Bangladeshi companies launch Africa farm lease plan
Bangladeshi companies say they have leased thousands of hectares of farmland in Africa as part of their efforts to avoid future food shortages. Bangladesh is the world’s fourth largest producer of rice
Two Bangladeshi companies have already signed deals to lease unused cultivable land in Uganda, Tanzania and Gambia.
Another agreement to lease around 30,000 hectares for 99 years will be signed with the Tanzanian government later this week.
Officials say African countries have huge amounts of unused cultivable land.
At the same time they say that Bangladesh has the manpower and expertise to produce staple crops all year round.
‘Food security’
Under the plans, the Contract Farming System will enable Bangladeshi companies to get at least 60% of the produce.
In return Bangladesh will train African farmers in rain-fed rice cultivation, seed conservation and irrigation.
It is hoped that the new arrangement will increase food productivity and enable the country’s expanding workforce to be deployed in Africa’s farming sector.
“Basically this idea is mainly for proper management of our food security,” said Wahidur Rahman, a senior Bangladeshi foreign ministry official.
“We are thinking of expanding our agriculture, but we do not have enough land to cultivate. Because of this we are thinking Africa may be the destination for our agriculture production.”
Bangladesh is the world’s fourth largest producer of rice and it harvested around 34 million tonnes last year.
Although the country produces enough to feed its population of 160 million people, it faces shortages at times because of natural disasters.
Officials say apart from rice there is also scope to cultivate other crops such as wheat and cotton in Africa.
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Fuad
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This is an issue of my beloved country Sierra Leone. I see no reason why we should import our basic food when we have the available resources to produce in excess and also export. Sierra Leone is blessed with adequate amount of rainfall being the largest receiver of rainfall in the sub-region. We have seven rivers flowing from North, north-east, South and South-east to the Atlantic ocean. Thus signifying that we have abundant available water resources for both agriculture and domestic us but yet we cannot feed ourselves. The problems lie on us as a nation because we are lazy and we are only concern with dirty politics of the day.
18th May 2011I generally want to welcome the Bangladeshi to come to Sierra Leone and see the Agricultural potential of our God given land.
Sierra Leone has two main ecology; Low land and upland. The low land is further divided into four and they are as follows; Inland valley swamps, Boli land, river rhine grass land and mangrove swamps. The inland valley swamps comprises perennial and seasonal. With improved farm mechanisation and irrigation technology Sierra Leone will be an exporter of grain than to be an importer.
I hope the government of Sierra Leone through the Ministry of Agriculture will seek a redress of our agricultural production for sustainability and economic growth.