The Inkstained Mind: India forgets past, exploits Africa's future

27 Jul 2011

India forgets past, exploits Africa's future

(Photo by Philipp Hedemann)

This is 'Red', an 8-year old Ethiopian boy on Karmjeet Singh Sekhon's farm in western Ethiopia. According to a Swiss website, Red works in blistering 40 Degrees Celsius heat to dig up weeds.

Karmjeet, on the other hand is a 68-year old investor/manager of a "huge farm, which covers an area of nearly 300,000 hectares in western Ethiopia."

(I wonder if it's a part of Karuturi Global's Farmistan.)

What makes it even more disgraceful is that according to the United Nations, "4.5 million people in Ethiopia are currently in need of aid as a result of a devastating drought" - while most of the produce on massive Indian, Chinese and GCC states-owned mega-farms are ear-marked for export!

According to the World Bank, "at least 35 million hectares of land has been bought or leased" in Africa.

And the Ethiopian government says that (companies from) 36 countries including India, China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have leased farm land there.

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