Gathecha Kamau
Joined: Jun 15, 2002
Posts: 9
Poster Rank:
Soft-spoken
User is
Offline
Province/State: Nairobi Area
City: Nairobi
|
1,000 Indian farmers coming to EA
October 29, 2004 - 12:33 PM
|
|
You could send me your comments;
An Indian state plans to send farmers to Kenya to cultivate arid lands – and so end a spate of suicides sparked by their debts.
However confusion continued yesterday over the number of Indians who would come to East Africa.
The Agriculture minister of Andhra Pradesh, in east India, said they wanted to send between 500-1,000 farmers to the region to work in farmers' cooperatives, financed by the state government.
The co-ops would be set up on 50,000 acres to be leased for 99 years in Kenya and Uganda.
However, Kenya's High Commissioner to India, Mr Mutuma Kathurima, said only a core group of investors would come to Africa, with the actual labour being recruited locally.
He said the farmers who come to Kenya would be chosen for their willingness to invest and for their expertise in growing cotton, sugarcane, groundnuts, bananas and flowers.
Mr Kathurima said he had already been approached by three investors keen to focus on specific food and cash crops.
In India, however, it was reported that about 500 farmers had already agreed to take up the offer under the unprecedented plan, in a state so far known more for sending thousands of engineers to work at computer software firms in Western countries, mostly the United States.
Talks were also being held with representatives of the government of Tanzania to send farmers there as well, state officials said.
"This is a business opportunity for Andhra farmers who are well-versed in tropical and arid area farming," Andhra's Agriculture minister Mr N. Raghuveera Reddy told Reuters news agency.
At least 502 farmers have killed themselves in the state since May this year when Mr Reddy's Congress party government came to power after local elections, promising to end their woes.
Thousands of farmers, unable to pay rising debts as their crops failed, have also committed suicide in the neighbouring states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.
Under the relocation plan, the Andhra government will pay the east African nations to lease land which will be handed over to farmers' cooperatives.
The cooperatives would employ farmers and pay back the cost of the lease through earnings from their farms.
Andhra would also provide technical support to the cooperatives to help cultivate the arid land, said Mr C.C. Reddy, an advisor to the state government and the brain behind the plan.
The Kenyan envoy Mr Kathurima confirmed he had held talks with the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh who had assured him of his total support for such a proposal.
Talking to the Nation on the telephone, Mr Kathurima said: "The proposal is for the investors to lease and develop large tracts of land, and not to export expatriates to Kenya to do the day-to-day work, as claimed by the Indian press."
The High Commissioner stressed the proposal was still in its initial stages and that a final decision had yet to be made.
The Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture has not yet been involved.
|
Author
Post
