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Article

20 Jun 2013

Author:
Jessica Hatcher, in The Guardian

Tanzania's agriculture revolution: land grabs or a welcome business boom?

Tanzania is a test case for the new alliance for food security and nutrition, an initiative launched at the G8 last year by US president Barack Obama...[that] champions the private sector to achieve agricultural growth and lift 50 million people out of poverty by 2022. More than 40 multinationals, including Unilever, Diageo and SABMiller, have signed up to the alliance...While the alliance could give a much needed boost to the area...there is concern that smallholder farmers could be pushed off their land to make way for large-scale, business-backed programmes...[F]armers...do not want to give up their independent way of life – or their land. "Wages will not sustain you in the long term," says Abasi Kalesi, from Kimande, where he owns land along the Ruaha river that is rich in nutrients for growing rice. Kalesi would happily be contracted to supply rice to larger firms...He'd like to see storage facilities, improved infrastructure, better seed quality, access to markets and marketing techniques. But he would not be happy to sell his land.