Queries as Qatar seeks to grow food in Kenya

• Ruto denies knowledge of the deal while his PS welcomes the concept.
• Other Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have also been negotiating leases of large tracts of farmland in countries such as Sudan and Senegal.
• Qatar has already reportedly struck deals this year to grow rice in Cambodia, maize and wheat in Sudan and vegetables in Vietnam.
  

The Guardian quoted the director of the Presidential Press Service, Mr Isaiah Kabira saying: “Nothing comes for free. If you want people to invest in your country then you have to make concessions.”

The newspaper reported that the deal is likely to cause concern in Kenya because fertile land is unequally distributed. Several prominent political families own huge tracts of farmland, while millions of people live in small parcels.

The country is also experiencing a food crisis, with the Government forced to introduce subsidies and price controls on maize after poor production and planning caused the price of the staple maize flour to double in less than a year.

This week, the Government placed an advertisement in the papers inviting people interested in importing one million bags of yellow maize.

By building docks in Lamu, Kenya hopes to open a new trade corridor that will give landlocked Ethiopia and the autonomous region of Southern Sudan access to the Indian Ocean.

Mr Kabira said that if the financing was agreed, construction of the port would begin in 2010.

Qatar, which has large oil and gas revenues, imports most of its food, as most of its land is barren desert and just one per cent is suitable for arable farming. It has already reportedly struck deals this year to grow rice in Cambodia, maize and wheat in Sudan and vegetables in Vietnam.

Much of the produce will be exported to the Gulf. Qatar’s foreign ministry in Doha did not return calls, but Mr Kabira said that its intention was to grow “vegetables and fruit” in Kenya.

The area proposed for the farming project is near the Tana Rver delta where the Kenyan Government owns nearly 500,000 hectares (1.3 million acres) of uncultivated land.

But a separate agreement to allow Mumias to grow sugarcane and build a factory in the area has attracted fierce opposition from environmentalists who say a pristine ecosystem of mangrove swamps, savannah and forests will be destroyed.

Pastoralists, who rear up to 60,000 cattle to graze in the delta each dry season, are also opposed to the plan. The sudden rush by foreign governments and firms to secure food supplies in Africa has some experts worried.

Mr Jacques Diouf, director general of the United Nation’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), recently spoke of the risk of a “neo-colonial” agricultural system emerging.

The FAO boss said some of the first overseas projects by Gulf companies in Sudan, where more than 5 million people receive international food aid, showed limited local benefits, with much of the specialist labour and farming inputs being imported.

Additional details from The Guardian