"Agribusiness: Tanzania waits for sweet salvation "

The government's partnership with Swedish company EcoEnergy was touted as a flagship for foreign investment. NGOs say it is a land grab. Caught in the middle for the past four years are the farmers due compensation. Sitting in the shade of the late afternoon sun, Jumani Noobi absentmindedly presses the tip of his hoe into the sun-baked earth. With the dry season drawing to an end, it has been months since the father of nine has been able to work his maize and rice farm in Gama Makani, a tiny village in the Razaba District, about 45km west of the seaside town of Bagamoyo. Noobi is one of some 1,300 residents caught in the middle of a contentious plan by Agro EcoEnergy, a subsidiary of Swedish agribusiness firm Eco- Energy, to move him off the land he and his family has worked for the past 18 years to make way for a $620m sugarcane plantation...

The EcoEnergy project was announced in 2011, with those to be displaced told they could expect compensation within 18 months. It has stalled, hamstrung by red tape and legal delays...ActionAid says the project is trampling on the rights of local people, and Biovision complains about the environmental impact that would result from the use of oil-based fertilisers...

Agro EcoEnergy has budgeted around $4m-$5m for compensation payouts and relocation costs but has yet to announce details of where farmers will be moved."It's not a question of if we should proceed with this project. It's only a question of how," says Agro EcoEnergy executive director Per Carstedt.