By Javier Blas | Financial Times
Saudi Arabia has announced the arrival of the first food crop harvested in Saudi-owned farms abroad, in a sign that the kingdom is moving faster than expected to outsource agricultural production.
Rice, harvested in famine-hit Ethiopia by a group of Saudi investors, was presented to King Abdullah recently and comes as other countries are still in the early stages of investing in overseas farms.
Maso Aliyi mourns his dead child, Shibre Aliyi, at his home in the village of Kararo in Ethiopia. Shibre had spent almost a month at a therapeutic feeding center. A lack of rain in the main February to April wet season has left at least 75,000 Ethiopian children under age 5 at risk from malnutrition, according to the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which also asserts that some eight million people need urgent food relief and another 4.6 million need emergency assistance (Oct. 2008)
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The Ethiopian origin is likely to raise concerns about the trend to outsource food production to poor African countries, some of which suffer from chronic hunger.
In the past year the United Nations World Food Programme has helped to feed 11m people in Ethiopia, which has suffered crop failures and food distribution problems.
Some analysts argue that foreign investment in agriculture, even if earmarked for export, could ultimately help poor countries, providing them with employment, infrastructure, access to agricultural technology and export tax revenues.
However, western agriculture officials familiar with the Saudi plans say they are sceptical that the kingdom’s investment in food production overseas will help poor countries such as Ethiopia.
Riyadh has also provided the most detailed account to date of food-security plans known as the “King Abdullah initiative for Saudi agricultural investment abroad”.
Since the oil-rich kingdom announced last summer that it planned to grow “strategic food commodities” overseas and phase out the water-intensive production of domestic cereals, few details had emerged.
But in a note posted on its foreign affairs website, Riyadh has disclosed that it will “provide credit facilities to Saudi investors in agriculture abroad”, with the focus on “countries with promising agricultural resources and having encouraging government”. It did not say how much money it would make available in credits.
Hail Agricultural Development, a Saudi company, said last month that it would invest in agricultural production in Sudan, with the government providing 60 per cent of the funding.
The Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank said this week that it was looking at investments to support agriculture, including the production of rice to be exported back to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi officials have so far visited Turkey, Ukraine, Egypt, Sudan, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brazil, South Africa and Ethiopia, while delegations from other countries, including Australia, have visited Riyadh to discuss possible investments.
The investments “should be long-term through ownership or long-term contracts”, and Riyadh expects the “liberty of selecting the crops”.
The pursuit of foreign farm investments is the clearest sign of how last year’s price spikes in commodities such as rice, wheat and corn, and the global food crisis that ensued, are reshaping the politics of agriculture.
The move is not only a response to high prices, but also to the export restrictions imposed by leading providers of commodities – including India, Russia, Argentina and Vietnam. These exporters banned overseas sales to keep their local markets well-supplied and some of the restrictions remain in force.
5 thoughts on “Food crops harvested in Ethiopia arrive in Saudi Arabia”
This is a sad story to the people of Ethiopia and great news to Saudis. The Saudis bought Ethiopian land and people with their petrol dollars. They were able to buy house slaves to work as house maids, raise their babies as nanny’s, cook their food in their kitchens for 12 hours helping the Saudi women and the rest of the 12 hours abused as sex toys to the men. Now Saudis have bought land and field slaves in Ethiopia to grow the food they eat. Responsible governments restrict export of food in order to feed their population and Ethiopian government starves their people to feed other countries. Shortage of land in the country have lead to civil wars in the country and while the government grab fertile lands to grow flowers, biofules for Western market, and now grow rice to feed the Middle East, and Ethiopian intellectuals cry “Green Famine” in their country begging for bags of corn to feed their people. Haile Selassie I lead his people to liberate the country to make Ethiopia for Ethiopians in less than five yeras. In 30 years after his departure the governments of DRUG and TPLF (EPRDF) have achieved selling the country and the people to the highest bidders. Poor Ethiopia stretches her hands and prays to God to send her a wise leader Haile Selassie II. Ethiopians need to think clearly, make peace among ourselves and our neighbors and identify our local and foreign enemies who are keeping us ignorant to die in exile and our home lands. “Seek for the Truth and Only the Truth makes you free”.
The problem is not the Saudis, but it is the Ethiopians ourselves. Why ? Because we the Ethiopians do not want to be united to over throw the devilish arrogant thugs of TPLF’s so called ” Democratic Government ” . If the TPLF remains on power for a long time, the time will come when they will sell our fellow country peoples as slaves to the Arabs in order to win the friends on their sides. But what kind of friends one has to win by selling his/her home land to strangers ? The TPLF is a group of gangsters without any moral, traditional respect and culture. Even this group will not hesitate to sell their mothers, if they get much amount of money. My fellow ETHIOPIANS, if the Arabs get a way to Ethiopia, they will easly change the hungry people and Ethiopia will be the ARABS NEST IN PARADISE. The Arabs, where ever they go or stand, they claim as their own land or property. Don’t forget the Arabs expansion of 600 AD and their today’s pushing the blacks to south from north Africa.
ETHIOPIANS UNITED TO DEFEND OUR COUNTRY !! GOD BLESS ETHIOPIA !!
what is wrong wth it? there is hunger doesn’t mean we have to invite foriegn investors. What they produce is not computing with our capability, if they didn’t, nothing would change.
We are hungry not because we hav scarce land resource. It is because we are not capable of producing, period!!!
But the busness i countinue as usual
While our sisters served them thier children call them KEDEMA means servant,if you are chirstean they call you KAFER means un beliver,if you are black they will call you ABED means slave.Those arrogant Saudis are there? I am sorry !!!
Anonymus 2
It is common sense. The agricultural production is leaving the country. It is not staying there. It is not sold in the local market for the Ethiopian pouplation. Foreign investment is only good if it can increase domestic prouction and make goods and services available for the population with resonably cheeper prices. As the saudis use mechanized farming, job opportunities are not that great for Ethiopians.
The fact is that Meles and his government do not care about Ethiopians. What they care is only for their dollars. They are stashing away dollars for their future life outside the country. That is why they have been encouraging flower farms instead of producing more wheat, teff, corn, sorgum, oilseeds and sugar for the population.
Look what responsible governments like India, Veitnam, China Russia and others are doing to feed their population adequately. They have restricted export of essential agricultural products to the outside world. They wanted to satisfy their population first. Meles is doing exaxctly the opposite by exporting everything outside the country. That is why many people argue he is not an Ethiopian citizen at heart.