Exposed: Ethiopia gives farmland to foreigners while thousands starve

(July 25, 2011, Survival International) -A Survival investigation has uncovered alarming evidence that some of Ethiopia’s most productive farmland is being stolen from local tribes and leased to foreign companies to grow and export food – while thousands of its citizens starve during the devastating drought.

Vast blocks of fertile land in the Omo River area in south west Ethiopia are being leased out to Malaysian, Italian and Korean companies, as well as being cleared for vast state-run plantations producing export crops, even though 90,000 tribal people in the area depend on the land to survive.

The government is planning to increase the amount of land to be cleared to at least 245,000 hectares, much of it for vast sugar cane plantations.

The region’s worst drought in 60 years has left millions starving. The Omo Valley tribes, are for now, relatively secure.

But the government views them as “backward” and is determined to “modernize” them: it wants to turn them from self-sufficient farmers, herders and hunters into workers in vast plantations. However, they may be simply evicted from their land. Read the full story at Survival International »

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