,000 hectares of northern Sudan for wheat cultivation; the United Arab Emirates have acquired 750,000 hectares and Saudi Arabia last month concluded a 42,000-hectare deal in Nile province.

The government of southern Sudan says many companies are now trying to acquire land. “We have had many requests from many developers. Negotiations are going on,” said Peter Chooli, director of water resources and irrigation, in Juba last week. “A Danish group is in discussions with the state and another wants to use land near the Nile.”

In one of the most extraordinary deals, buccaneering New York investment firm Jarch Capital, run by a former commodities trader, Philip Heilberg, has leased 800,000 hectares in southern Sudan near Darfur. Heilberg has promised not only to create jobs but also to put 10% or more of his profits back into the local community. But he has been accused by Sudanese of “grabbing” communal land and leading an American attempt to fragment Sudan and exploit its resources.

Devlin Kuyek, a Montreal-based researcher with Grain, said investing in Africa was now seen as a new food supply strategy by many governments. “Rich countries are eyeing Africa not just for a healthy return on capital, but also as an insurance policy. Food shortages and riots in 28 countries in 2008, declining water supplies, climate change and huge population growth have together made land attractive. Africa has the most land and, compared with other continents, is cheap,” he said.

“Farmland in sub-Saharan Africa is giving 25% returns a year and new technology can treble crop yields in short time frames,” said Susan Payne, chief executive of Emergent Asset Management, a UK investment fund seeking to spend $50m on African land, which, she said, was attracting governments, corporations, multinationals and other investors. “Agricultural development is not only sustainable, it is our future. If we do not pay great care and attention now to increase food production by over 50% before 2050, we will face serious food shortages globally,” she said.

But many of the deals are widely condemned by both western non-government groups and nationals as “new colonialism”, driving people off the land and taking scarce resources away from people.

We met Tegenu Morku, a land agent, in a roadside cafe on his way to the region of Oromia in Ethiopia to find 500 hectares of land for a group of Egyptian investors. They planned to fatten cattle, grow cereals and spices and export as much as possible to Egypt. There had to be water available and he expected the price to be about 15 birr (75p) per hectare per year – less than a quarter of the cost of land in Egypt and a tenth of the price of land in Asia.

“The land and labour is cheap and the climate is good here. Everyone – Saudis, Turks, Chinese, Egyptians – is looking. The farmers do not like it because they get displaced, but they can find land elsewhere and, besides, they get compensation, equivalent to about 10 years’ crop yield,” he said.

Oromia is one of the centres of the African land rush. Haile Hirpa, president of the Oromia studies’ association, said last week in a letter of protest to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon that India had acquired 1m hectares, Djibouti 10,000 hectares, Saudi Arabia 100,000 hectares, and that Egyptian, South Korean, Chinese, Nigerian and other Arab investors were all active in the state.

“This is the new, 21st-century colonisation. The Saudis are enjoying the rice harvest, while the Oromos are dying from man-made famine as we speak,” he said.

The Ethiopian government denied the deals were causing hunger and said that the land deals were attracting hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign investments and tens of thousands of jobs. A spokesman said: “Ethiopia has 74m hectares of fertile land, of which only 15% is currently in use – mainly by subsistence farmers. Of the remaining land, only a small percentage – 3 to 4% – is offered to foreign investors. Investors are never given land that belongs to Ethiopian farmers. The government also encourages Ethiopians in the diaspora to invest in their homeland. They bring badly needed technology, they offer jobs and training to Ethiopians, they operate in areas where there is suitable land and access to water.”

The reality on the ground is different, according to Michael Taylor, a policy specialist at the International Land Coalition. “If land in Africa hasn’t been planted, it’s probably for a reason. Maybe it’s used to graze livestock or deliberately left fallow to prevent nutrient depletion and erosion. Anybody who has seen these areas identified as unused understands that there is no land in Ethiopia that has no owners and users.”

Development experts are divided on the benefits of large-scale, intensive farming. Indian ecologist Vandana Shiva said in London last week that large-scale industrial agriculture not only threw people off the land but also required chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, fertilisers, intensive water use, and large-scale transport, storage and distribution which together turned landscapes into enormous mono-cultural plantations.

