Tanzania

Land-Grabbing is slowly becoming a serious problem in Tanzania with the poor being turned into landless citizens in their own country in the name of foreign investors.

Chunks of land that are being targeted for Kilimo Kwanza belong to rural-based small producers who are likely to lose it to large-scale investors as pillar number five of the programme advocates for amendments of the Village Land Act No. 5 of 1999 to facilitate acquisition of land for large scale investment.

At least 21 investors from famous US firms who were in Tanzania to scout for business opportunities for 10 days have acquired, among other things, land for production of food crops in East Africa’s second largest economy.

The most disturbing question here is: who should have powers to give 800,000 hectares to a foreigner under a 99-year lease arrangement, and under what procedures?

The US Overseas Private Investment Corporation pours $150 million into fund targeting farmland acquisitions in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia

A short article on the land grab phenomenon: What are the drivers? Who is doing the grabbing? What are the main issues? What implications for the future ?

Kilombero Plantations Limited chief executive officer Carter Coleman talks about his company's large-scale farming operations in Tanzania, including the removal of the "Project Affected Persons" previously farming the lands.

Iowa agribusiness investor Bruce Rastetter is leading a project to turn as much as 800,000 acres [324,000 hectares] of land in the east African country of Tanzania into a massive grain-and-livestock operation.

Nitol-Niloy Group and Bhati Bangla Agrotec of Bangladesh aim to invest an initial US$18 million to lease around 40,000 hectares of African land by the end of this year to grow foodstuff, most of which they will be obliged to sell in Bangladesh.

Hedge funds are behind "land grabs" in Africa to boost their profits in the food and biofuel sectors, a US think-tank says

Wealthy U.S. and European investors are accumulating large swaths of African agricultural lands in deals that have little accountability and give them greater control over food supply for the world's poor

If the early reports are anything to go by, the Bangladeshi deals already incorporate many elements that suggest they are being done in a way likely to engender fierce resentment and opposition in the African countries concerned.