Mozambique considers R50bn agriculture development plan

MOZAMBIQUE is mulling a plan to lease 240 000ha of prime farmland to investors to grow crops for export, threatening to displace more than 100 000 residents, activists and academics said, citing a leaked document.

The Lurio River Valley Devel- opment Project in the country’s northeast aims to produce cotton, corn, sugar, ethanol and livestock, Clemente Ntauazi, a researcher with advocacy group Academic Action for the Development of Rural Communities, said.

An estimated 500 000 people would be affected by the plan, with 100 000 forced from their homes, Ntauazi said, citing a leaked presentation to would-be investors and satellite images of communities that would be impacted.

The leaked plan is the latest in a series of major foreignbased agricultural projects proposed in Mozambique and other African countries that supporters say will bring jobs and boost land productivity.

But critics fear it will displace residents and rob smallscale farmers of their livelihoods.

“The area holds some of Mozambique’s best land and local farmers have been living there for more than 30 years,” Ntauazi told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The proposal follows another major ongoing agricultural project in Mozambique with the government planning to approve the Brazilian- and Japanese-backed ProSavana Project covering several million hectares to grow soybeans by the end of the year.

The proposed Lurio River project, involving two hydro- electric dams along with agriculture plans, was waiting approval from the Council of Ministers, a government body, researchers said.

“This is a secret [plan], no consultation, [and] no published information from the government,” Tim Wise, director of Tufts University’s Global Development Institute, told the foundation.

Ntauazi said the initiative was expected to cost $4.2-billion (R50.2-billion), a sum Mozambique’s cash-strapped government would not be able to finance without outside support.

Officials at the agriculture ministry were not available for comment. – Reuters