“We are seeing dispossession on a massive scale. It means less food is available and local people will have less. There will be more conflict and political instability and cultures will be uprooted. The small farmers of Africa are the basis of food security. The food availability of the planet will decline,” she says. But Rodney Cooke, director at the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development, sees potential benefits. “I would avoid the blanket term ‘land-grabbing’. Done the right way, these deals can bring benefits for all parties and be a tool for development.”

Lorenzo Cotula, senior researcher with the International Institute for Environment and Development, who co-authored a report on African land exchanges with the UN fund last year, found that well-structured deals could guarantee employment, better infrastructures and better crop yields. But badly handled they could cause great harm, especially if local people were excluded from decisions about allocating land and if their land rights were not protected.

Water is also controversial. Local government officers in Ethiopia told the Observer that foreign companies that set up flower farms and other large intensive farms were not being charged for water. “We would like to, but the deal is made by central government,” said one. In Awassa, the al-Amouni farm uses as much water a year as 100,000 Ethiopians.

• This article was amended on 22 March 2011. Owing to an editing error the original said that more than 13 million people in Ethiopia need food aid. This has been corrected.

Original Post: The Guardian

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StopEACOP Coalition warns TotalEnergies and CNOOC investors of escalating ‘financial and reputational’ Risks

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By Witness Radio Team

The StopEACOP Coalition has issued a warning to shareholders and bondholders of TotalEnergies and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), urging them to reconsider their funding of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) due to the companies’ growing self-financing of the project that exposes shareholders and bondholders to gross financial and reputational risks.

In a public statement released alongside its Finance Risk Briefing Update No. 6, the coalition revealed that the two energy giants have quietly decided to increase their financial commitments to the $5.6 billion pipeline, stepping in as lenders to their own project. This move reflects the collapse of external financing for EACOP amid widespread rejection by international banks and insurers due to the project’s environmental, human rights, and climate risks. These risks include environmental, human rights concerns, and climate-related issues.

According to EACOP Limited’s 2024 annual report, TotalEnergies and CNOOC have provided additional facilities through shareholder loans to fund what remains of the construction budget.

Initially projected to cost up to $3.5 billion and intended to be financed with 40% equity and 60% debt, the project’s cost has since increased to a whopping $5.6 billion. The two companies have already injected roughly $2.8 billion in equity and secured around $755 million in external loans, leaving a debt gap of approximately $2 billion. Currently, TotalEnergies and CNOOC are moving to cover that shortfall themselves, bringing their total funding to about $4.8 billion, or 86% of the project’s total cost, more than triple what they had initially planned to use.

“This is a shocking example of developers financing their own controversial project after being rejected by global financial institutions. It shows that the EACOP is no longer financially viable without corporate self-funding and that investors in these companies are now directly financing one of the most destructive fossil fuel projects in the world,” Reads part of the statement.

The coalition argues that by turning inward for financing, TotalEnergies and CNOOC have transferred financial, legal, and reputational risks to their own shareholders and bondholders.

“Now, to keep the project alive, TotalEnergies and CNOOC are turning inward, relying on their own balance sheets and, by extension, your capital. The situation increases your financial risk, deepens your exposure to the project’s growing controversy, and links your investment portfolios even more directly to the environmental destruction, human rights abuses, and climate chaos that EACOP represents,” the statement says.

“This means that institutional investors holding TotalEnergies or CNOOC securities are now directly linked to the project’s growing controversies, from land grabs and community displacement to the threat it poses to climate goals.”

EACOP is a 1,443-kilometer pipeline stretching from Uganda’s Lake Albert oilfields to the Tanzanian coast, which has faced heavy opposition since its inception. This opposition is due to threats to biodiversity and the environment, as well as to people’s displacement among others.

It is from this that the STOPEACOP coalition is calling for active engagement with TotalEnergies and CNOOC to jointly address human rights and environmental risks and identify a time-bound escalation strategy, where investors publicly set deadlines for the companies to act, backed by credible consequences such as voting against board members or divesting from the companies altogether.

“We are therefore calling upon the shareholders and bondholders of TotalEnergies and CNOOC to act with integrity and foresight, in line with their responsibilities under the UNGPs and the OECD Guidelines, to avoid contributing to severe human rights and environmental impacts associated with the operations of your portfolio companies,” reads the statement.

In the last three years, over 20 major banks and 23 insurers have publicly ruled out support for the EACOP project, citing misalignment with global climate targets and reputational concerns.

