Third Text
Land Rush: Ethiopia
Uwe H Martin and Frauke Huber
Land Rush is a visual investigation into the changing landscapes of Gambella in Western Ethiopia. Huge areas of virgin land, formerly allocated to the Gambella National Park, have been transformed into plantations for sugar cane and palm oil by foreign-owned agribusiness ventures. This online piece forms part of the collaborative contribution ‘From Supply Lines to Resource Ecologies’ to the print edition of this special issue of Third Text, ‘Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology’.
Uwe H Martin and Frauke Huber
Land Rush is a visual investigation into the changing landscapes of Gambella in Western Ethiopia. Huge areas of virgin land, formerly allocated to the Gambella National Park, have been transformed into plantations for sugar cane and palm oil by foreign-owned agribusiness ventures. This online piece forms part of the collaborative contribution ‘From Supply Lines to Resource Ecologies’ to the print edition of this special issue of Third Text, ‘Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology’.
LAND USE, CLIMATE CHANGE, INVESTORS, PASTORALISTS
Stretched on the ground, smoking water-pipes, old men under a tree in the centre of the Ethiopian village Iliya agree that the climate has changed since the Indians came to cut their forest: ‘There is no shade any more. No trees, no grass – how will we build our houses?’ The local Anuaks used to live with the seasons: planting maize, sorghum and pumpkins when it rained; roaming the forest for meat and roots; pulling fish from rivers and lakes; and going hungry in periods when nature was less generous.
INVESTORS, LAND RECLAMATION, CLIMATE CHANGE, MONOCULTURE Bulldozers clear the land of Karuturi’s 100,000-hectare farm in Gambella. The destruction of the forest changes the local climate and spurs strong resistance by local communities.
DISPLACEMENT, PASTORALISTS, FLOODING, GOVERNMENT
Ibago exists in two locations. Most people live on the Baro River, under mango trees hanging with ripe, yellow fruit. Men fish, women wash, children play in the shallow, brown water flowing slowly toward South Sudan. When the rains come in July, the river swells and quickens, often flooding nearby fields and the village itself. The Ethiopian government is currently urging these river dwellers to relocate to a newly constructed part of the village closer to the road, where food-aid and healthcare are available. ‘On that side of the village there is no space for us and the little land they give us is not suitable for farming,’ laments a young man. ‘But if the village rejects to be moved, they say it is a rebellion and the leaders are labelled terrorists. Our fertile land will be sold to the investors.’
WATER, CHEMICAL APPLICATION, BIODIVERSITY, MONOCULTURE Workers spray pesticides and herbicides such as Paraquat and RoundUp on a monocultural sugarcane plantation in Gambella in Western Ethiopia. The farm was established by the Indian company Karuturi on 100,000 hectares of virgin land formerly allocated to the Gambella National park
FARMERS, INVESTORS, RICE, INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES
Hip deep in the mud of a new rice farm an old Indian farmer spreads his arms wide open: 'Look at all this land. It is like paradise. I have never farmed such a good land. In India I have 10 hectares. All my life I have been working from dawn till dusk. I am a poor man, but I have one wife, two children, a motorbike and I build two houses. Here the men have four wives and twenty children. I never see them working, just complaining. All day long they are sitting under the tree, smocking pipes, drinking wine.'
LAND USE, INVESTORS, INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES, LAND RIGHTS Two local Anuak men guard the sugar cane nursery of Karuturi in the Gambella region in Western Ethiopia. Karuturi secured 100,000 hectares of virgin land from the federal government to plant sugar cane, rice, oil palms and cotton. The large-scale agricultural investments in the region have prompted an outcry from the local population, who accuse the investors of grabbing land.
INVESTORS, FOOD, TRADING NETWORK, MIGRANT NETWORK
It is said Ram Krishna Karuturi made his first million selling roses on Valentine’s Day in 1993. Of Ethiopia, where he now owns and runs the Karaturi farm, a multi-million dollar venture, he says:
The poorest people in the world end up paying the most amount of money for food. It is the travesty of modern day economic society. When food comes into Djibouti, it’s priced at international market prices, but by the time it reaches 1700 kilometers to Gambella, you add a further 200 dollars because of transportation. We believe that once we finish this 100,000 hectares of land, it would be possible for us to produce close to a million tons of food. This would lead to a lot of economic activity, lead to a lot of employment generation. It leads to a significant food security situation for the people of the region and the government as a whole. The problem of Gambella that we face is the lack of people, not the presence of people. We are building additional housing to get more people to come from the highlands, because we need 15,000 people by next year to be working on our land. And there are less then 2,000 people living on our land.
FARMING, BIODIVERSITY, HABITAT LOSS, ECOSYSTEM More than a million white-eared kob migrate from Southern Sudan to the Gambella National Park every February, making this Africa’s largest mammal migration outside the Serengeti.
© Text and images Uwe H Martin and Frauke Huber
Uwe H Martin and Frauke Huber are visual storytellers working on a set of multimedia documentaries about the global commons, water, seed and land. Land Rush analyses the reasons for and impact of large-scale agro-investments on rural economies, land-rights and development, from Ethanol and Biogas in Iowa and Germany to the outsourcing of food production to places such as Ethiopia.