The Finance Risk Briefing shows that 43 banks have ruled out financing for the 1,443 km pipeline since the project began.

Governments and international organizations have also faced mounting pressure to intervene, as civil society movements in Uganda, Tanzania, and abroad intensify opposition to its implementation due to its adverse effects.

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12 anti-Eacop activists decry delayed justice after spending 100 days on remand

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Twelve environmental activists who were arrested during protests against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) in August 2025 have decried delayed justice after their fourth bail application was rejected.

The presiding Senior Principal Grade One, Magistrate Winnie Nankya Jatiko, at Buganda Road Chief Magistrate’s Court, said the suspects’ case was in an advanced stage and therefore, there was no need to grant them bail despite the fact that they have spent nearly three months on remand.

The activists, most of whom are students from various universities in the country under their umbrella body, Students Against Eacop Uganda, an environmental pressure group, were arrested on August 1 after staging a peaceful protest near Stanbic Bank in Kampala, over what they described as the bank’s continued funding of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (Eacop). They were first arraigned in court on charges of being a public nuisance and remanded to Luzira till September 5.

The suspects, who include Teopista Nakyambadde, Shammy Nalwadda, Dorothy Asio, Shafik Kalyango, Habibu Nalungu, Noah Kafiiti, Ismail Zziwa, Ivan Wamboga, Akram Katende, Baker Tamale, Keisha Ali and Mark Makoba, accused the bank of funding the ongoing construction of the 1,443km Eacop, claiming that the project is destructive to the environment.

They reappeared before the same court on August 18, and Ms Nankya denied them bail because some of them were perennial protestors who had repeatedly abused their bail terms.

She, on September 5, declined to hear their fresh bail application and adjourned the court session to October 1 after hearing evidence of three state witnesses.

Some of the state witnesses said they had seen some of the activists participating in more than one anti-Eacop protest.

Mr Kato Tumusiime, the lead lawyer for the activists, condemned the decision by the magistrate to rejects his clients’ bail application and described it as absurd and unfortunate.

“Failing to entertain the bail application prejudices the rights of the accused guaranteed by our Constitution, and the same is not only harsh but also illegal and unacceptable. It suggests that the activists have been found guilty before even hearing their case,” he said

He added, “This is unacceptable in our legal regime. We must fight for our judiciary to be independent and act in line with the law and not to please the people in power.”

The magistrate fixed November 6 when she will rule whether they have a case to answer.

Background

The activists have on several occasions protested in Kampala streets, including at Parliament, the French and Chinese Embassies, Stanbic and KCB Banks, over their substantial support for the Eacop project, which they say is harmful. This time, the bank announced its funding after key financiers withdrew.

However, the government and key stakeholders have dismissed the activists’ claims, defending their participation in the project, which is expected to transform the country’s economy once oil begins flowing.

The $5 billion (Shs18 trillion) EACOP project is a 1,443 km pipeline that will transport Uganda’s waxy crude oil from the oil fields in mid-western Uganda to Tanga port on the Indian Ocean in Tanzania.

The project is jointly owned by French oil giant, TotalEnergies (62 percent), the Uganda National Oil Company Limited (UNOC – 15 percent), China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC – 8 percent), and Tanzania’s Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC – 15 percent) under EACOP Ltd.

Source: Monitor

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‘They Stole Our Ancestors’: Ministry of Water, RDCs Accused of Land Grabbing and Grave Exhumation in Kanungu

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The Ministry of Water and Environment is under scrutiny over alleged illegal procurement of a 70.2-acre piece of land in Kihanda Sub-County, Kanungu District.

According to a petition dated October 10, 2025, submitted to the State House Anti-Corruption Unit, Christine Joy Tusiime accuses officials from the ministry of land grabbing, abuse of office, and criminal conduct. The land in question is her ancestral property located in Ibarya Cell, Kihanda Parish.

Tusiime claims that in August 2023, the government, through the Ministry of Water and Environment, entered into a purported land acquisition and compensation agreement with her for the family land. However, she insists that the transaction was done irregularly and without her informed consent. She further alleges that the land was under a caveat at the time, and that no official land valuation, boundary opening, or legal procedures were followed before compensation and takeover.

The Ministry of Water and Environment is jointly accused with several officials including Hajj Shafik Sekandi (former RDC of Kanungu, now RDC of Kisoro), Amanyire Ambrose Mwesigye (current RDC of Kanungu), his deputy Gad Rugajju, and GISO Ambrose Barigye. Also implicated are local leaders: Jessica Tindimwebwa (LC I Chairperson – Ibarya Cell), Davis Asiimwe (LC III Chairperson Kihanda Sub-County), and Lemegio Tumwesigye (LC II Chairperson – Kihanda Parish).

Tusiime alleges that these officials colluded to demarcate the family land into smaller plots for personal gain, disguised as government compensation. In her words, “To our disbelief, these individuals in government offices demarcated our ancestral land into plots, which they shared among themselves to access and grab money through the Ministry of Water and Environment’s purported compensation.”

She also claims that on October 3, 2025, RDC Mwesigye led a group that stormed their ancestral home, demolishing the house and toilet. Tusiime states that these individuals, using their positions in government, forcibly occupied and destroyed family property including homes, crops, and graveyards without following legal procedures. She further alleges that the accused exhumed bodies of their deceased siblings and took them to an unknown location without the family’s knowledge or consent.

A document reportedly in the possession of the family shows that a Ministry official, identified as Paul Nuwagira—a sociologist—wrote on the land title indicating it had been received for mutation and transfer. The note reads: “Original duplicate title received for purposes of mutation and transfer to the government of Uganda represented by the Ministry of Water and Environment after consent to compensation was reached between vendors and government.”

In a March 18, 2025, letter to the Ministry, Tusiime expressed strong opposition to the transaction, raising issues such as lack of a valuation report, absence of a proper boundary survey, inadequate compensation, harassment, intimidation, and overall fraudulent conduct. Through her lawyers, she pointed out that neither she nor her elder sister had legal capacity to transact over the land. She also noted that the government had failed to issue a certificate of title for the residue land where her family was supposed to be resettled or relocate their ancestral burial grounds.

Tusiime claims the government is proceeding with the development project on the disputed land, despite failing to meet its obligations under the so-called agreement. She alleges that government officials have since taken over the land, destroyed property, and issued threats—with the support of RDC Mwesigye, his deputy Rugajju, and local police.

In an interview, Tusiime said the dispute traces back to 2004 following the death of her mother, when her sister took possession of the family land. She said this triggered a series of actions by local officials aimed at displacing her and destroying her interests. “The RDC then did a report, and from that time, they began targeting us—destroying plantations and allowing others to use the land to undermine us,” she said tearfully.

Due to continued threats and property destruction, Tusiime fled Uganda in 2023 and now lives in the United Kingdom. She maintains that the government must lawfully purchase the land and not rely on what she describes as fraudulent compensation efforts. She further alleges that RDC Mwesigye and his deputy Rugajju are now profiting from the land through activities like charcoal burning and have destroyed their house. Her appeals to the police, she says, were ignored.

She added: “I am humbly appealing to the President to intervene in this matter and rescue me from these notorious criminals pretending to work for the government.”

Tusiime also claims that her attempt to open boundaries and prove the extent of land grabbing was blocked by authorities. She accuses lawyers from Mark Mwesigye Advocates of playing a role in alleged forgery and land fraud related to her property in Ibarya Cell, Kanungu.

RDC Amanyire Ambrose Mwesigye denied any wrongdoing. He said he held meetings involving both parties and advised them to approach the Administrator General. He acknowledged that the land was part of a government irrigation project and said that several families were consulted in 2022, and valuation exercises were conducted in 2023. “Their family was among those consulted. They consented, and they were paid Shs1 billion, which was shared between Christine and her sister. The houses that were demolished are those earmarked for removal to pave way for the project,” he said.

When contacted, Paul Nuwagira, the sociologist from the ministry who handled part of the process, maintained that he acted on behalf of the Ministry. “Whatever I did was under the mandate of the Ministry of Water and Environment. If there is any complaint, it should be addressed to the ministry leadership—not to me personally,” he said. “There are proper channels for handling these matters, and people should stop addressing ministry issues to individuals.”

Despite repeated attempts, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Water and Environment, Dr. Alfred Okot Okidi, was not available for comment.

Tusiime continues to demand a full investigation into the matter, arguing that her family was defrauded and violently displaced from their land by individuals misusing government institutions.

Source: ankoletimes.co.ug

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